You Are Delightful

A couple of weeks ago, my fiancé, Joel, and I were attending a friend's wedding in Bangalore. We were staying at a hotel with the family and family friends of the groom. I didn't know any of them, and they only knew me as the fiancée of the groom's best friend. But one evening after we returned hand-in-hand from a pre-wedding party, an elderly friend of the family came up to Joel and said, "You are a very lucky man - I see the way she looks at you!"

Ugh, I didn't know whether to be totally embarrassed that apparently my face was an open book to the world at large, or to be pleased that the love I felt for him was not so deeply buried that no one could tell it existed (possible side-effects of the non-demonstrative British and Indian culture I grew up in).

Sunday's first reading at Mass was from Proverbs 8 and refers to the relationship between Jesus and His Father.: 'I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.'

It's so much easier to think of God as a teacher, a coach, a formator, a guide; someone who is trying to make us better, working on us, challenging us, calling us on. And really, He is all of those things and does all of those things. He loves me enough to want what is best for me and to help me be all I can be.

But more foundational to the relationship He wants to have with me is mutual delight. He looks at me and takes pleasure in me being me, and in me being His. And that's how I feel around Joel. When I look at him, I smile because of who he is with all his quirks and personality traits and desires and hopes and interests and even imperfections, because this human being is an unrepeatable, interesting, multifaceted creation, and because this human being is MINE (or will be soon), entrusted to me by God.

I know it's easy enough to slip into a different way of viewing even the ones we love, to focus on their flaws, to see all the ways they need to improve, all the rough edges that need smoothing, and the dull edges that need sharpening, and suddenly they are a project instead of a person. We see that with parents and kids all the time. For some reason, when they are babies and toddlers, it's easier to just unashamedly delight in them, in their tiny little fingers and toes, in their gurgles and mispronounced words, in their cheeky grins and displays of affection. But pretty soon the easiest way to relate to them is by correcting them, teaching them, directing them, and improving them.

Even worse is when we start to see the people in our lives as a means to an end, as only interesting to us in as much as they are useful to us. When we overvalue the achievements of our children because they make us look good, when the good looks or success of our spouses or children or family members are more of a status symbol or a reason to boast, when their gifts can be used to further our goals, or when we only look at the other with approval and love when they are behaving in exactly the way we want, then we are guilty of using people instead of loving them.

How do we delight in the people in our lives? First, by remembering and experiencing the delight that God takes in YOU. You are delightful! Yes, you with the crooked teeth, and the tendency to argue and over-analyze, and break into song, and laugh at inappropriate moments. You with the social awkwardness, and the extra belly fat, and the big hugs, and the habit of tearing up every time you get excited abut something. You with the agonizing self-doubt, and the frizzy hair, and the snarky comebacks, and the terrible puns. You with the stick legs, and the love of baking and cats and code and cheesy TV shows. You with the little secret acts of kindness, and the tendency to overshare and over-schedule and be late to everything. You with the love of excel sheets, and over-planning, and micro-managing, and cleaning. YOU ARE DELIGHTFUL, just as you are with all the weird and wonderful and wise and whimsical traits and habits.

No, you are not perfect, far from it. No, God does not love your sins. But your sins are not YOU. Sometimes our sins can obscure our delightfulness, but it's still there. And when God looks at you, He sees the REAL you, not just your sins and failings. And He loves you, and delights in you.

Love should be expressed in delight. Simcha Fisher in an article about choosing the right spouse wrote, 'But, women: when you think of marrying the man you’re planning to marry, you should be delighted. Delighted! Are you delighted?'

When we learn to stop and bask in God's delight, we are far more able to delight in the people around us. I once asked a couple of friends three things they liked about themselves. It was surprising how good but how hard that exercise was. It's almost as if we think it's wrong to be delighted in. No wonder it's hard to delight in others.

So take some time to delight in the people around you. Hold back the words of correction and criticism or suggestions for improvement the next time they come to your lips. Just stop and look at them. Look at them and smile. Listen to them when they tell you what they're excited about. Tell them the things about them that give you pleasure. Remove the critical or corrective lenses through which you survey the world, and instead see people the way they are, as delightful children of God. Let's rediscover delight.

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