269: the security

I look out over my kids (students) as they take their science standardized test. It is a moment of silence and calm in an otherwise hectic career. Having just taken some moments myself to reconnect spiritually via the last several day's devotionals in God is on the Cross (Dietrich Bonhoeffer), I am ready to  not just see the frustration of trying to educate willful and sometimes ignorant human beings, but now to catch a glimpse of the potential of each individual life that is sitting in these desks before me. Every person here is so unique, with their own interests, looks, desires--futures.

I pray, Lord--may they know You.

Why?

I mean, because that is the way of salvation, obviously. To have their sins covered, washed away, so they do not have to bear the punishment for their own sin.

But also--

That they can have the security that comes with knowing God.

With God, I am never alone.

With God, I have an all-powerful loving Father willing to work on my behalf.

Perhaps most impactful for me in my singleness, with God I have a reason for living, for every moment of my day. I live for a kingdom not of this world. I may not do it well. I may not live it fully. But I have an eternal purpose outside of my temporal circumstances. I do not find meaning only in loving a husband, in showing the world that God's design of marriage is good, in being sanctified as my selfishness is put to the test in living with a man to whom I've pledged my life, body, and heart. That's what we as singles want so badly. But--

Glory be! My life has MEANING and PURPOSE apart from my circumstances. Apart from any and every circumstance. Not just that *I* have value, but that my little life living at home with my parents, teaching at a country school, visiting with my friends, trying to hear God's voice through His Word and prayer--THAT life has meaning and purpose because the whole point of life is not either to endure xyz situations that seem to be the most spiritual OR to be blessed with xyz dreams, but rather in whatever we do, in word or deed, to live all for the glory of God.

Does it sound trite? Yes. But has it the power to change my perspective from despair over a wasted life because I'm not married to hope that God is still God? Yes.

And with that, I can hold my desire for companionship and intimacy and maternal satisfaction and separate it from the value of this single life that keeps slipping by with each birthday that makes me older. I can still want, I can still "need," all those physical things, but I don't have to feel subpar or under my married peers.

And that's simply from knowing the Lord.

So yes, I want my kids to know that they have value, no matter what family situations or future situations they face, simply because they are part of the kingdom of God. They have a Father to whom they are eternally connected, who directs the path of their lives, and who is with them every second, and wants their hearts.

268: between the realms + friendship

I was crying at the dramatic end of a show tonight (what can I say--
I'm tired!), and I found myself thinking of the guy I'm dating (boyfriend? can I use that word?).

It was another reminder that I am entering a season different than the one I've known.

A married friend once told me that getting married to her husband felt very natural. And, although I'm not even engaged, I can see what she means. I feel very much still myself. I actually like that. I don't wake up with dread in the pit of my stomach, like I have in the past. I don't have to wonder day by day if the guy I'm dating will change or if something will be revealed that will shake my world. His consistency is what I value. And in that consistency, I can trust and, yes, relax (now that I've gotten through the most trying stage--another story for another post).

But, back to feeling natural. I still feel very much like me. I haven't become someone else. I don't feel like I've attained something monumental by virtue of dating for 10 months. It's just...natural.

But I know that I am nearing the zenith of all the dreams of my singlehood. And not only mine, but the desires of all my single friends.

I know that if I were to marry, they would feel like they have been left behind. That they would feel alone, with unanswered prayers, and no companionship--or some combination thereof. Because that's how I feel so many times. Have felt?

See, that's where it gets weird. I'm like, oh, I so understand. But, then I go and think of my boyfriend instead of thinking of some mythical future guy or thinking about how it's just God and me, and it smacks me in the face that there IS a difference between single and not-single. It's frankly hard to reconcile the two--the friend I want to be because I'm single (ie. in the same season of life), and the friend I'll be despite not being single (in a different season of life). I feel the same. But I won't be the same. I won't be the same, but I wish I could be the same, and still not be single.

