Law School, Making Others Happy...

Do you ever have those moments when someone says something and time stands still - kind of freezes? Add onto that the frozen moment seems familiar? That happened to me the other night when a friend said "I just want my [husband] to be happy." I sat there and had to think for a minute. "Why does this sound so familiar?" And then it hit me...I used to say that, all of the time. In a moment all of those emotions rushed back into my heart and my eyes stung as I watched tears stream down her face. "I just want Chris to be happy." I'd say and no one would think anything, but maybe "She's a good wife. She's laying down her life for him." It took me about 10 years to learn something - a very important truth - you cannot be responsible for someone else's happiness. Maybe a better way to say it is this - a recipe for two people to remain unhappy is for them to try and make the other one happy.

I remember our first year of marriage being difficult, but I really didn't mind. We married at 19 and 20 years of age, got pregnant three months later and because I have my GED, I worked full time at a day care. My 19yo husband roofed and took a full load of classes at an area college. The goal was for him to get a degree and take care of us and one day my dream of a traditional education would come around, but a mommy is the one who carries and cares for the baby. College might be a while. ;)

Did you know that if Jesus isn't your treasure - your absolute Everything - you will live in a suspended season of unfulfillment. Not just the normal getting ready for a new season kind of angst, but the "I will not be happy until..." kind of existing. You will go from thing to thing trying to find an extended time of happiness. You won't find it. I promise.

My husband and I are a lot alike. We are both overachievers, both determined, both broken. We laugh about how he can beat a dead horse back to life. That's what he did with going to law school. He had always wanted to be an attorney - he says now his heart was to please his dad who had always wanted to be an attorney - Chris really, really loves his dad. Their relationship is something from a novel, but know that Jack Burr is a man who lives John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans...". So Chris' INCESSANT talking about going to law school was normal in our house. He'd always talked about it. But about the second year into living in our first home, 6 years of marriage with three children was what it took for me to say okay. Actually, what happened was I heard Jesus one day while doing laundry, "I want Chris to be an attorney." So...

I wish I could say that the reason I agreed to going to law school was because of my great desire to obey Jesus, but really I love this man I married and I wanted him to be happy. At that time in my life, my husband was my savior and I really would do anything to make him happy. So me hearing Jesus was just kind of the straw that broke the camels back. We sold our home, our cars and packed up three children and Great Dane and moved to West Texas. Jesus help us.

Today I live in a large home in a beautiful, historical neighborhood in a part of our city that's being revitalized. Three blocks east of my house are homeless and a very poor section of our city. I don't ever say I live in the "ghetto" because that's ridiculous, but when we moved to the little house on 15th Street in Lubbock, TX...y'all. Tech Ghetto - did NOT know that's what it was called when we bought that little green house - was something that would bring me to tears more than once. But we had come to law school knowing we'd be sacrificing - so sacrifice we did.

Because when you're certain you're a part of making someone happy you do things like that - you move your three babies into a neighborhood where you will hide them under the beds in the middle of the day because of gang wars on your street. You watch a break-in on the house directly across the street from yours on Christmas Eve and wait for over an hour for the police to arrive because your neighborhood is on the bottom of the list. The crack house two doors down keeps you from letting your kids ride their bikes on the sidewalk. And to add to the insanity of it all...as you lay in your bed and literally five feet away you watch people getting drunk and yelling into your window you will think to yourself "It's all going to be worth it...he'll finally be happy."

There's really no a way to explain what going through a season like law school can do to a marriage, family, etc. I was blessed with a group of friends who were in the same "boat" and cut from the same crazy, risk taking cloth for those three years. We weathered many storms together - we were family to each other as our husband's were married to the polygamous woman named LAW. Our family exited that season in need of Jesus.

I remember Chris coming home from his first job as an attorney to our tiny home in Fort Worth. He was so sad and said "I hate being an attorney." This was not the general dislike of work known to man, this was filled with darkness and tears. Y'all. If I could have captured my emotions in that moment I could sell it to our defense dept. as the latest tactic to use on our enemies. That and I remember feeling so helpless and so used. It seemed like my whole life had been about making others happy and they just never could sustain their happiness. God began to slowly lead me into a truth that would set me free to love others in a way I never had loved them before. I would learn that my desire for their happiness was really my desire to find happiness in others. Kind of like a mother who feeds the whole family first, gets them content and THEN she'll eat. She'll be happy. Because she cannot find happiness if everyone else is not.

I'm not sure what day it was, but about three years out of law school I remember the Lawman mentioning the school of divinity at a local university. You have to know that I'm not a push over and I'm not a door mat, but me saying "No. I'm not doing it." was harder than anything I'd ever said before in my life. There was a long silence and I could see him measuring my resolve. To make certain I hadn't miscommunicated I said "You wanted to be an attorney, we're going to do that for a long time. We'll talk again when we pay off alllll of those law school loans." In the past I had believed that any pushback I had to someone's dreams was selfish, but I was learning that the pushback might be Jesus.

I had begun to see that people cannot find their happiness in what they're doing outside of what JESUS IS DOING. It would take me about ten more years to get to that truth into the deeper parts of my heart, but I did have the embryonic knowing that the "next adventure" wouldn't make us happy. I would learn that people don't know what makes them happy. But Jesus knows...and we could BOTH hear Jesus...and Jesus would be the only Source of our happiness.

There's a term counselors use for what Chris and I experienced, when I began to believe Jesus would make me happy no matter my circumstances. It's called "differentiation" and while the events that happened ten years ago were the first big transition in our relationship - me hearing Jesus, obeying him and finding joy in my obedience (i.e. saying "No.") - there were and still are times of us believing that He is our Joy. The aftershocks of the first big "quake" have been beautiful. I'm able to love Chris because of the Image he bears and not for what he can do for me. And Chris honors that I bear the Image of God too. I hear Jesus and Chris hears Jesus and we mutually submit. I'm okay with him being sad if I can't carry his brokenness - not in a *stick it to you* kind of way; but in a place of honoring that I'm too weak to make others truly happy. I think that's one of the things Jesus meant when he said to lay your life down for your brother, humble yourself and know that you cannot be anyone's savior - you can only hear and obey Me. That's what He did...that's why he slept when his Father told him to instead of staying awake to heal the sick. He heard God and obeyed.

So if you find that you're living life to make others happy, stop. You won't make them happy for long. If anything you'll just make the price tag on their happiness go up to a price that...only Jesus can pay. He died that we might Live. He's the only place we can find true Joy. You're off the hook! You can say "No." and you can mean it and watch the inevitable sadness fall over someone's face because of your "No." and you'll know that Jesus will provide a way where there seems to be no way. Because the Joy that He will provide for that person that you love...it's nothing like what you could have given them. Nothing at all.