LETTERS FROM CHARITY

Part 2

Dear Ms. Wespero,

I was thrilled to see your email waiting for me when I got home from work today, and I would like to thank you, once again, for responding to me.  I am honestly kind of amazed at your graciousness.  You must receive hundreds if not thousands of emails and letters, and the fact that you would take the time to respond to me in such detail is quite humbling and astonishing.  I really cannot thank you enough.

Thank you, also, for your thoughts concerning stories and their benefit.  It was quite a new way of looking at stories for me, and it makes me think about what’s in the Bible a little differently, now.  I’m not sure I totally embrace the ideas you presented to me, but I am definitely still thinking it over.

Taking your advice, I read through Psalm 1 a few times and thought about what happiness is and how I personally find happiness.  I must admit that it was a little difficult for me to define happiness.  Mainly because I guess I’ve never really thought about how to define it, I’ve always just felt it (or, in too many cases, didn’t feel it).  But what is “it”?  Maybe that’s part of why I feel like I’ve missed out on being happy so much in my life.  I can’t actually define it.  As for the Bible making me feel happy, well, I know I’m supposed to say yes because I’m a Christian, but if I may be brutally honest with you, I’d have to say that most of the time, the Bible either confuses me or makes me a little angry.

I hope that doesn’t come across as badly as it sounds in my head.  I read through that last paragraph and considered deleting the last part.  I guess I’m kind of at a place in my life right now, though, where I feel tired of trying to pretend I’m enjoying the ball.  The glass slipper never did fit and all I can see around me are mice and pumpkins.

When was the last time I felt truly happy?  The fact that I even have to ask that question might be more telling than I intended.  It seems like every memory I try to conjure up is tinged with some other feeling that blurs the experience into something less than pleasant.  Pure, unadulterated happiness?  I almost feel like I have to go back to my childhood.  And even then, it’s not entirely free of other complicating feelings, but there’s one incident that stands out in my brain.

I must have been about nine or ten and I was on a trip with my mother and sister, visiting my grandma (my mother’s mother) in Washington state.  I can’t remember exactly why it was just the three of us without my father.  We had spent an entire week driving around parts of northwestern Washington state looking at the changing leaves and we stopped in this one little country store where I spotted the cutest stuffed deer fawn.  I begged my mother to buy it for me only to have her tell me I was too old to be interested in stuffed animals.  Having my mother say no to me was nothing new, but for some reason, I just wouldn’t let it go.  I kept asking until she finally threatened to whack me on the butt in front of God and everybody if I didn’t shut up.  Later that night at the hotel, I was sulking in the room while my mother and sister went to find food.  My grandma came in and handed me a paper bag.  I opened it and found the stuffed fawn.  She never said a word, just smiled at me conspiratorially and gave me a little pat on the knee.  I don’t know if I even have the words to describe how much love and affection I felt for my grandma.  And yes, I was deliriously happy in that moment.  My happiness was short-lived.  When my mother got back to the hotel and saw the stuffed animal, the fight it ignited between her and my grandma was legendary.  I was allowed to keep it, though.

Writing about that made me realize something.  What my grandma did for me made me happy and I also felt no small amount of pleasure at being given such an unexpected gift.  It was so different than when I would get gifts for, say, my birthday.  Not that I ever expected gifts — but in a way, I kind of did.  That’s what we do in our society on birthdays.  The fact that it wasn’t associated with anything other than my grandma being kind to me made it special and I am thinking that’s why it still stands out in my memory.  The happiness was very closely associated with the pleasure of the unexpected.  Does that even make sense?

So maybe happiness and pleasure are linked in a way that I’ve never really thought about before.  Can you truly experience one without the other?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’ve always been under the impression that I’m not supposed to think too much about happiness and definitely not at all about pleasure because I’m a Christian and Christians don’t dwell on those things.  That’s what I’ve always been taught, anyway.  I confess that your questions to me about happiness and the Bible caught me off guard.  I’ve never heard a Christian preacher or teacher talk about the Bible in that way, and now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve had too many fellow Christians talk that much about happiness, either, unless it’s to tell me not to focus on it because it’s too ephemeral and God wants us to think about only those things that will last.  You know, storing up our treasure in heaven because where our treasure is, that’s where our hearts will be.  All things on this earth are only temporary and they’re going to be destroyed when Jesus comes back.  I’m reminded of that old hymn — I think the first line says something like, “Tell me not of earthly pleasures...”  That’s always what my mind goes to when I think about things like happiness.

I sometimes think that maybe I’m supposed to stay single because I’m supposed to be concentrating on doing what I can for God instead of worrying about earthly pleasures like having a husband and children.  If that’s true, then I will be rewarded for it in heaven, so my sister tells me.  She’s pretty certain that singleness is my calling.  I wish that God would make that as clear to me as He seems to have to her.

You asked me to tell you a little more about my life in Jesus.  I’ve been attending church ever since I can remember.  I told you in my last email about how I became a Christian.  I was very involved in my youth group in high school, and I went on several missionary trips around the United States when I was in college.  I started teaching children’s Sunday School at my church shortly after I graduated from college, and I’ve kept pretty active in the children’s ministry in general.  Right now I’m attending a women’s Bible study that meets every Saturday and it’s a really great group of women.  Small, but that suits me just fine.  We’re tackling the book of Romans which is what inspired me to write you in the first place.  I was doing some research online (we have homework every week) and came across your blog, and well, you know the rest.

Oh, and before I forget, in answer to your question about my parents, they are both deceased.  My father died close to twenty years ago from a heart attack and my mother succumbed to stomach cancer two years ago.  My sister and I are not that close; in fact, I haven’t seen her since our mother’s funeral.  We’re better off not being in the same state.  She has a husband but no children and the best way I can describe it is that she took a page out of Susan’s book from the Chronicles of Narnia.  I would say that’s the main reason we tend to stay out of each other’s hair.  I actually hadn’t seen my mother much in the years before her death, either.  I think I went to see her about six months before she died.  Not a great daughter, am I?

I hope that I’m not overstepping my bounds here, but I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions as well.  What inspired you to start writing your blog?  Nowadays, I guess it’s not all that startling that someone would try to have a presence on the Internet, but everyone has their own reasons for doing so.  I’m just curious about yours.  Also, do you have any favorite authors whether Christian or not?  I was just wondering because you have such a unique writing style.  It’s bold and creative without being too referential to pop culture, which I find extremely refreshing.

Thank you, again, for your time.  I really do appreciate it more than I can express in words.

Blessings,

Charity