And the other problem is that God has brought me amazing settledness in the last few years of being in my 30s. Maybe even contentedness, if one can still strongly desire and still be content. But I don't know if that's because I've had sequential infatuations the last few years that have kept me from feeling all the pang of loneliness, or if it's that I've forgotten after almost two years of having my guy on my radar, or if it's just truly that I've felt more settled. (A friend in her 30s once told me that this decade was better than the 20s because you're more settled, and it's proven true. Now she's about to turn 40, so we'll see how that turns out.) So, sometimes I can't currently relate to my single friends who are in the thick of the desperate loneliness. Because I haven't felt that as much now as I used to.

More thoughts--

Part of me is like, once I'm married, I can hang out with all these married couples. My friend circle may expand.

Part of me is like I am still hanging on to my current friends! Don't you dare think I'm different just because I'm married!

Part of me thinks if I didn't make a point of hanging out with married couples when I was single--if they didn't include me, and I didn't make a point to try to be included--then it would be hypocrisy to join in the crowd now as if my status has changed my--or their--value.

*sigh* So many thoughts.

Meanwhile, I live betwixt the realms.

267: Letting Go of the Unknown

I wrote the following a week or so ago and sent the draft to a small chat group. Someone strongly encouraged me to publish it because she resonated with the concept and wanted to share it with her readers. So here are my thoughts from then, with a couple edits.

The journey from singleness to union is not what I would have expected. I would have thought that once you "arrive" at having found the one and fallen in love, that all former memories would pale in comparison. They'd practically disappear.

But, like a friend once told me, saying yes to one thing means saying no to another.

As someone who holds on to memories and clings to journals as mementos of who I have been, I find myself betwixt mourning what will never be again and embracing the fulfillment of all my hopes.

The other day I was thinking about how fun some past camping trips have been. But you know what was scintillating about some of those trips with other young people? Heading out of your tent to head to the campground bathroom in the early morning, knowing that few people have had the privilege of seeing you with sleepy eyes and messy hair, but feeling awfully scandalous (scandalously delighted) if the guy you have a crush on sees you. Or coming back from the shower with your hair wet and him seeing you. It's that hint of what you've always wanted--marriage with someone permanent--but it's like the whiff of chocolate chip cookies. You don't get the cookies, but the whiff excites you. But in marriage it seems like I'll get all the cookies. It seems like the teasing of the senses will be absent. I'll have someone who already sees me in my disheveled morning state every day, without the enticement from a chance meeting while camping.

Meet-ups too have lost their glow. The best part of meet-ups is the thrill of when someone you like makes eye contact, or talks with you, or when you serendipitously on-purpose find yourself sitting next to them or in their vicinity. But with marriage, you literally never experience the thrill of a slight acknowledgement from your crush ever again. Those 30 seconds of eye contact that you experienced at 17 years old that you STILL remember because it was so life momentous? In marriage, you don't experience the wondering what may happen: Will he contact you? What does this text mean? Could he like you back? The solidity of reality takes away the wisp of non-reality.

All we've wanted as women is certainty and a love of our own. But all we've known is uncertainty and the hope for something more. I feel a little bit of loss letting go of the hope in exchange for the reality. Hope projects fantasy on an un-actual future. Reality incorporates two people's current emotions, abilities, and mass and volume states, to create something that is very concrete and less ethereal than the hope that has kept me warm every day as a single.

I think I may need a rest-in-peace moment for all I've had...or haven't had.

266: not quite my covid-19 life

God's crinkly nature

When it comes to world events, I admit, I tend to be an ostrich. Perhaps not burying my head in the sand, but just not taking any effort to read the articles, watch the news videos, etc. (Dorcas Lane would call it "my one weakness," but alas, it's not.) So, while the world was stocking up on toilet paper and complaining about the hoarders and theorizing about whether the corona virus is overblown, deadly, or part of a conspiracy, I was very focused on my own little world. I was listening to a book about the Donner Party and reading absolutely GRISTLY ways that people tortured other people. I had to stop reading.

