278: Unstoppable Growth

In my backyard is a hedge. I have no idea what it is called. I have no idea how long it has lived there. When I moved in, it was a full bush, but contained. In the last
month or so it has become a determined monster, stretching tendrils out into the air, not even caring when it can't find anything to latch on to, but claiming the nearby tree it did find with a vengeance. On Saturday, I cut back some of the reaching hands. There were tendrils that had intertwined with other tendrils, strengthening into cords. I really emotionally hesitated trimming the plant back. Such dogged persistence should be awarded, not hacked away with scissors. I made sure the cuttings got inside the yard & garden bin and weren't able to latch on to the nearby oleander. I had no doubt that, even trapped inside a plastic bin, one of those vines could latch on to a host tree and begin growing its dominion again.

Meanwhile, my pansies are more temperamental. On the porch? Shriveled. Under the backyard tree? Gasped for life. On the chairs next to the house? Nearly died. Under the front yard tree? Happy! But even then, as the summer heart intensifies, I'm fairly certain they will wither again, permanently this time.

Our spiritual lives--our affections--our response to God's pursuit--are we more like the determined green tendrils, always pushing forward, or are we more like the pansy, needing the conditions to be just right to meet with the Lord, always on the edge of wilting? Different seasons, different levels of strength, right? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.

There is grace to take whatever level of strength we have right now and, not compare ourselves to a different plant, but take what we do have and push a bit deeper. And then a bit deeper still. To make another hard but necessary choice. To stay a little bit longer in silence, in the Word, in prayer. Until one day we can look back, see our growth, and praise God for His preservation when we were weak.

277: comparison

I struggle with comparison. Like, it's one of my default weaknesses.

The thing is, we are all so different.

I am a single woman in her late 30s, who rents a room cheap from an old family friend, eats dinner almost every night at my parents' home, and spends time on Facebook in a singles' community and watches low-budget Christmas romance movies for fun.

I have a friend who lives in a rural area, rearing three boys with her husband, milking cows, feeding sheep, tending a garden, making homemade yogurt and soup and bread. She plays board games with her husband and reads thick history books for fun.

The comparison is stark. And it is so so so tempting to devalue myself and my life in the process.

Her life is real. Mine is fake. Her life is meaningful. Mine is "city girl" shallow.

My life is what it is because I have chosen to stay in the same town where I grew up, to pursue life here. I have chosen friends who are such quality, God-loving people, but who share similar interests as me. I would like to think my life is what it is because God has sovereignly directed me so far. I know that's been true as far as my job. I could still make different choices and change my life from what it is. And maybe He is calling me to some changes--our lives are not meant to be static, without any sanctifying growth. But I don't think I have heard Him call me to a dramatically different life than what I currently live. (Though maybe with less movies?) And the thing is, I would still take myself along to any circumstance I lived in.

Which leaves me with a choice. Do I accept my life as good in its place in His grand scheme of things?

That is so very difficult for me. To value my contribution. To be okay with the differences between me and a married friend. To not feel judged...by myself. 

And to grapple with whether I do need to make any changes. Whether I even want to. Whether I should want to.

What about you? Do you compare yourself negatively to others, are you confident in your differences, or do others inspire you to improve?

276: quickie from the middle

I'm attempting to write this book on singleness, right? But as I come up on a year of working on it, I realize anew how this year for me in my personal life has been a year of abject sifting. Sifting of my need to know why things happen, my mental grappling trying to understand what does not make sense to me, what I think should not be, a fresh upheaval of my insecurities as I try to dive deep, my faith, just everything. I think, objectively, it has been *one of* the hardest years of my adult life, and it hasn't blown over yet. Just a constant struggle for the last 11 months.

I would think one would want to write from a place of victory. You want to communicate light and goodness and an honest path to victory. But instead, I feel like I'm trudging through that Pilgrim's Progress Slough of Despond, and let me tell you, juggling all the parts of a full length book and not knowing what on earth you've written, and wondering if the tone is appropriate (not even if it makes sense!), and wanting to point people honestly (versus through platitudes) to God while still being sympathetic to the struggle, and really, just juggling all the different parts--it's yet another sifting of my lifelong natural bent toward insecurity.

But. I'm still here. He has caused me to still be here. Still enduring. Continually bobbing me up to the surface when I drown and drown again. Knowing exactly how much I can take and then giving me a break, a blessing, a breath of air. Giving me a reset. Speaking to me explicit reminders of His guidance and provision when I began panicking. No, I'm not talking about the book. I'm talking about life. And the One who is good.

So, no conclusion here. It's really hard to see clearly when you are in the middle of it, but I will, you will, hold on to Him as He holds on to you.

275: at this moment in the singleness journey

Where are you on your singleness journey? I'm curious. It seems everyone has different seasons within the season of singleness.

Currently, I am in an odd-to-me season.

9 months ago I was wearing a beautiful ring on my finger. After months of hoping that I might finally be able to do life with a real guy, maybe this was actually happening. But the hopes were cut short, and I adapted back to familiar singleness. But, with some twists.

For one thing, I didn't feel particularly needy. Maybe that started earlier in my 30s, but something about just coming out of an intense relationship left me feeling a bit less empty, oddly enough. Like, I don't need to jump into something else right now while my heart is healing.

I've also realized how not-lonely I am. I have my friends, my work, and my online community of fellow-singles. I can barely remember life before I had this network zigzagging across the United States. I really don't know if it's because I'm in my mid-30s and am thoroughly entrenched in single life or if it's because I rarely feel "alone," but I generally do not struggle with loneliness or lack of companionship.

Which makes it weird because I am writing a book about wrestling with prolonged singleness. One of the huge pieces of singleness is that desire for a companion, and I just haven't been feeling it enough to be able to write about it as accurately as I like. Thus, why I want to know how everyone else's season is going. Is it just me? Or is this common to one's late 30s?

