married was like a mighty oak tree, then I am a waffle. There is that much space between the two. However, I spend a lot of time talking to (sometimes AT, sorry friends) people and have noticed some really consistent patterns in our experiences within the church and within our varying churches and denominations. Sometimes knowledge or insight can be a burden, and I have been pretending like I do not need to write this for a few weeks. I figure I should stop hoping the weight of it will go away soon. So here we go. Things I wish the church knew (or actively knew, you know?) about single ladies.
#1. We are not always okay.
for you, Jesus!
In the beginning… God created Adam. He walked with him and talked with him and told him that he was His own. Adam had what we all wish we had: the ability to be physically with God. As I sit here at Starbucks with an empty chair across from me, I think “It would be great if Jesus walked in and got a chai tea latte and sat down and we talked about everything in life.” I tend to think that so many of my fears and doubts would be diminished if I could just see my Lord, if I could sense his presence in a tangible way.
In Genesis, we get this account of God creating Adam and putting him in the fabulous garden (he was not made in the garden, weird huh?) and he gave him a purpose, to take care of Eden. He says “it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” After that is when God gives him the job of naming the animals. I love how the Bible says it. “He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.” How much laughter was involved? The first time Adam saw an elephant, did God delight in how amazed he was by its long trunk and big ears? I can almost picture the first encounter with a turtle, with Adam leaning in closer and the turtle quickly pulling inside of its shell, causing the man to jump back in surprise at how well it fit inside itself.
But even after this, the Bible says no suitable helper was found for Adam.
Did the laughter die down, and God had to see Adam staring lovingly at the herd of wildlife, none of them able to verbalize smells and opinions and even adoration of God? I imagine that God noticed it, could sense it in the depths of Adam’s spirit. Adam probably didn’t play games with God, smiling and saying, “oh no.. I’m fine.” Maybe Adam said “they are not like me, I can tell.”
Because we are made in the image of God, there is a desire to know and be known. Intimately.
This desire is not limited to a divine relationship. We are created to desire intimacy with other human beings, even before we knew about falling in love or being married or creating families. It was just there, like a dull ache in the spirit.
You know what this means to me? What it really tells me about myself?
Pastor Bill Heck once said it. He said that we were created with a God shaped vacuum in our hearts, something that will never be filled or satisfied. But we were also created with a man shaped hole that nothing else – not even God himself – can fill.
Yeah yeah, can God create a rock so heavy he cannot even lift it? I don’t know and I really don’t care. I just know it is true. Truth and fact are not the same thing, and saying “God is enough” to every situation is more of a fact than truth. Tell that to someone grieving the loss of a loved one, or someone who can’t seem to keep their heads above water. I’m just saying what I see in the Bible. A perfect, SINLESS relationship with God is not good enough for a human being, and it was God himself that said it.
God’s response wasn’t to create a small group or a “body of believers” or the makings for an epic bromance. God’s response to the ungoodness of man being alone was to create the core of a family nucleus. That is the answer he gave to the impending emptiness of mankind.
It is in our DNA to acknowledge that even in the strongest, most faithful of walks with the Lord, we have a burning desire to share the journey with another person. For some reason, a lot of us are ashamed to admit that desire, trying instead to constantly be the strong independent women people would like to believe we are.
So I’m saying it. Sometimes it sucks and upsets me and all I want to do is lay on the floor in my pajamas, listen to Coldplay, stare at pictures of Darren Criss, and cry. Sometimes I’m not okay with the fact that I am a waffle and marriage is a tree and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. And often, I am not okay because I always want to understand things. If Jesus came and sat across from me with his chai latte (I’m guessing iced), I’d just want to know WHY. Give me some insight or something. But that’s not how he works. He answers questions with questions and gives instructions in stories. Understanding and trusting the Lord is more about discovery than disclosure.
For the most part, I breathe deeply in the peace of God and feel rested and secure in the place I’m at in life. But every so often, the breathing is shallow and frantic and I am just not okay with it because it is not good for the man to be alone. There’s nothing wrong with me, I just get not okay. I wish the church knew or at least remembered that.
The truth: I’m not always okay.
The appropriate response: Just let me be not okay once in awhile.
You did it, you started the subject that you said you would–good for you! 🙂 I like how you said that it was first time with God and they were ok with that and then God gave him animals to name and they had fun for awhile, but God still called that “alone” and THEN created woman. Thanks for sharing your heart, dear Stephanie. Love, Heather
Oh wow.. Great post. I, too, am occasionally not okay.
Amen! Well said. This post sort of struck a nerve in me. It’s not just single women — you voiced what we single men oftentimes feel as well. You voiced what I myself feel. I always get a sour taste in my mouth when people proclaim that we single folk should just suck it up and be content in our singleness. They say we should use our time being single to build our relationship with God and be content with it. Well, I’m 36 and have spent the past fourteen years doing just that.
My relationship with God is beyond amazing. It is beyond anything I could possibly experience with a human being. Unlike most people I do feel God’s presence, unendingly. Almost never do I not feel it. God’s presence is more real to me than someone standing in front of me that I can touch with my hands, see with my eyes, and hear with my ears. I hear God’s wordless voice just as strong and clear as someone beside me talking to me. For fourteen years I have had a deep intimate relationship with God. Just because that relationship has permeated and consumed my entire life, It doesn’t mean that it eliminated my ache to be married to a woman. In all this time, despite me sometimes pleading with God to take away my agonizing desire for a wife, the need within me to have a marital relationship with a woman hasn’t abated.
I oftentimes feel guilty that the magnificent relationship I have with God isn’t enough. I shouldn’t though. Because more than once, God has pointed out to me that he made me this way. God created my spirit so that I require a deep intimate relationship with Him. While doing so, He was also thinking about how much he loved and cherished my future wife and decided to share me –his treasured possession — with her. He lovingly gathered up and set aside choice portions of my heart and soul to one day give to her as a gift so that she might also have a substantially deep and intimate relationship with me. That way they might love, cherish, and enjoy me together. God loves and respects my future wife far too much to take the gift he intended for her and keep it for himself. So, until she and I are together, the portions of my heart, soul, and body that are reserved for her will be left untouched, un-possessed, and unfulfilled. God does maintain, improve, and build up those “reserved” portions of my being and He expects to have my help in doing so. I imagine when He gets the gift to the point that he thinks it’s ready to give to her, He will give it. Until then I don’t think my desire for a wife is going to go away. It hasn’t in fourteen years.
I am overjoyed by, grateful for, and am very fulfilled by my relationship with God. But the fact of the matter remains that there is a significant part of me, a substantial need for companionship and intimacy within me, that God refuses to satisfy himself. It would just be plain wrong if He took that away from the woman who will one day be my wife (whoever she may be).
Certainly, I have times when I’m okay with being single and sometimes am even glad that I am single at a particular moment but, much of the time — I daresay most of the time — I really am not completely okay with it. I’m sure that’s the way God intended it. If God allowed you, if He allowed me, if He allowed all of us who are single to be perpetually fine and “okay” with not being married then none of us would ever bother to get married. That really would be a problem for the human race because Jesus is likely the only person who will ever get a virgin birth.
P.S.
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of weeks now so I thought I would stop lurking and make my presence known. If you want you can check out my blog – bigmatsblog.wordpress.com. It’s new so I’ve only got a few posts up and some things that still need to be finished and fixed.
Amen, sister.