I'd been thinking about evil a lot lately, about persecution, about torture, namely. What is the corona virus compared to the imaginations of a human being completely given over to hate and wickedness? And the thing is, the Holocaust wasn't that long ago.

A friend mentioned, almost in passing, the church of Smyrna. So I looked up the passage in Revelation 2. Verse 10 stopped and held me.

"Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer."

Do not fear. Don't do it.

Not because everything will be fine. Just because we live in a sanitary world of flushing toilets, soap at every sink, and non-stop laundry facilities does not guarantee us a continuance of our cushy lives. How can people live with the threat of terror? How did the women pioneers crossing the plains and the Rockies find the courage to continue on when they knew they could be captured and scalped? How do people in Africa live life when the threat of guerrilla fighters overtaking their village is a possibility? How do pastors in China relax when they could be imprisoned yet again--and I won't even recount the torture I have heard of in third-world prisons.

Do not fear.

Not because God will protect me from it. The verse explicitly says that the believers in Smyrna were about to suffer.

But, do not fear.

Scripture says it over and over and over again. Do not fear. I am with you. Do not fear. I will provide for you. Do not fear--I see every sparrow that falls, and are you not of more value than many sparrows? Do not fear, highly favored one. Do not fear, I am with you wherever you go. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Fear God. He neither faints nor grows weary. He never slumbers or sleeps. He is a consuming fire, and He WILL see justice is meted out on the wicked. He is jealous for you. He has secured You as His child with the very blood of His Son. A mother may forget her newborn baby, but God will NOT forget you. You are His bride. You are His future. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

So, stop fearing. It is a directive. It is not conditional on circumstances. Just stop. And trust Him for the grace in that moment, whenever, if ever, that moment comes. But for this moment, right now, do not fear. Do not fear.

What is the victory that overcomes the world? Our faith. Not faith in the seen, but faith in the unseen. And not faith that all will be well. Not blind faith. Have faith in Yahweh God Almighty, who is and who was and who is to come, and in His Son Jesus Christ, who is coming on the clouds, and every eye will see Him.

He's got us. And we have Him.

255: ONE ONE!

My great-niece texted me the other day. It was a video, followed by the words, "He won't stop saying that."

The video was of my 3 yr. old great-nephew bouncing on the couch singing, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1."

After babysitting him the last three days, I can testify that he does sing it multiple times a day.

The thing is, up until Wednesday, all he could say was 1:1. Then suddenly, the song I had been drilling into him for months clicked, and now he's so proud of himself as he unintelligibly sings the first verse of Holy Writ.

It absolutely made my day.

I am surprised that teaching a child about the Lord must happen so intentionally. Is it because there is something off about how I live my life that the gospel cannot be absorbed naturally? Is it because I see him so seldom? Or maybe it is for this reason that Deuteronomy 6:7 says explicitly "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." It *must* be intentional. It must be in your face, as a sign on your hand, frontlets between your eyes, written on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.

And as it intentionally comes out of the adult's mouth, the truth is re-examined and re-imprinted on the adult's heart: "beware lest you forget the LORD" (Deut. 6:12).

In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri J.M. Nouwen, talking about God's heart in the Luke 15 parables, says, "God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, but wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy for all who witness them. .  . . God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it. . . . God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found. What I am called to is to enter into that joy" (ch. 9).

So, even as my great-nephew drives his family crazy singing his memory verse over and over again, I rejoice that one little seed has been planted. May it, and the seeds following it, bring forth a harvest some day.

254: it's okay to feel that lack

I'm considering applying for a specific job position next year.

And I wish I could discuss the idea with a guy. (Not like a dad-guy, but, like, someone who is somewhat invested in my future...you knooooow.)

My latest writing project just got published.

And I'd like to share it with a guy.

But--

Sometimes in life there are times when we really want to share something with a significant other. And that just isn't possible.

