During one of my “seasons of sorrow”, yearning for the circumstances I didn’t get to experience, I found myself reading Timothy Kellers book “The Meaning of Marriage”. I wanted to figure out what it that marriage-thing actually was and why I wanted it so badly. As I reached the end it dawned on me: As much as I did want that kind of marriage…
I just didn’t want that right now.
Suddenly, I found myself in a new situation. What do I do when that one thing I’ve been yearning for and in sorrow of not having for so long, is the one thing I want at some point in the future – I’m just not ready right now? In this season of life, everyone around me seems to settle down, can it be socially acceptable as a Christian to not want to get married and have a family life at this moment? Would that mean that my chances would pass and never come back?
And, so began my first season of acceptance. I remember it not being a walk in a park, but it set me free from a lot of expectations I had. It gave me space to actually feel and not try to feel what I thought everyone expected me to as a single believer at the end of my twenties.
Just because I accepted the state of things right at that moment, it didn’t mean I wanted it that way. It didn’t mean I was okay with being single. It just meant I found the ability to love life and accept it. I found the ability to accept the road I was on.
Loving single life doesn’t mean that it is set in stone that I will be single for the rest of my life… And thank God for that!
A year ago I found myself at my mom’s wedding. I chose to love the irony of attending my mother’s wedding and that she got to experience while I was still waiting for that first time around. Despite this, pretty much every member of our distant family gave me “much needed advice”. One told me not to grow too comfortable. Another, to get moving.
That did not make me go home feeling cared for and comfortable enough to jump at any chance of a date. It made me go home feeling uncomfortable, unloved and wrong.
The thing just is, that you can do everything right and still not hit jackpot. Finding someone is a miracle on it’s own. And yes, we do need to do what is natural in order for God to pull his overnatural, miracle way.
The thing just is, that I don’t want to settle for less. I want to be with that God-chosen one. And that takes time, work and a miracle.
At the end of the day, I’m the one who has to pull myself up every time yet another one has a band on that “leadership finger”. Yet another one turned out to have a girlfriend. Yet another one wasn’t interested in me like that. Yet another one found my boundaries too much. Not you.
And that is why I made a rule of acceptance in my single-chronicles:
Accepting life never makes any state of life permanent. It just makes it liveable. And a whole lot more fun to live!
