If you're happy and you know it

Have you ever stopped to think what really makes you happy?  And just what does "happy" mean?  The other day, as I was being scrutinized by a young woman trying to sell me 24k gold youth serum, I had cause to do just that.

She was a young, relatively attractive woman.  She was Egyptian with long, dark hair, brown eyes and youthful skin that looked moist and dew-y.  Though she was shorter than I, she tilted her head back and looked down her nose when she spoke to me, which accentuated her crooked teeth and drew attention to the strange piercing she had inside her top lip.

As she lunged, full-force, into her sales pitch she tried to make me believe that my happiness should be tied to my appearance.  While smearing $298 eye cream onto one side of my face, she told me I was "obviously a smart woman who knew the value of spending money to look good".   She made assumptions about what I spend on my hair and face while buttering me up with "you can't possibly be 45!"  (Does that really work on people?)

Then she moved in for the kill, er, sale.  "When you have wrinkles, and they WILL come, you will be so happy you bought this.  When you look good on the outside, you will be happy, inside and out".  Hmmm.  I looked her straight in the eye, sizing up if she actually believed what she was saying.  Sadly, she did.  I made a circle around my face with my hand, and I told her this (pointing to my face) does not determine my happiness.  It's true.  And it felt so freeing to say it out loud.  Her expression drooped as she realized she lost my sale, that I wasn't buying her script.  All she could do was concede defeat.

Since that encounter, I have been trying to put into words what happiness is to me.  Does it rely on some external factor that is unreliable and fleeting?  Is it merely an emotion, dependent on feelings that can be swayed with a word or glance?  Is it dependent on relationships with other people and their perceptions of me?  I think happiness contains a little bit of all of these but, ultimately, is found deep with in.  To me, it feels a lot like peace.

Rainbow sky

As I driving, I looked up at the sun.  There was a thin ring of clouds surrounding it.  They were just thin enough to allow sunlight to pass through, making it look like mother of pearl.  It was like rainbow light.  That's the second time this week I've seen something like that.  Immediately, I thought about the promise God gave Noah in the rainbow.  But I haven't been able to figure out what promise I'm being promted to remember.

Promises are strange things.  By definition, it portends something yet to come and should be something you can count on happening.  I've found that can change depending on the person, both the promiser and the promisee.  But the point is, I don't put much faith in human promises.  People "forget" or "weren't serious".  I find people use the word promise as a type of manipulation.  It gets the person to do what you want, and you don't really have to follow through.

But the promises I've had from God are true.  There is no need for me to question if he will forget or just change his mind.  He remembers long after I forget.  In the midst of turmoil, pain or selling a freaking house, he whispers "I promised".  That doesn't change the external things going on in my life, but it makes a huge internal shift.