Usually for me that happens when there is someone I'm getting to know, or am somewhat interested in, but the natural progression of our friendship hasn't quite arrived at the point of being able to share whatever it is I want to share.

It's aggravating.

You know what? That is okay. It is okay to not have a guy to share those things with. It is okay to feel that lack.

You can feel that missing piece and still be okay. We can still thrive.

Not because of girl power, or because God didn't say it wasn't good for man to be alone, but because God can and does provide all you need, and if you do not have someone right now, well...I have to believe you have enough until God provides a miracle to fill your need.

That's all.

253: my own little corner and a bit of an overview about life

I love my bedroom.

I love the Paris themed mini set of drawers on my desk where I keep my Flair pens and Sharpies. I love the dried rose that I think came from a singles event, though I could be wrong, and the mini Eiffel tower sitting on top. I love my Farmers' Market themed calendar against my aqua colored wall and the typography done by a college friend's sister that says "Beginnings are always messy" sitting on a bright yellow painted piece of plywood with a glittery pineapple ornament from the friend that hosted my Hawaii adventures last year sitting next to it. I love the random pieces of furniture that do not match but are my own style. I love that this year off I was finally able to learn to have a place for everything and put everything back in its place. It took 34 years for that skill to finally find residency in my psyche but here we are.

I love that even though I am living at home and between full time jobs, I feel settled. I feel settled spiritually, emotionally, physically. Not permanently glued, but less shifting sand, less up and down on the turbulent waters. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, right? But there's the blessed stability of having experienced enough of life and God to be a little less caught up by the uncertainty of the future.

The rug might be pulled out from me next week. And I still have so many questions about the future and the present. And I'm not satisfied with everything about how I live my life. But should we be? Shouldn't we always be striving for improvement?

But for now, I am happy, thankful, and wouldn't revoke this year at home in the least. I'm thankful for my 30s, even though, man, that big 40 just gets nearer.

Lord, that I might not just be settled and happy but that I may truly fulfill Your purpose for me and be willing to take any risk that that may require.

My writing job is going well too. I regularly write both fiction and non-fiction, which means I am always researching something new, or writing about something I'm listening to in an audio book. I love research! I love culling info into a small non-fiction piece that, hopefully, captivates the reader's interest. My writing boss says she loves my work--yay--so I keep plugging away until I hear otherwise.

Meanwhile I help my mom babysit my great-nephew twice a week. He's into trains. I don't think I mentioned it on here, but a couple years ago I was told an incoming student was big into trains. I ended up buying two train books--one the ULTIMATE train book with photos and info about all the trains in history, and the other an historical picture book about people heading west by train. Well, my student ended up changing his fandom to dragons, and the books sat there until I went and snagged them from my class library this year and brought them back home for my great-nephew to enjoy. It warms my heart so when he goes and grabs one of the train books from his little area in my room. I feel like my friend who's a boy-mom--I'm learning more about these mechanical things than I would ever have otherwise!

My great-niece and I have been spending time more regularly together. She's a hard nut to crack, but I think I'm finally enjoying her blessed insides, lol. Twice now she and I have served dinner at Salvation Army together. She is so brave (despite squeezing my hand as we pass homeless people) and so efficient and responsible in serving food! Twice now she has previewed my writing and made notes on which passages are boring and which are not. I needed the perspective of my target audience! And every time I pick her up from school she wants frozen yogurt! I think it's only going to get worse as the weather warms up. Unfortunately her great-aunt is an ice cream fanatic too!

My mom likes that I am not stressed out, that I am relaxed. And that I'm around. She likes the company.

I haven't done much major traveling because of my year off. I wash my car more by hand now, lol. I know that's kind of random to insert here, but it seemed like something I should do instead of always paying money to go through the drive-thru when I could save money by just exerting a little work and time. One of those homey chores I avoided until I had time this year to reevaluate.

And now I'm just scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to say. So, until next time I stop by, adieu.