Cherry on top.

I wanted to write a post two days ago but I was still trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to say, how I could identify what was going on in my head, and how I could share that here.

On Monday I had lunch with an old friend from high school (wow, I can't believe I'm old enough to actually say that I had an old friend). We get together occasionally when I'm on break and come home. He's one of those people from high school I have found that makes the occasional effort to reach out to me to meet up and actually follow through with it, even if I didn't first reach out to him. It's something I've appreciated about him. This time, though, I had the chance to initiate with him.

Usually I'm wary about meeting up with high school friends because I feel like I sometimes let myself get poured back into the mold and placed on a pedestal of perfection that people in high school so often put me in. I'd soak up the glory without pointing back to God, who is the source of why I was the way I was in high school and why I am the way I am today.

But this time it felt slightly different. Maybe it was because I prayed differently than I normally would before meeting up with old high school friends. Maybe it was because of how God has working in my heart at this point in my life. Maybe it was because of just where my friend was in his life. Who knows?

It seemed like my friend was still his same old self, or trying to be, but at the same time he seemed more defeated. I could tell he's getting weary of fighting the world and fighting himself. I could see it even though he was trying to cover it. My heart was breaking deeper than the other times we've met up and deeper than our friendship during high school.

He wanted to fill a deep void and was looking in all the wrong places. Names and faces of so many others who were doing the same on college campuses flashed through my mind.

I don't even remember half of what I asked him or said in my response to his questions. All I know is that the least I could do was to be completely honest - no God-censored, self-centered answers - and pray.

"Are you happy? You seem happy," he said to me at some point while we were walking to a bakery for dessert.

His question and observation struck me. I had not used the word "happy" to describe myself for a really, really long time (until one time recently), I think because I found when I was younger that I didn't want to pursue something like happiness that was so fickle and only came around like a fair-weather friend. I wanted to pursue something deeper and richer and deeply satisfying that would sustain me no matter what the weather of my life was like. I've been spending a lifetime pursuing the pure joy, peace, hope and love that only Christ can give. Happiness didn't even matter. It was just a bonus if it ever came around.

"I'm not happy all the time," I told him. "But I'm content whether or not I'm happy."