Thoughts on the impending "holiday" . . .

Perhaps I watch too many movies. Maybe I read too many books. Maybe I just have my expectations set way too high. Or, it could be that I’m just an incurable romantic at heart, despite being buried beneath a slightly cynical exterior. As we approach the 14th of February, I find my thoughts turning to romantic love and relationships, and the lack of either one through the course of my life to date.

I guess I have certain ideas about what that kind of love is supposed to be like, and I have yet to find anything that even remotely resembles it. I see it in other couples, and as much as I try to avoid comparison, I can’t help but wonder what it is they have that I seem to be missing. Is there, like, a romance gene that has somehow been filtered out of my DNA? Is there a defect in my very soul that won’t allow me to have a love like that? Or am I just stupid and oblivious? Whatever the explanation, it brings nothing but frustration.

It feels like I want something that I either can’t or I’m not supposed to have. It’s like the proverbial carrot on a stick, dangling right out there in front of me, taunting me, daring me to reach for it, knowing that it will always be just out of reach, but hoping against hope that, somehow, this time, my reach will exceed my perceived reality.

There are those well meaning people who, in an attempt to be encouraging, tell me to be patient, to wait on God’s timing, that He’s got “someone” out there for me. I’m starting to think this elusive someone may be in the witness protection program.

My guess (and it’s only a guess at this point) is that there’s still something I have yet to learn in this season of singleness, and I’m apparently too thick-skulled to learn it, or even realize what it actually is. Maybe it’s patience, maybe it’s contentment in all circumstances, maybe it’s how to be fully reliant on God alone. Could be all of the above, or it could be, in the words of the boys from Monty Python, “something completely different.”

James 1:2-4 reads, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” I want everything God has for me in this, and I want to be “perfect and complete,” but I don’t necessarily want to wait for it. Sort of a spiritual catch-22.

There’s a phrase that appears 3 times in Song Of Solomon that says “do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” I, admittedly, have been guilty of awakening love well before the alarm was set to go off. It’s probably no accident that it’s never turned out very well. And, those experiences may have made me err on the side of extreme caution (hence my propensity towards waiting 5-6 years between relationships). Probably not the healthiest of responses, either. So, it seems there’s a balance to be struck; a balance between caution and risk-taking. I’ve yet to find where that balance lies, but I think I’m inching closer to it, day by day.

For now, I’m simply asking God to direct me into each step He wants me to take, to point out each turn as He wants me to take it. I’m asking Him to highlight hope, to show me glimpses into the plans He’s leading me into, to spur me on to continued obedience and trust in Him and Him alone. I’m asking for an increased capacity to learn whatever it is I’m supposed to be learning. And, I’m asking for Anne Hathaway to find Christ, move into town and fall madly in love with me. (OK, the last one is a pipe dream, but, you have to admit, she’s really cute.) There may or may not be someone out there for me, but I know that, no matter what, I am loved, and I am more than the sum of my emotions and my past. And, really, who could ask for anything more?

Babies, Zombies And The Voice Of God

About a year & a half ago, God gave me a word to mark my life. It was the word “courageous.” In the time since, I’ve not always lived up to that word, but I have, somewhat steadily, grown into it. It still doesn’t fit quite right, but I’ve still got some growing to do in that respect. A lot, actually.
Last April, God marked me with another word: “focus.” In the past four months, I’ve been trying to unpack the meaning behind that one, and I’m only now beginning to have some vague comprehension of it.
Yesterday, God gave me yet another word, this one probably the most powerful yet. Before I reveal that word to the online universe, some background may be in order. For that past couple of months, I’ve had this pervasive sense in the depths of my soul that God has been preparing my heart for something. What that something is, I have no idea, despite my best efforts to figure it out. But this sense, this feeling, has continued to grow. Then came . . . the dream. (Fasten your seat belt; this could get weird.)
Wednesday night, I had a dream, one of those rare dreams that I actually remember. I’ll spare you the minutiae of it all and give you the main points. Early in the imaginary adventure, I delivered, not one, but two babies from two different mothers. From there, I ended up at a party (don’t know how I got there), where, through a window, I saw . . . a zombie. (I know. I don’t even like zombie movies, so imagine my surprise.) So, naturally, I went out to investigate, only to be chased by the aforementioned zombie (or undead-American, to be politically correct). After a brief chase, I turned and yelled at the zombie to leave me alone, which it did, running off into the woods.
The moment I awoke from this dream (at 5am, I might add), something in me knew that, strange as it may be, God was trying to speak to me. I came to realize the next day that God was going to put some life changing, wonderful things in my life, and that I’d meet some big resistance in the acceptance of it, but I’d be given the power to overcome it, even to the point of commanding it to be gone. Goofy dream, serious message. God knows how to get my attention.
So, two days later, God gives me the third word to mark my life; a word that actually brought me to tears when I read it. The word: “entrusted.” My immediate reaction: unworthiness.
In the wake of this, an argument with God ensued. “How can You trust me with anything of significance,” I yelled, “when it seems like everything I’ve put my hands to has been laid to waste?” I just didn’t feel like I deserved any kind of divine entrustment. Still don’t, to some extent.
Later that night, God led me to a verse that made some sense of it all and gave me a bit of peace. Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, says, “Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.” (Ephesians 3:8) Paul, arguably one of the most forceful advancers of the Gospel in history, considered himself the “least deserving of all God’s people.” And his entrustment, to take that message to those who need it most, was a gift graciously given by the God he felt unworthy to serve. What hope there is in those words!
Who among us hasn’t felt inferior, unworthy, useless at some point in our lives. Yet it’s just such a person, one who is flawed and broken, that God consistently chooses to use as His ambassador, His messenger – His kid, the kid He loves immeasurably. So, go forth, commanding the zombie of inferiority to retreat in to the woods. We’ve got work to do.