Cutting the Cake of Life

I'm not quite sure where this story starts. Maybe it starts on June 30th, 2001, at our wedding. Maybe it starts in January on Great Barrier Island, when Paddy and I found ourselves waist-deep in the cool clear water of Karaka Bay, fully-clothed, and the words "will you marry me?" came out of my mouth. Or maybe it starts on a grey, tumultuous day some time last year,  one of many when we faced each other with angry words, full of misunderstandings.  Or maybe it starts even earlier than all of that.  In the moments when our younger selves began to imagine what our older selves would look like.  When we started forming our expectations, our hopes, and our dreams.

But beginnings are never quite as important as endings, and never as long and as challenging as middles.  Paddy and I started our lives together with all the best intentions, and with all the hopeful dreamy longings of two young people in love.  But we were two very opposite people and as time went on we became very good at being average.  It was unnoticeable to many, but it gradually became blindingly obvious to us.  There was an increasing sense of disatisfaction felt by us both, and an unanswered question hung around us in the air; "Was this how it was supposed to be?"

When you are faced with a situation that you are unhappy with, you really only have two options.  One is to change the situation and the other is to get out of the situation.  To sit with the status quo is not a real option, it's stagnation.   It becomes a gradual rotting away of all that was good, of what life there was.  We didn't like the second option, and I was rejecting stagnation, kicking and screaming all the way. So we had no choice but to change. And so, by God's grace, we did.   Are we still changing?  Of course.   Will there still be grey days and angry words?  Of course.  But we have reached a place of understanding and mutual good-will, and you can go along way on that. 

On Saturday we had a Naming Ceremony and Dedication for Abigail.  Our sweet, sweet girl.  We invited our immediate family and a couple of friends.  And we decided, the Monday beforehand, to surprise everyone by renewing our vows.  We had talked about it on and off since that unexpected moment on the Barrier in January.   And so we did it.   We ordered a cake, I went clothes shopping and got my hair cut, we bought flowers and prepared the house.  Nobody knew what we were going to do until the moment when our friend officiating said "and now Pat and doya are going to renew their vows."   Wow.   It was a dream come true, the fulfillment of Hope.

The cake was for all of us.   We put Abigail's name at the top to make up for the fact that we had stolen her thunder a little.  We cut together, one of us holding the baby, the girls holding onto our hands.  It was one of the best moments of my life.   And the cake was chocolate, rich, and very good.  It got eaten quickly!

But we might never have tasted it.  If we'd chosen to remove ourselves from the situation our marriage had become that cake would never have been bought, never eaten.  If we had given up and let status quo reign, there never would have been any change to celebrate, and no cake to celebrate with.  It's also possible that we could have planned the change and the celebration, but never followed through, and that cake could have sat there, metaphorically speaking, untasted, uneaten.

What cake is sitting in front of you in this season of your life?  Have you noticed how it's decorated, or appreciated its flavour?  Have you actually got out a knife and cut into it, taken a huge, greedy bite?  Or is it behind you on the table, ignored.  Maybe it's not the flavour you were expecting.  

But it's cake.  Come on.  It's got to be good.   Turn around and eye-ball it.  Take the knife and cut into it.   It won't be the only cake you eat in your life time.  There will be others, don't lose hope of that.  But taste that one in front of you now.  Relish it.