The Very Thing...

Earlier today I talked with one of my best friends for awhile...our conversations are always such a fun blessing! She's seriously dating someone, and she said that he mentioned for the first time the "M" word...to which I responded, "Is that 'M' for Monkey or Movie or Mustard...?"

What an amazing feeling it is when someone you love so much might have just found that one person that they will be with till death doth part them. This man wants to marry my friend, or is at least thinking about it, and I love that. She is so worth it! She is a godly, kind, funny, beautiful, sweet, sensitive, loving, talented girl, and its about time that someone noticed those things and fell head over heels for her. He better treasure her...that's all I'm saying...as she is priceless.

So if this friend gets married, then there are only a handful of single girls left in my life...well, that are my age. Its funny how the Lord works sometimes, because being single is not easy, especially when you are 26...but I am so thankful that its me that bears that load and not the other girls in my life. let it be me that deals with nights by myself and loneliness and questions. Not that my friends aren't strong enough, but I wouldn't wish the sometimes all-consuming feeling of being alone on them for anything. They don't deserve that, and God, thank you for protecting them!

Some days I'm so thankful that I'm single...other days it totally sucks and I wonder if it'll ever feel better and if God's purposes are being fulfilled in me despite the emotional chaos I sometimes feel.

It makes me wonder why I long to be married at all. I mean, you hear about how hard it is, and how the honeymoon ends, and how its work work work, and that its not always the answer to your problems and what not...and the divorce rate is sky high so apparently people give up on marriage as quickly as they jump into it. Marriage doesn't have the best PR right now...

Still, despite all the warnings, why do we want to be married? I think there are two reasons. One I heard on a movie where a married woman says that people get married because they need a witness to their lives. What a lovely thing to say. Its so true...we want someone to tell our day to, who we can be our complete selves around, who we trust to love us in good and bad.

But that, then, begs the question as to why we want these things? And therein lies the second reason...because we were created to want these things. Maybe the Lord made us to want a loving, loyal witness to show us that this is His heart. Maybe marriage and the desire for it is a picture of God's desire for His relationship with us individually and with the Church. I think John Elderigde is right when he talks about God as the great pursuer--the one who woos us and romances us into His arms.

So when things start to get hard as a single girl in a world of "marrieds", when girls talk about their husbands (does he have a name?) and their babies and their wonderful married lives, instead of bumming out, I smile to myself and remember that the Lord is my pursuer and my great romance...maybe one day He'll let someone else work with Him in that, but for now, I'll hide in His arms. Sometimes I might cry there, but mostly I just rest...He knows just what I need.