It has been a hard last few weeks. But Friday was a good day at work, and today it has been wonderfully dark and drizzly outside, creating a feeling of rest and comfort inside.
I am doing the Teachers in the Word Christmas reading plan this season. It's really nice to have something to keep up with consistently! And I also have a mini-reading plan on names for Christ by Natasha Metzler. And I started Ann Voskamp's The Greatest Gift in November to give me a running start (which also has daily Scripture passages). I'm actually not ridiculously behind, which is nice!
In the singles social media group I am a part of, arranged marriage (and its ilk) has been a recent topic of conversation. Lord, is this desire within me of You or my flesh?
And yet, something stirs when I hear the stories of God putting two people together. The difference is that in my culture, two people come together in love and feelings, but in other cultures, two people come together with commitment.
I want that.
Is it practical? So not!
But the idea of choosing someone, or of being chosen and choosing back, and then basing the future on a commitment that will not fall into divorce because there is nothing to "fall out of," the idea of working through differences without the backdoor that you would have in dating--no, you get to work it out knowing that this is who you are meant to be with--that is supremely attractive to me.
I suppose all that (commitment, choosing, working through differences) happens in marriage no matter what relationship you have had to get you there. But there is a reason why arranged marriage cultures have a lower divorce rate. And the perfection of feelings and circumstances that we require of single people today before they can commit to marriage is fantastically also unreasonable.
A girl tonight shared that in Russian Christian culture, the guy prays about who God wants him to marry, hears from God, goes and proposes to the girl, the girl prays, and then they marry. No dating. No wondering if they married the wrong person, because God showed them.
Oh, Lord God.
I do not understand why He works differently in this culture. If He does work differently. I do not know why I am part of a FB group of some 400 conservative Christians who are unmarried and yet (most) want marriage. I do not know how to balance the stymie inherent in my American early 21st century culture with the sovereignty of God in individual lives.
But there seems to be something wrong in this culture that is preventing what seems more doable in other cultures or in other centuries.
I want to be part of whatever that is in other places and times that makes this thing of getting to marriage less impossible and more natural. Is it supposed to be this ridiculously hard for so many my age and older?
And at what point would I be willing to lay aside my culture and all my fears for the sake of "marriage"?
And what does God's wisdom say?
Meanwhile, school is back in session tomorrow for one more week. We got a new washer and dryer after using the neighbor's for, what?, 3 weeks? And Christmas is a-comin' and I already have been using my recently-purchased-from-Hobby-Lobby wrapping paper! (granted, for non-Christmas presents. Ah well.)
I think I can still say I am content with single life. I don't think I'm discontent. But content does not mean sit back and do nothing, now does it?
