I'm a very happy man right now. Remarkably so, and at times, overwhelmingly so. I suppose it's a good place to be when you wish you could turn the "happy" down a bit. I'm walking around with a perpetual grin on my face, which is sort of uncontrollable. I think I'm wired to feel the highs and lows of life quite intensely and right now I sort of am overwhelmed by the mountain top, and for that, I'm grateful.

I have no idea where things with Sarah will lead. They hold much promise, but any future we may have together is completely in God's control, and in His hands. But whatever may come, I have been blessed by finally being able to believe that there is indeed the possibility of finding someone in the world who is a better match for me than Meg. I thought for the longest time that this was an impossibility. In one short month, however, with Sarah, I have discovered the truth that this isn't so. I don't believe that this is a sign of the flightiness of my thinking, but rather is more an indication of the quality of Sarah. I believe indeed that is a very difficult thing to find someone that I could love more than Meg, because my love for her was so profound.

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking quite a bit about what God said to me, when I cried out to Him one night, asking and wondering why after so many years God brought me Meg and not my wife. His answer to me was this: Meg came into your life to prepare you for your wife." On the one other occasion when I know that I heard God's voice, He said to me, "I can't wait to show you the ending--you're going to love it!"

I've clung to that promise for a long time, wondering when it might come to pass. I do not mean to suggest that I have "found the one." It's far too early for that, and indeed, that's up to God too. With Sarah, though, I have been given hope that there is "the one" out there. I've often thought that I will never marry a woman until I reach a point where I rejoice that I didn't get married to any other woman who came before. I've doubted, and wondered, whether I could ever reach that point, but now I have hope.

In the anthology, Echoing Silence, Thomas Merton writes, "when God promises to answer our prayers, He does not promise to give us exactly what we ask for. But we can always be certain that if He does not give us that, it is because He has something much better to give us instead. That is what is meant by Christ's promise that we will receive all that we ask in His name."

I prayed that I would marry Meg. That didn't happen. I have had to trust that this was so because God has something much better in store for me. I have had to cling to this with mere faith. Now it seems to me to actually be possible, and it is something that I can cling to with a belief bolstered by evidence, all because of the gift of Sarah.

I do not know if she is the woman God desires for me, and honestly don't even want to be concerned with that. It's far too early, as I said before, and right now, I want to enjoy getting to know her, without those concerns weighing over us. What I do know is this: I have finally seen past Meg, and that is a gift. Still a bittersweet one, but I know that the bitter in this realization will fade away, and I will rejoice that we went our separate ways. And for now, there is a new woman, Sarah, to delight in. For that, I am grateful.