the hope of our faith

i'm a big fan of rick mckinley and what god is doing through him and his church, imago dei, in portland, oregon. i read his book, this beautiful mess, and thought it was fantastic. i highly recommend it.

i also frequently listen to his sermons via podcast. one that really impacted me is called Abraham, the Hope of Our Faith, from 9/2/07.

often i hear people talking about the how 'marriage (and/or sex) is the idol of the single person.' i have to agree with that. i think it's really easy for us to bank all of our hope in the idea that one day we'll be 'fulfilled .' as a woman, i have been looking forward to my wedding day since at least junior high. many of my girlfriends spent their childhood years dressing up as a 'bride' and then 'walking down the aisle.' (i was kind of a tomboy, so i don't really remember ever doing that).

even over the last few years, i have found myself thinking, man, i can't WAIT till i am married, only to have that thought followed by and then... what? as in, ok, then what do i have to look forward to?

of course there is nothing really wrong with looking forward to being married. i still do, very much. but after listening to rick's message, i started to wonder if too much of my hope was on that one earthly, temporal thing. is my hope in marriage eclipsing the hope of my faith? what is the hope of my faith, anyway?

i want the hope of my faith to be god and his promises. i want him to be my security. i want to say 'i can't wait to get to heaven.' i want that to be the most exciting thing; the thing that sends shudders down my spine when i think about it. i'm definitely not there yet.

rick asks the pointed question, what do you do when the promise isn't fulfilled? he points out that all the amazing people named in hebrews 11 and notes that the author of hebrews says that those people lived by faith without the fulfillment of the promise. that was huge for me. if god doesn't provide me a husband, or doesn't provide one for the next 10 to 20 years, what will i do? how will that affect my faith? is my faith in my preferred future or in god?

the people in hebrews 11 had faith in god. their hope was vested in eternal promises, not promises that the world was making. god brought them ultimate security. they could see and welcome god's promises in the future, even though they couldn't touch them.

i could go on, but rick says it better. listen to his sermon. then ask yourself what your hope (your security) is in. and how does your faith engage your hope?

i hope to be married someday. but i don't want to put my security there.

logic according to debbie maken & friends

i recently read this post over at 'the gift of singleness,' a blog written by some singles in the UK. they bring up some good points in their posts, in general, but they are sometimes a little too 'disciples of all things debbie maken' for me.

in the aforementioned post, they use this passage from maken's book:

"...think about what happened in Nazi Germany. One could say that those events were God's will. In a technical sense, those events did happen while God was ruling. But for us to say that God wills the murder of six million innocent people completely contradicts what he has revealed in Scripture and inaccurately reflects his desires."

then captain sensible draws the same 'obvious' conclusion that maken does; it's not god's will for us to be single. leaving aside the pretty ludicrous comparison of the murder of millions of innocent people to the current state of single christians, i have to question the statement.

i admit that i may have done something not exactly christlike. i submitted a comment on captain sensible's post in which i asked, ok, so why am i still single? (though, it doesn't really matter; they don't seem to be too fond of publishing my comments)

and this is the question that i feel that maken and all of her followers don't address. they don't speak enough to the fact that whether or not god caused this to happen, this is how it is for a lot of people. i have done everything in my power to change my situation. i have to now believe that god has me here for a reason.

i am not missing a date or a husband. i am not living outside of god's will because i don't have one. i am not less loveable or holy than debbie maken or any other happily (or not so happily) married christian. it is obvious to me that god has me here in a place of singleness for a reason.

it's not obvious in that i know why i am still single. it's more of an obviousness that comes from having tried everything humanly possible to get out of my situation. i very much want companionship, and all that comes with it. but god has been telling me to stop seeking. to concentrate on him instead of his gifts. is it hard? holy CRAP yes. sometimes i am so sad and lonely and frustrated i just have to cry for awhile. and not just a few tears, no, the crying with the ugly sobs and loud gasping for air. the kind of crying where you have to put your pillow over your face so you won't wake up your roommate, and the next morning your eyes are all puffy.

i wish that more christians would speak to this. so many single christians need compassion and encouragement, not someone telling them that life's not supposed to be this way. we know that already. it's a fallen world. of course it's not supposed to be this way! our sadness and loneliness and longing tell us that already.

i'm encouraging anyone else in my shoes to continue to seek god. seek a date, too, if you don't feel him telling you not to. by all means, seek a date! but make sure you are seeking to know and love and live like Him before all else. then all the rest will be given unto you.

that lonely time

i just got back from an evening out with friends; we celebrated a birthday. my friend bev is 24. several of us went out to dinner and then to a nice bar with an outdoor courtyard. it was cool. they're a good group of people.