Something else about beginning this writing project shortly after my breakup is that I had to start dredging up all the feelings I've ever wrestled with regarding singleness, even though I wasn't necessarily feeling them right then. I have done so much of the deep wrestling via this blog. Since I've wrestled it out, the feeling of lack is more often in short bursts than long periods of angst. I've been trying to relive some of the angst in longer-fashion so I can, again, be accurate about the source of those short bursts. It's a bit odd to try to stir up and hold onto genuine painful feelings on purpose. Writing life?

One thing that has been surprising is how I still experience late-night, painful mental overdrive thinking about the ended relationship. That has nothing to do with writing. That's just my current life.

While I may not have this constant ache to not be single--because I honestly don't--I do still really miss having someone to set all my hopes onto and feel that perhaps it will be reality that I will spend my life with this real guy and we'll have a real, ordinary home and life together.

So, again--where are you in your singleness journey?

274: hurry up vs. wisdom

One of my 4th graders this week said that he wished engagement wasn't a thing, that you just were married. I hear ya, boy. 

But life is more nuanced than that, isn't it?

Arranged marriage is great if you are willing to play Russian roulette on the rest of your life.

Skipping the dating process and marrying someone who seems great on first glance without taking the time to get to know them seems easier if you're willing to risk all because you're impatient and scared of what you might learn.

Bypassing engagement sounds carefree if you don't realize that sometimes the period between wanting all your dreams to come true and when all your dreams will come true--that middle "promise" period--can shake the tree hard, sifting whether there is fruit among the hopeful leaves.

So yes, 9 year old boy, sometimes it would be nice if engagement wasn't a thing. But any time you have a waiting period in life--singleness, dating, engagement--you are blessed with the opportunity to double-check what it is you're waiting for, and if the destination will be as glorious as you've dreamed up in your head. Time draws thoughts out of you that a rushed series of events cannot. Get wisdom, get understanding is the Scriptural command, not hurry up and get this show on the road, no matter how much we think that hurrying would give us all we want more than the counsel of wisdom would. 

273: God's emotional dichotomy at the same time

Sometimes we feel like our feelings have to be on one extreme or the other. I'm finding when I read Scripture that God has strong feelings on both sides of the spectrum at the same time.

In Jeremiah 31, the nation of Israel has been exiled to Babylon and taken into captivity there by kings more powerful than themselves because of their sin. Their sin has been so great and consistent for so long, that they aren't even allowed to stay in the land that God had promised all the way back to Abraham. The land needs a break from their wickedness. In Jeremiah 2 and 3, God likens Israel to an adulterous wife: "[W]here have you NOT lain with men?" (Jer. 3:2).

And yet, at the same time, in Jeremiah 31:4 God says, "Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel!" And again, "Turn back, O virgin of Israel . . . . How long will you gad about, O you backsliding daughter?"

Nothing about Israel's behavior was virginal. God had clearly condemned her for having the opposite behavior. His wrath against her was that of a husband and protector betrayed, but His love for her is equally fierce, so much so that He calls her a virgin, as if we can pretend none of this ever happened. "'[Y]ou have played the harlot with many lovers; Yet return to Me,' says the LORD." (Jer. 3:1)

He does the same thing in the book of Numbers. Ever since Moses arrived to deliver Israel out of Egypt, they have been one complaining, disbelieving lot. In Numbers 21, they say, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread." (Num. 21:5) Yeah, that would be the bread that God Himself provided miraculously with the dew every morning. In response to this round of hostility, God sent fiery serpents that bit the people, until they were willing to repent. That's God's relationship with Israel at this point.

In Numbers 22, the king of Moab hires Balaam to come and speak curses on Israel so the king can overcome them. God takes charge of Balaam's mouth. Don't you know, God can chastise His people, but no one else better mess with them! Balaam declares about God, "He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel." (Num. 23:21). What. on. earth?!

This is our God. According to Scripture, He seems to have these fierce dichotomous emotions--at the same time! He fiercely hates sin and punishes it, and He fiercely loves His own and protects them despite their sin. He is big and grand enough that He can feel and act on both emotions at the same time! Isn't that what the cross is too? The intense affront to His holiness that sin is must be punished with blood, but His intense love for His creation results in Him shedding His Son's own blood on our behalf.

Both/and, without devaluing either emotion in the process.

272: happy with this

I've felt guilty wanting to be in a relationship when I just came out of a relationship with a wonderful man while several of my friends have never had that chance. It feels greedy of me. But someone recently reminded me that it is natural to want to be in relationship. It is a human desire and shared by all humans, no matter your dating history.

And so I stand here in the middle of the night in the kitchen typing on my laptop, emotionally eating pumpkin bread leftover from a girl friend who visited tonight. I had the delight of introducing her to a favorite TV series--one of those that perfectly combines drama and humor and character development and just a hint of romance. But, she has gone home, my parents are asleep, I am here with a free weekend ahead of me, and--

And I am thinking about how happy I am teaching this year.

I am thinking about how if I was doing anything else, I would still want to make time to teach Bible to kids.

No, my "career" is not a relationship. My students go home to their families, and I go home to my parents. I do not currently have my own husband and children to pour into. But I have my parents to honor, and I have students with whom I can share so many things that God has taught me since my youth. I am living life. I am pouring out what God has poured into me. It makes me happy.

I also found out I never watched last week's episode of Chesapeake Shores, and that kinda makes me happy too. :)

Notes to self: It isn't a comparison game. It is about living the cards you've been dealt, knowing that you aren't at the mercy of fate but under the will of God.

Addendum to self: Don't stay up too late or you'll stay up til 2am trying to avoid the feeling of aloneness.