Happiness Doesn't Wait

Blake

I look down at my phone as I nervously wait for Abi's response to my text. She didn't answer my phone and it's been hours since I've heard from her. At last, my sensitive heart is at rest when she texts back: I'm alive, my chef. Don't worry. Hug your mother real tight for me. I'll pass by her room tomorrow after work.

I send her an I love you, and put my phone back on the counter of the sink.

I then look back at my mother. She quietly and peacefully sleeps. She doesn't have furrowed eyebrows like she used to from her bone pain. Now she really does look peaceful.

She is healed.

We didn't talk much after Abi left. I didn't know what to say and she understood that I was in shock. She knew that the process was only between me and....God.

So my silent mind finally tells me to get up. I obey, and find myself walking out of the hospital and into my car. It's already early in the evening of the next day from my mother's surgery. I went to get something to eat when Abi came to visit her. She told her about the conversation she had with her mother, and I couldn't believe that she finally forgave her.

I realized that God not only seemed to have reached me, but He reached for Abi, too. Abi understood that my mind was going through some things, so she just gave me a sweet kiss and went back to have lunch with her mother. I can only imagine all of the things they had to catch up with.

So I quietly park my car in front of a church. The church my mother and I used to attend to years ago. It's still open, but no one seems to be inside. So I take the advantage to slip in and admire the familiar cushioned benches. They are still comfortable and the place is still so welcoming just by the second you enter.

I sit by the front. I had the Bible my mother had given me for my challenge in hand, and I let out a sigh that seemed to have been inside of me for hours. My breathing slowly goes back to normal as I look up at the large wooden cross up front. It stands gloriously behind the alter and a bright light shines on it's wood.

I clench my jaw up at the cross and do a small scoff. Here it goes. Talking to the abyss. To a deafening silence unlike other. My heart yearns for that silence now as I softly say, "You work in the oddest ways. I have to say, that was one....miracle you did back there with my mother."

The cross silently shines on the stage as I stop and wait. I wait for my heart to be ready as I say, "You made her go through all that suffering to just....heal her in the end? What were you trying to do? Was this my fault?"

Tears threaten to spill as my heart starts to feel this warmth. His warmth as I say, "All you ever wanted was me? So you made me go through all that time of heartbreak just to what? Just to come back here? Or was it just to show me something?"

Then the story of Joseph appears in my mind and my tears slowly fall out. "Why have you left me in prison for so long with my mother's sickness and now?" My heart falls in realization at the memory of Joseph's story. I wipe my tears and whisper, "All you ever wanted was my heart so you could give me back my place in the palace....And I'm giving it to you....."

I sniffle and wipe my tears. A smile starts at my lips at the many memories of all the moments of happiness my heart has gone through.

"Because you saved my mother. You healed her just to find me. You're giving me a baby boy, too." I do a small chuckle at the memory of Abi. "You gave an amazing woman that has been touched by you. And you show me the miracle of life whenever I feel my son move inside of her. You show me love and forgiveness through them and....that is enough for me to take back my place. The place you want me to be in."

I smile at the cross as my heart finally fills with warmth. "You've shown me happiness and that's all I ever needed. Thank you because even though my father may have not ended his life on the right note, you reached out to me before I fell deeper in that prison with my father. Thank you for Abi. For my son. For my mother...."

I look down at my Bible and raise it up a little to the cross. I give it a smile and say, "I promise to use this as a manual to teach my son about you. I promise to come back. I promise to see you as my true happiness instead of business or money. I promise...to be better."

I smile down at the Bible in my hands and remember the conversation I had with God just before I found out my mother was healed. I remember feeling that silence. That silence was only because He was working. Now I understand. I've been waiting for so long when He did not and did it all in only a few hours. Now I am at His feet....

The memory of my father's smile comes back. I forget all those fights. I forget all those tears and angry looks. I only remember his brown eyes and that warm smile. All those times I used to laugh along with him or return his proud smiles whenever I'd help him at the restaurant. I use those moments to prepare myself for my son. I want those memories transferred to my son this time...

Despite of it all, my father was right about one thing.

Happiness doesn't wait.