i rode with my friend evan, who's just started to hang out with a girl he really likes (so far). he talked about her and about dating and about dating her quite a bit. i didn't mind; i'm excited for him. i hope this works out. i'd much rather lose a friend to a relationship than keep him and have to go through breakup drama. besides, i can live vicariously through him for a while. it's nice to see someone getting jittery about a potential date.

toward the end of the evening, one of the guys i don't know so well sat down next to me. we made some small talk about dating, and then he asked my why i wasn't dating anyone. who did you want me to date? i asked him. he couldn't really come up with an answer.

i came home to my empty apartment. the cat had pooped on the living room rug. i cleaned it up, since my roommate probably won't be back until tomorrow or sunday. as soon as i sat down to write a little, the cat started to cough up a hairball. i shooed her into the kitchen so at least she wouldn't do it on the carpet.

sometimes, coming home from a night of small talk and dishing out advice to your closest guy friend to a dark apartment that smells like cat poop is just soo..... empty. how many more times? i want you god, but i want this to end soon, too. i know it could be years (or never) before it does, but, please... let it end soon.

the brave face will be back on tomorrow, folks.

when a pause is just a... pause

i've been spending a fair amount of time with a great guy named seth lately. we met at church several months ago through a mutual friend. we sort of (long story) went on a date, after which i promptly emailed him (i know, i know) and basically said, seth, you're a great guy, an you're a total catch, you're just not my total catch. he responded with a fantastic email saying, hey no problem, yes, we can be friends, no worries at all.

and that was that. believe it or not, we actually have stayed good friends. but, as many of my guy friends like to remind me, it's generally not that black and white. without getting into it, let's just say that recently i've been thinking i need to tread carefully with seth, because he seems to still have a few more-than-friendly feelings for me. we've been hanging out a lot, and two or three of my friends have even noted that hey, he really lights up when you're around, sc!

sunday night, seth gave me a ride home after we'd been hanging out with some friends. (another friend of mine and i had carpooled, but she had gone home earlier because she was feeling sick).

we're riding along, enjoying the awesome night and his awesome car, which is a totally cool, old and restored little convertible two-seater. we start talking about our personalities. we both agree that a lot of things are generally more enjoyable when you have someone to enjoy them with. he starts to describe how his car is something like that; he enjoys it so much more when he has someone to enjoy it with him.

and then he stops. he pauses for a second and says hmm, how do i want to say this? another long, long pause. i mean, like, 10 to 20 seconds. and my stomach felt like it had dropped out of my body. my pulse started to race. oh no, i thought. here we go. i knew i should have had another status-check conversation with him! he's going to tell me how much he likes being with me and i'm going to have to break his heart! why did i let things get this far!?

but when he finally finds his words, it's nothing like that at all. he's just still trying to describe how great it is to share something with someone who appreciates it. i was so close to laughing out loud! and i felt really stupid. as soon as he dropped me off and i was safely inside my door, i did laugh out loud. sheesh. guilty conscience, anyone? ha.

believing god's truth about myself

one thing i still struggle with (though i've come very far in this area) is self-confidence. because i am so extroverted, i don't think a lot of people realize it. but i do struggle. it stems from a lot of things, but two things that didn't help much were being too tall and too skinny and awkward growing up, and having a father who was never very good at saying 'i love you' or 'you are beautiful and special and smart.' (though he is a wonderful man whom i love dearly, and he did a great job with what he was given).

i made a comment to a good friend recently that even though i'm an adult, i still often feel like a junior high kid. like i'm stuck somewhere between the cool kids and the outcasts. i want to play with the cool kids, but i cannot bring myself to do anything that would leave out or alienate my 'less cool' friends. it breaks my heart to leave people out. i just want everyone to play together and get along and have fun. as i told all this to my friend, his name's tom, he looked at me funny, and sort of nodded, and that was that.

a few nights ago, a bunch of us were at an AVP tournament (professional volleyball). after the match was over, we stood talking as players walked by and signed autographs. tom was hoping to see his hero, karch kiraly. as we waited, phil dalhausser, who had won the tournament with his partner, walked by and stared right at tom and me as we were talking. i was kind of oblivious, probably because i was too busy staring back at this amazingly tall and handsome professional volleyball player. then, tom poked me and said, hey, dalhausser's checking you out!

my initial reaction was to go yeah, right, tom. but once he said it, it was obvious, even to me. dalhausser was checking me out. and inside, i soared. i probably did outside, too, as since then i've told like 10 people about it. had i been thinking more clearly, i might have wandered over and said 'great game' or something equally brilliant. but instead i just stared, and smiled. and it hit me: there, at the AVP, i was beautiful. all around me, there were tall men and tall women, and i fit in. i looked like one of them!

