This morning as I was thinking about Christmas presents to make and groceries to buy, I heard yet another Christian Mingle commercial. There's a Christian radio station I listen to, and Christian Mingle is one of their sponsors. So their ads are broadcast about every half hour. So, thank you so much Christian Mingle for helping my favorite radio programs to stay on the air. I so appreciate that! :)
Now, I've used Christian Mingle myself, and my experience with them was one of integrity. They are honest about their rates and policies, and I LOVE the fact that they have a writer's forum! If writing is your thing and you want to try a dating site...I think Christian Mingle is worth it. I learned so much about myself, and about others there...
Okay, red light.
Believe it or not... This is not encouragement to JOIN a dating site. The most powerful thing I learned on Christian Mingle, was that a "dating site" is not the way that God wants to bring my husband into my life. Now, if you've used a dating site and it works for you and you know it's His will... Wonderful! God is good! :). But this entry is for all those who have a calling on their lives to stay away from the dating site "bandwagon". Now, unfortunately, dating sites have become such an accepted part of our pop culture, that there now is a "bandwagon" that singles are encouraged to jump on...even if it's a Christian bandwagon. Did you know that E-Harmony was one of the earliest (if not, the FIRST) online dating sites, founded by Christian psychologist Dr. Neil Clark Warren?
Now, as someone who (admittedly) put marriage on a pedestal and made an idol out of it, it has been quite difficult for me to "wait on the Lord" in this area! I know now that I've not been attracted to a man (well, okay, I've been temporarily attracted to several...even if they were only on TV). But I've actually been attracted to an ongoing adrenaline rush of anticipation. The anticipation of hearing the Wedding March. But, in honesty, the idea of a wedding gives me more anxiety than anything else. Too many details to plan... yikes! But, even so...from the age of 18, the idea of meeting this incredibly gorgeous guy, and kissing and hugging and holding and heavy petting, have "driven" me to want to get married.(ahhh, now we're getting down to it). It only stands to reason...guess what comes after the wedding day? The wedding night. (I've actually been dreaming of my wedding DAY since I was eight, but that's another story :). Wow. Even as I write this, I am embarrassed, because I realize that I've been dishonest with the God I say I serve...
The above paragraph has some bold statements, but I'm glad I started with them, because I don't want this writing to be another whining tangent about why it has not happened for me yet, or how unfair I think it is that the single life is glorified, while marriage is portrayed as some prison that people get stuck in. No. Honesty and responsibility... These are my goals here. Okay, another bold statement: I have not a had a boyfriend since the age of 18. It's been a long time. And, it has not been for lack of trying. As you can imagine, I HATE the "gift of singleness" talk, and anyone who wants to complain because they have not had a boyfriend in... 3 months...6 months...a year...two years, should just tell your story walking because let's just say, you'd never wanna trade places with me! :). Now, here's the thing, back when I was just 14 years old, I had boyfriend who was a complete jerk and made me feel bad about myself. At 15 I became a Christian, and was totally convicted that this guy needed to be done away with...he was not a godly person (duh, right?). At 16, I fell too hard, too fast, for an AMAZING Christian guy that I really did believe I would marry. We became too heavily involved and often found ourselves in compromising situations where we would "test" how close we could get to the line of fire without actually getting burned. We were alone too much, and were told to just watch ourselves and be careful.
So at 16, this became my idea of "waiting on the Lord" and staying pure. I reasoned that because we had never "crossed" the line of fire (if you will) then we had not done anything wrong. So, lust ruled us for the next two years, I graduated high school at 17, and the following year, shortly after he graduated, we very abruptly...broke up. Now, I realize very clearly that when we are instructed in scripture to not awaken love until it pleases, there's a reason for that! God does not want us doing what's "right" based only on a technicality! Maybe we had not crossed the line of fire, but we were definitely playing with it! We absolutely, had "awakened" love before the time was right, and that started a fire...that very abruptly went out. Now, a nice Christian girl going through all of this with a nice Christian guy never thinks that her brain is using lust like a drug so that her body can "get high" on it. She also never thinks that this can happen WITHOUT crossing the line of fire. She thinks that as long as she's NOT engaging in the one act forbidden to all unmarried Christians...she's fine...right?
Wrong.
Every young teen couple thinks that what they have is the most amazing thing on earth, and that they are completely devoted to each other. Adrenaline tends to put that mask on things. To reduce such a "sacred" thing down to a "drug" that a couple is getting high from could seem like a travesty. Here's the thing you guys: God knew that I could not recover from this sort of "withdrawal"... not for a LONG time anyway! It was at this time in my life that something began to happen to me that I could not explain: I walked around, LITERALLY feeling like half a person. Something had been torn away...broken in pieces...and I could not repair it, or replace it. It was like I had "scraped" my very soul, and now I could not stop the bleeding. What had happened? My high school boyfriend & I had broken up... that's all.
But that was NOT all! There was no divorce, because there had been no marriage, but something had definitely been joined...because now it was broken, and it was KILLING me! There was no death...I'd only broken up with my high school boyfriend right? So why did I feel like a widow who had lost her husband? Why was it literally like half of me was gone... and why was it supposed to be the best news of my life that I would "find somebody else"? Talk about a huge insult added to a severe injury! You mean I was supposed to be happy about going through all this AGAIN? All of this came from the "withdrawal" of being so attached to the "lust" that my inexperience told me was love. It seemed as though the bleeding, open wound, and all the baggage attached was left hanging in space, and I was the one with the gauze. THIS was the entering and exiting of relationships in order to find the right one, that everybody was so cavalier about?? Anyway, when I began to get my strength back, I did in fact, reason, that I would just "find somebody else.". Or that God would soon "bring" me someone else, to be more spiritual about it. I would not allow myself to understand just how NOT ready I was (in any case) for any such thing.
