Me and Mike at dinner before heading to the opera.

My husband loves the opera.

I’m more of a musical theater girl myself, but I can appreciate the skill it takes to compose and perform an opera well. Over the last several months, Mike has taken me to three separate operas. My appreciation has grown, even if I still prefer things like Wicked, Oklahoma!, and Sound of Music.

Anyway, last week Mike checked out from the library the score to Tristan and Isolde, a tragic opera by Wagner*. He told me how the entire opera — all four hours of it — is written in unresolved chord progressions. Yikes! Chord progressions almost always resolve, which gives that satisfying feeling at the end of a measure of music, or a song.

I told him I couldn’t imagine sitting through a four-hour opera that had me on the edge of my seat, feeling unsatisfied the entire time! That would be torture to have to wait for that long-awaited resolution.

I don’t even know if I could fully appreciate the beauty of the music since I’d be so focused on reaching the end and feeling that satisfaction I’d been waiting for.

But he said something to me that really stopped me in my tracks: “Wouldn’t that make the satisfaction at the end all the greater because you’d waited for it?”

Wow.

Because suddenly, we weren’t talking about Tristan and Isolde. Suddenly, we were talking about life.

How often do I want life to speed along so I can get exactly what I want, now, now, now?

How often in life do I want the reward without having to experience the trial, the hard work, sometimes the heartache it takes to get it?

And how often do I let life slip by without gratitude and appreciation for what I have — because I’m so dang focused on what’s at the end of the tunnel?

Too often.

I’m praying today that I can stop, be grateful, and remember — there’s beauty in the wait.

Your Turn: Do you like the opera or are you more of a musical theater person like me? And how do you find beauty in the wait?

*The love story may be a bit controversial, as is Wagner, but that’s not the point of this post! 🙂