Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Wedded Bliss & .... Stuff

It's been another month, and no update. It isn't because I have had anything note-worth going on. To the contrary, I have been so busy, I haven't had time to write. But there have been plenty of things on my mind and one thing specifically on my heart that has been the source of frustration, confusion, hurt, and today... hope.

All my friends keep getting married. I understand that I am in that stage and chapter in life in which it is inevitable. Fine. But I have felt as though everyone else's story is being written, progressing, and mine is...not. It's like a bad moving ending: one that leaves you hanging with all sorts of questions unanswered and absolutely no closure or clue as to what the ending could possibly be.

I know I know. My life isn't a movie, nor is it over. "It's just beginning." Thank you. I simply mean that, while everyone else's life seems to take a patterned turn, mine is on another track. And if I were the kind of person that craved adventure, spontaneity and the like, I'd be pretty excited. But I am, in fact, a very scheduled, routine, and at times I suppose fairly boring person in comparison. But I am happy that way. I like the predictability of my life. Because when things are predictable, I am always prepared. I can't be caught off guard, I'm on top of it all, which is actually, one of my many downfalls. I find myself supplementing God with, myself. Oops.

So, as a means of correcting my misguided mindset and behavior, the Lord has thrown me a curve ball, a breaking ball, one high and outside (I like baseball)... and I swung like a girl.

My lack-luster imagination has been blown away at the story that the Lord is writing in my life: the setting, the characters, the adventures, and the trials. And more than anything else, as someone who prides myself in being able to see beauty in the muck and the mire, to find the diamond in the rough, even I am anxiously anticipating what He is leading me to because at present, I'm having a hard time getting my vision to focus.

About a week ago, while out to dinner with my roommate and friend, I verbalized something that I had stifled for a while. I feel like a personified Catch 22. Here's why.

*Disclaimer: The following is really really honest and raw... I'm just saying*

I've never dated anyone. I've been on dates; few of which were ever seconds. I've never been in a dating relationship with someone though. And sure, there are "pros" to that I suppose, or say people say. No baggage. No drama. No heartbreak recovery.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and when were describing the kind of guys we were praying for, and one thing we both mentioned was that we hoped that they were "experienced." Experienced in the sense of, they knew exactly what they wanted, they knew exactly where they were going, and they knew how they were going to get there. All of this "knowing" obviously referring to their imaginary relationship with us, their love-at-first-sight girlfriends. (feel free to laugh here... we did)

That's when it dawned on me. I don't bring that to the table. I don't have any experience. I don't know what I want in a relationship, I don't know where I am going in a relationship, and I don't know how to get the undeclared destination. I realized that all those things that I am looking for, (a) I don't possess and (b) would most likely be wanted by the guy, right? It's only fair.

So, if you follow the cyclical but irrational, reasoning, then you could probably determine that I came to the conclusion that no one will date me if I have not dated, but the only way in which for me to gain any understanding of the dating world is in fact to date. Round and round I go.

I'm dizzy.

Back to the table at which I shared all of this with my roommate. The look on her face broke my heart. She literally heard me say that I had come to terms with giving up hope on ever changing my relationship status. Her eyes began to water; her chin quivered, and suddenly a single, lonely tear trickled down her freckled cheek. And with soft, genuine, and determined voice she said to me:

"Meredith, I wish you knew how much the Lord loves you. How enthralled He is by your beauty, your heart, and the way that you think, love and laugh. I was praying for you the other day and was overwhelmed to the point of tears at His zealous joy and jealousy over you. He revealed to me His passion for you and it is big."

Then I started to tear up. I know Sunday School teachers tell kids that all the time, but at some point, I guess with age and bills, that fantasy begins to fade. It becomes diluted and categorized into a fairytale because, let's be honest, it seems childish.

But I believed her. And I believe Him, wholeheartedly. She went on to say that the desire of my heart for a relationship and a husband was there because He put it there. It is purposed. And when He fulfills it, in His timing, praise and honor and glory will all be for the Lord, because He is faithful. He works all things together for good: that means singleness is good for something, just like every other stage or season of life.

I was in a wedding this last weekend. It's becoming somewhat of a hobby. A really expensive hobby.

It was my first military wedding. A friend that I met at Compassion International married an incredible man that graduated from the Air Force Academy a few years ago. It was perhaps the most beautiful, exquisite, elegant, and timeless wedding I have ever been too. "Stylish, yet classic. Lavish, but tasteful. Cheap, but expensive." (from the movie Sabrina with Harrison Ford)

The best part of the three day event was the moment that the french doors opened at the end of the impossibly long aisle to reveal the bride. This part I will never forget.

As she walked slow and steady towards him, the groom was utterly fixated, completely focused on this beautiful woman, clothed in glowing white. His shaky smile was boyishly endearing, and the tears that trickled down his face simply illuminated his pure love for her. I will never forget that look because it is what I hope to walk toward in the future.

And there, on the alter, as I witnessed two people commit to love one another above all else, a subtle hope returned for my own story. A hope that I thought perhaps had evaporated with faulty rational and shady logic.

My roommate's testimony of how the Lord revealed to her His love for me is not the first I have heard. Several other friends I have, who's walk with God is something I aspire to, have told me on numerous occasions that the Lord has told them how much He loved me. How He adored me and how big His plans were for me.

So, while I wait for the next chapter, single or not, my primary prayer is that, in the same way He keeps telling everyone else, I want Him to tell me, in my ear, in my heart those same truths.

And He will... I just need to shut up and listen.

Over and out.