Hey, everybody else around me, Christian or not, seemed to just go on, and find somebody else, right? Why couldn't I? So, three things happened: I became intensely angry with my Father, because each time there was even a hint of another boyfriend on the horizon, God not only would close that door, he would SLAM it in my face! (I soooo THANK him now, for doing that!). Secondly, I truly felt the separation and the "sting" of being true to my savor, because I was NOT like most people around me... Christian or not! It REALLY get's tough when you realize that God won't allow you to "fit" even with the other Christians around you! Not looking like the world is one thing...not blending in with your Christian brothers and sisters where it's comfortable is something else entirely!! Thirdly, I noticed that my devotion poured out for a man who was no longer in my life would not allow me to even be free to be involved...with ANYONE. It was just too much! Not only was my cup empty...it was bone dry! I had nothing left to give! (What if the RIGHT man came along and now I had nothing left to give HIM?)
Time out. God is always on time. He is never late...but there's no need for him to ever be early either. His timing is perfect, so never is he rushed. Sometimes it takes the most time, I think, for him to clean up a mess we've made. I know now, that God has waited a LONG time on my behalf...so that I would truly be okay. I didn't realize it then, but I was trying to follow the World's pattern of doing things and and then getting angry with God because He wasn't allowing it to work! (Thank you Lord that it did not!!). I then began comparing myself with other Christians around me, and every time another brother or sister would get in a relationship, engaged, or married, I would then deepen my own personal grudge against God. I would say to him that he let it happen for them...so he could let it happen for me too. But he couldn't. Because I keep pouring salt in the very wounds he's wanting to heal. Really, it boils down to three words: I. Haven't. Submitted. I never have...not really.
The pain continued, and I began to be afraid that my dream of marriage would never be...so I would vigorously try to resurrect it...by seeking out another relationship, or arguing with God again, or even worse, trying to prove to God that I had all my ducks in a row, and surely NOW would be the time, right? I've heard that bargaining is part of the grief process, and truthfully, mine's gone on for years! Interesting. Isn't this the total opposite of the freedom Christians have in Christ? Don't we tell people that we have nothing to prove to Him? So what on earth was I trying to prove?? That I COULD handle it THIS time if he just let me try it again? As Chip Ingram says, that's like hitting your thumb with a hammer, feeling the pain, and then hitting it again, thinking the result will be different. (I'm so happy God never answered that prayer!!)
I found it interesting that no matter what else I seemed to occupy my time with, the pain inside never seemed to completely go away. It was like this terrible shadow cast on the "single" life that I was supposed to be enjoying so much. Is it really supposed to be THIS bad?? Is it supposed to go on for THIS long?? In my case...yes. God has had to keep undoing the damage from the salt that I keep pouring in my wounds by running ahead of him, chasing after the wrong thing, justifying it, running after it again...and so on. After a while, I really did just want to feel normal again, and I became truly afraid that this would never happen. Another year would go by, and then another, and I would vigorously try to understand, why I could not seem to just be happy with myself and just know God is enough, and that's enough. There truly was a pain inside that I couldn't identify...but trying to bury it, or rid myself of it quicker, only made it so much worse. The hurt seemed to drown everything else, including the joy of just enjoying myself.
So, God has loved me through this, and alowed me to ware myself out...and now I can say that my singleness truly is a gift from God and I'm very grateful for it! I've been so busy trying to change the season, that I never truly allowed God to show me the courage to embrace the season I'm already in. I learned how to say all the right things and look well put together on the outside... but was still crumbling on the inside. I find that stubbornness can teach us a lot about ourselves, because God won't move us until we give it up. In that time...or should I say, "Time out"... there are a lot of lessons he'll go over with us, until we surrender. I say all of this, because when I was on "Christian Mingle" it was only because I had "jumped on the bandwagon.". The commercials are everywhere... and let's face...it seems like everybody's at least trying it, right? No. Not everyone. That's not true. But I think it's interesting how the ads seem to really agree with a person's vulnerabilities. Sometimes, it does seem like you'll never find the one God intended for you. Don't force a solution. Whether it's with Christian Mingle or anything else. This might spike your adrenaline because of all the gorgeous guys, and even get you a relationship... but is it God's will for your life?
This is for anyone who is having to do things the HARD hard way...and it's a lot harder than they THOUGHT they KNEW it was. This is for anyone who's tempted about every half hour to jump on a "bandwagon" that God has told them to stay off of...no matter how many other Christians had found success that way. This is for anyone who's sincerely cried out to God, and thought they couldn't stand another minute of being alone, and then felt guilty as they tried to pick themselves up: "Isn't God enough?". I'm so happy to say...YES HE IS!! I know what it's like when the clichet's just don't work anymore, but the God of peace is so much more than a cliche' about his timing. I find that he HAS shown me that this really is not nearly as difficult as I've made it. I only needed to let go. Gee, no wonder it's taken so long! :). Let Him heal the wound.
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