pursuing joy in love

as i read the love chapter of desiring God with baby joseph bourne asleep on my chest, i found myself thinking about, of all things, my motor scooter boots.

jeremy and i were in chicago for a long weekend away, remaining true to our one week of vacation with family and one week of vacation by ourselves rule. we trudged through rain turning into snow and landed in the j.crew on michigan avenue.

i have many times eyed the wellies featured in each j.crew catalogue that arrives at/invades my home, and i have many times known with certainty that to spend $60 on a pair of rainboots is not something i will/am able to do.

it must have been one of their rare sale days. plaid wellies for $29.99. solid-colored wellies for $29.99.

blue with pink motor scooters all over them? $15.99.

i asked the sales attendant to help me check the size on the boots just out of reach on a high shelf. she frowned and went to get a ladder.

a nearby father with his daughter, who was also in the market for boots, reached up and handed them to me while frowns-a-lot fetched the ladder, noting that they were in fact the size 8 i was looking for. and, i discovered, with the additional discount taken at the register, $12.

beautiful.

i wore my motor scooter boots the rest of the time we were in chicago, noting with great satisfaction that i could walk through every puddle without fear as their waterproof motor scooter glory reached all the way up to my knees. my motor scooter boots quickly became one of my favorite possessions, if not my favorite, and appropriately, the story i told about our trip to chicago was of finding motor scooter boots at j.crew for $12.

i should note here that jeremy had a similar experience with a dunkin' donuts to-go mug that cost only $1.99, including the coffee that filled it, and looks so remarkably similar to a disposable paper to-go cup, that he has more than once had to rescue it from the karis trash bag as it was being taken out to the dumpster.

so we like these items. a lot.

my thoughts this morning stopped on the boots as i recalled this past Christmas and my family's gift exchange. a few years ago, my family began drawing names. last year, i drew my sister, rachel. as i pondered what to give my sweet, sixteen-year-old sister, i thought of my motor scooter boots. i wanted so badly to show rachel how much i love her in Christmas gift form, and as i gazed with loving eyes upon my motor scooter boots, i knew what to give her.

i didn't want to just give rachel something that i thought she would like. i wanted to give her the fullness of joy i found in my motor scooter boots - the joy of spotting them on the top shelf, the joy of having them be the perfect size, the joy of having them be $12 marked down from $15.99 marked down from $60, the joy of wearing them through the streets of chicago in vacation-mode happiness, the joy of the tiny pink motor scooters all over them - all of this i wanted to give to rachel. with a high school musical-inspired puppet show video to go along with it.

my exact reasoning was something to the extent of: "i want to give rachel the thing that makes me the happiest. i find so much joy in these boots that the best way for me to show her how much i love her is to give them to her and hope that she too will share in this joy and therefore know my love."

so i found some wellies for rachel. green boots with blue polka dots. not exactly motor scooters and not exactly $12, but still the idea was there, the joy was there, and i was giving them to her.

she loved them. i loved watching her open them. the video was kind of weird.

as i pondered pursuing joy in love, it led me to pursuing joy in giving boots, and how really, these two concepts (with the exception of boots not exactly being the same thing as love) are quite similar. at the risk of coming to a rushed conclusion as to how similar they actually are, i will leave my thoughts at this for today.

more to come.

love.