55. Happiness

“Sitting on the porch where it’s cold but sunny”—these words came to mind as I sat down with a snack today on the steps of the back deck. The temperature was hovering around zero, but the pale November sunlight was lovely and the air was still. The words that came to mind were from a short poem I wrote in November 50 years ago. I was 20 years old. This was almost four years before I met the Lord and a decade before I met my dear husband. I had dropped out of university after two years, confused and frightened by life, and had retreated alone to a cabin on a lake. I had decided to become a hermit.

The snack I was eating on the porch of my cabin so many years ago was toast and honey, made with my own whole-wheat bread, along with a steaming mug of tea. As I remembered that day, I thought of something: Over the years that followed, I gradually became unable to partake of anything in that snack. I became intolerant of caffeine, so black tea (not to mention coffee) was blacklisted. I had loved orange pekoe with honey and milk, but besides the caffeine, I began to have problems with dairy as well. I decided I must be lactose-intolerant.

Then anything made with flour began to bother me, so I surmised that I was gluten-intolerant. In fact, I was reacting to yeast also, so toast was “toast,” as was any kind of bread. Then I began to find that anything sweet was a problem: I could no longer eat or drink anything containing sugar. Honey was just as bad. Ten years ago today, I could not have eaten or drunk any part of that snack, and I had come to believe that this was the way it would be for the rest of my life. Realizing this as I sat there today in the chilly sunshine, I was suddenly washed in a wave of gratitude for what God has done: He gradually taught me what had gone wrong with my health and how to restore it. Everything in that snack is now “back on the table.”

Here is the little poem I wrote that day, enjoying my snack in the solitude and safety of my hermitage.

Happiness—so simple it’s almost funny

Frost-nipped toes and a nose slightly runny

Sitting on the porch where it’s cold but sunny

Drinking tea and eating whole-wheat toast with honey