not break just overflow

my heart will not break
just overflow
it won't shatter but it shakes beyond control
it rages and it cries
but it still keeps time
and it won't let go
my heart will not break
just overflow

i've been thinking a lot this morning about how the Lord has been showing me His perfect goodness through the adorably imperfect love of Yale. my brain and my heart can't take it all in sometimes, and it feels like my heart is just going to overflow in a flood of love, pain, sadness, hope, excitement, joy, and tears.

this weekend will be hard. i am not looking forward to anything save the blissful break from work for 5 whole days. my siblings and i and our respective spouses/boyfriend have committed the whole weekend to cleaning out mom's house and making some big decisions about the future of that building, our finances, and the other piles of paperwork and loose ends that we have all been largely avoiding. well, my sister has not been avoiding them. she has been swamped by them, and feels completely spent by all the work she has been doing at the house. she's the only one nearby, and has taken on a huge chunk of work. she's ready to be done with it, and i don't blame her. it is a lot. a lot to think about and a lot to worry about and a lot to figure out. so in the midst of all that thinking and worrying, it has been harder than i expected to feel THANKFUL. i have so incredibly much to be thankful for, and yet all i manage to scrape together most days is "one foot in front of the other".

but there is so much. so much to thank God for. amazing friends. loving and close siblings. a job and more than i could ever need. unbelievably generous gifts from the Lord.

like, for example, the most amazing boy i have ever met.

i had dinner with Yale and his parents last night at their house. i was feeling strung out from my conversation with my sister, the never-ending to-do list at work, and this big ACHE for rest and some quiet. so 'dinner with his parents' was actually pretty low on my list of things to worry about. but he had told me that he really wanted us to spend more time together with them before he asks me to marry him, so i gladly went and made conversation with them for a couple of hours over eggplant parmesean and fancy wine.

but the second he and i were alone, i basically just lost it. sobs and tears and snotty kleenexes strewn in every direction. thinking about the house that my parents designed and built together with their friends and family. about selling it, about it falling apart, about how much it is stressing my family. i cried about even thinking about celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom's family without my mom. i cried about how it has been so long that my dad died that i had almost forgotten to miss him. i cried and cried and cried against the soft wool of Yale's sweater and he didn't even say anything. he just wrapped me up and let me cry. and i felt actually the Lord's comfort in a different way than maybe i ever have. not that i think you need a person's actual arms around you to feel His love. but it can help sometimes.

and then, after a little while, Yale started talking. and crying a little with me. it hadn't occurred to me that he was feeling the pain of missing my parents too. people he had never met, and would never get to meet. that he is also losing those little fantasies of being someone's new son. of holidays at a loud and silly house where we actually celebrate and celebrate one another with gifts and love and games. (his family = not so much). he told me that he has thought about what he would get my parents for christmas, and about how much he wishes he could ask them their blessings on him asking me to marry him. and how he thinks about things that he would like to talk with my dad about, and ask him, and things he would cook for my mom. about how he wishes he could tell them how amazing i am, and how thankful he is for me, and how he is going to love me so well and they don't have to worry about me any more.

my heart will not break, just overflow.

we lay like that, crying and snotting all over the place with each other, for about an hour. and this boy who i already love so much became like this shiny light of Love to me. me, the blubbering mess. sometimes i just pray that the Lord will help me love Yale as well as he loves me.

just, overflow.