When Happily Ever After Gets a New Address

I recently traveled to beautiful Bucks County, Pennsylvania for a much-needed respite. The houses there are deliberately spaced apart leaving room for large fields. Verdant in summer, they lay fallow during my November visit, inhabited only by large flocks of Canadian geese.

Bucks County is the setting to the 1940 play, “George Washington Slept Here,” by George Kaufman and Moss Hart.  The playwrights had both purchased fixer upper homes in Bucks County and created a main character to have similar struggles. Newton Fuller moves into a deteriorating Colonial home with good intentions, and he believes that his wife will be impressed by the home’s history. You guessed it; George Washington slept there!  City boy meets country troubles, comedy ensues. The worst part?  The local historian tells poor Newton Fuller that it was, in fact, Benedict Arnold, who slept in the house, not George Washington.

Bucks County is the real location where George Washington crossed the frozen Delaware River on Christmas Day in order to attack the Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton.  Aside from inspiring a hilarious yet patriotic meme – “Americans. Mess with us and we will kill you in your sleep on Christmas Day,” Washington’s victory helped turn the tides of both the Continental army’s morale and safety. The Continental army now had a warm winter garrison, food and weapons.  Washington succeeded in uniting untrained men into an army that would eventually win the Revolutionary War.

As a history lover, I think I might be a little tempted by a “Washington Slept Here” type of fixer upper. As a Christian, I was recently humbled by reading of a different piece of choice real estate outlined in the bible.

In Genesis 32:22-32, Jacob finds himself being wrestled with a ‘man’ but it is God in human flesh.

Jacob didn’t wrestle with God. God wrestled with Jacob. God could have easily overpowered Jacob if he used His supernatural form, but He, in essence, did what we parents do with our children – He let Jacob win. Jacob held on for dear life, because he wanted a blessing – a form of security.

“That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.So, Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”⁷ The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

David Guzak writes this – “And He blessed him there: Surely, this was the blessing of being defeated by God. It was the blessing of the passing of the old (Jacob) life, and the coming of a new (Israel) life. It may also have had to do with the great idea of the blessing of Abraham, and meeting Jacob’s immediate needs for security in the midst of fear. Whatever Jacob needed; God’s blessing provided at the moment.”

We note that He blessed him there – at that particular place.

· The place of special trial and testing.

· The place of intense pleading to God.

· The place of seeing the face of God.

· The place of conscious weakness.

I thought “Washington Slept Here” was impressive – but imagine “God showed me His face here!”

I realized that I have been struggling for years – ‘wrestling’ if you will with this narrow minded, short sighted idea of happily ever after. My yardstick was my daughter’s sobriety. When that happened, I would claim victory, God is good!  Well, for seventeen years, I have had

• The place of special trial and testing
• The place of intense pleading to God
• The place of conscious weakness…..

But I have been blind to the most important thing on Jacob’s checklist. Recognizing that I have seen the face of God. That is the blessing. Happily ever after is not a milestone down the road. It’s not a place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Or an achievement in my child’s life. Or my own. All those are fleeting.

Happily ever after is Today. Here. Now. The place where I can contentedly say, “God showed me His face here.”  In the seventeen years of special trial and testing, intense pleading and conscious weakness (who am I kidding, I couldn’t wrestle with God even in human form for more than two minutes) I have seen God’s face over and over.  People’s hearts have been miraculously moved to show me His mercy, His tenderness, His provision. He has whispered words of love and encouragement into my heart. He has changed me from the old to the new. He has made me realize that He is the blessing.  He has blessed me by showing me His face. God is good. No matter what.

My home will always be a fixer upper. But it’s prime real estate because it’s my personal Peniel, where I see God face to face every day.

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