What if it wasn't about getting married?
What if it wasn't about waiting?
What if it wasn't about Till Then or Someday?
What if it was simply about embracing life in a bear-hug, hanging on with all you've got, and loving where you'd been placed?
These are questions that have surfaced and resurfaced in my mind and heart this past year as I've watched so many of my friends grow up, marry, pair off, and change. Those of us who aren't paired up with someone tend to think of ourselves as shelf-stock. When asked if we've got a guy we shake our heads, laugh patiently, and say: "Well, not yet."
But I'm sick of living in "yet."
We're all sick of living in "yet." It's as if we feel that our lives and our futures and everything we are is on hold till...then. If I am certain of one thing, it is that God does not mean for singleness to be a purgatory. I've said before that this isn't an endurance test. It's not a desert to go through till we reach the oasis of marriage on the other side. What if singleness is the oasis? What if we laid aside all our expectations of how our grown-up years ought to look and instead dwelt in the moment? In this moment.
Too often we Christian "singles" are in either of two camps:
Pining or Pinging
Pinging. Pinging off the walls with feministic (or arrogant) energy and self-reliance. With our own plans for our own future because obviously God doesn't have marriage in His plan for us--MOVING ON!
It's my firm belief that there is a joyful, vibrant middle-ground that Jesus has prepared for us and is waiting for us to find. After all, Paul of the Bible is full of praise for the single life. He even goes so far as to say that he wishes more people remained unmarried because--in his personal opinion--it was the better thing. Obviously he was not sitting there wailing for a wife.
So what is this middle ground? I'm not certain of all the details, but I am certain that it is there. It's a radical, daring idea....living your single years without looking for the "light at the end of the tunnel." I don't know how to do it yet. But I feel God moving in my heart in this way and it's terribly exciting. Daring. Adventurous. If I ever am to marry, I want to look back on this season of unmarried-ness without a single regret. I want to remember it as one of the finest parts of my life. I want to look back on it with fondness when I'm eighty-four and a widow.
After talking to many friends who are in this same season of life and waking up to the reality of this paradox of Pining or Pinging, I am curious and expectant. There's obviously something here. Something God is wanting to teach me, perhaps you, perhaps many unmarried young people around the world. So since I've sat up and taken notice, I've decided to keep track of the things the Lord shows me in this season. I'm writing them down in a rather schnazzy, bling-spangled journal to keep forever and always.
I'm writing these lessons down as they come with the intention of sharing them with you. That is, if you'd like to hear them. Anyway, hold fast, dear people! This is a joyous, beautiful time of our lives! Don't fret it away. :) Enjoy this daring life while it has been given to you.