tom and i were talking on the phone the day after the tournament, making plans for labor day and things like that. we talked about the tournament some, and he mentioned that there was something he wanted to tell me. he said, you know, sc, you're there. you've arrived. you're not that awkward kid on the playground anymore. you're cool, and you're awesome, and you need to start acting like it. of course dallhauser would check you out. you need to be saying, why wouldn't he check me out!? so please, stop feeling like you're not cool. you're not that kid anymore. stop believing the lies and believe god's truth about yourself. that's a paraphrase, but that was the gist of what he said. and it brought tears to my eyes. he was right. and to hear it from someone like tom who loves god and is tall and talented and just a wonderful, manly man; well, that was a real, meaningful burst of truth i needed to hear.

and since then i've been thinking more about what my life would look like if i really believed the truth about myself. if i didn't sometimes let myself get kicked in the pants by comparison and low self esteem. i think i could just shine, all the time, if i really lived on god's promises. he would be able to do so much through me. his kingdom would become so much more real to people around me if i could just forget about myself and know, i mean, really know, in my heart and soul that i am fearfully and wonderfully made.

sex god

i’m reading sex god, by rob bell, and so far it’s a fantastic book. i feel very blessed and lucky because lately the books i’ve been reading are really speaking to me. it started with the book of hebrews, then this beautiful mess, by rick mckinley, which i’m almost finished with, and now sex god.

i’m about 80 pages into the book, and i’m having a hard time putting it down. when i pick it up in the evenings i find myself rereading what i read the night before then continuing on to new chapters. i want to make sure it all sinks in.

one thing i’ve been turning over in my mind is bell’s take on how we need to focus our energies. if we don’t, he says, they’ll come out in all kinds of not good places. either we focus them on good things, things that work toward order and goodness and godliness, or we’ll spend our energies on things that take us back toward void and chaos and sadness and all of those other things. rick mckinley might say that we need to be living for the kingdom; making choices that bring it to life and focusing our energies on revealing it to others.

so now i’m thinking a lot about what that means in light of my being single. as a single woman, what will i focus myself on? where will my passion go? how can i reveal the kingdom? what i can do right now that i couldn't if i were married?

in the past few years my passions have come out in all kinds of wrong ways. but just like the bible (and rob bell) is saying, those ways never lead to happiness. drinking too much, relationships with little to no physical boundaries, too many hours at a job that isn’t really me. i knew that most of those things were just ways to kill time, but i didn't think about how much harm i was doing to myself and my relationship with god. duh! no wonder i haven’t been as i happy as i know i could be. but i guess i had to live it a little while to really be sure i wasn’t missing out on anything. nope, i wasn’t.

so now what? i’m not 100% sure. i have a few ideas, and i’m praying one or two of them will come to life, and seeking out ways to pursue them.

but i am sure that my singleness has a role to play. i don’t know what it is. but i’m a little excited, i have to admit, for the first time in a while.

god, help me focus. i just feel like i’m on the edge of something, and i so want to see what it is! and i want others around me to see what i see and get beyond lust and these stupid false things that we always think will fill us. open our eyes, god.

and sometimes joy leads to revelation

i've been thinking a lot about the 'gift of singleness' and the 'marriage mandate' arguments lately. (as you might be able to tell from my posts). the bottom line for me has become that it's not about the gift, it's about the giver.

i have wanted the gift of marriage for soooo long. actually, i've been wanting a lot of different gifts for a long time. i just feel like i'm in the same place, with the same stuff. i have cried and begged and pleaded, as recently as saturday night even, for an end to singleness, a change in my job, something, anything. just a freaking gift!

but god has had something else in mind. he's been trying to give me more of him. for a long time, i didn't think i really wanted more of him. i'm fine how i am, god. just give me a husband! i don't need stronger character or a more intimate relationship with you. i don't really want to pursue you intensely or be obedient. i'll give you half-ass. and in return, i want quality! and maybe i'll think about growing and loving you more later.

it took me a long time to realize that the gifts without the giver are worthless and sickening. my attempts to fill my loneliness on my own terms just made me feel worse. nothing satisfies like god.

and i'm getting it now. i am so excited because i'm wanting god more than i have in a long time. i'm wanting on of those amazing, dynamic relationships with him that i've heard about. and i'm ready to put him first. words like obedience and sacrifice are coming more readily into my mind than they ever have before. i think that's how i can tell that things are changing. maybe i won't be married for a while yet; instead i'll be getting to know my god more and more intimately. wow!

i know the gifts will follow the giver. i don't see them yet, but that's ok; that's what faith is. i still trust.

so what do you want more? what are you focusing on more? i can tell you that focusing on the gifts doesn't bring much happiness. maybe it isn't about the gift of marriage or the gift of singleness or even how to get a date worth keeping (though that is definitely an important skill set to have!). maybe it's about pursuing the giver no matter what he has or hasn't given you, and trusting that the best is yet to come.