Just Be "Content"

So it's been over a month since my last post...

If I can be honest (which I can, since this is my post), a big part of why I hadn't written is that I came out of a span of a few months where I really felt like I had "nailed" my singleness and then started to shake on that feeling a little bit. I felt (feel?) like Peter when Jesus calls him out of the boat and he starts walking on water, but then he looks around and sees the storm and realizes that he has no business walking on water and starts to sink.

What I have discovered to be true in my faith is that seeking God, seeking obedience and walking in faith really, truly, ultimately lead to joy. I don't find that any of that comes naturally or is easy, nor do I say it glibly and nor would I give it as a pat answer to someone who is struggling. But I do believe that it's true and I've found that when I fight for truth, I find God and joy follows.

I have also discovered that I had an unrealistic expectation in my life.

When I found that joy and contentment (which, I emphasize here, were the byproduct of walking with God), I had an expectation that I had finally just arrived at joy and contentment and would now experience them naturally for the rest of my life because I had discovered "the secret."

It turns out that this works similar to the way a lot of things work. For example, when I was training for my first half marathon and watching carefully what I was eating and found myself in really good shape... and then, content to be in shape, I started slacking off and... well, found that my "in shape" clothes stopped fitting. Oops.

We can look at all sorts of disciplines and aspects of our lives where we know it to be true that we can't arrive at a goal and stay there by coasting.

To exacerbate the whole situation, joy and contentment aren't even really the goal or the plateau. It seems there is a cycle at play: life sucks, so we seek God, we find God, we find contentment, we rest in our contentment and stop seeking God because we have contentment, and then we hit challenges in life and wonder what happened.

All of this vicious cycle has led me to one conclusion: contentment isn't the goal! I know this will sound blasphemous to all those who are trying to be content so God will bring you a spouse (big wink with tongue out here), but God doesn't want you to be content... He just wants you. And I believe that when we lose sight of him in our quest to be content in him, he brings us back to a place where we seek him.

Sound made up?

Well, actually, in 2 Corinthians 12, when Paul struggles with his thorn in the flesh, God refuses to take it from him, saying "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

We are in a season of advent right now as we reflect on what it is like to wait in eager expectation. As we get tastes of joy and contentment in our lives, they ultimately point us to the ultimate joy and contentment that will come when we are one day fully sanctified, free from the effects of sin and reunited at last with Christ. The tastes of joy that we have now are a gift, but we must always remember that they are a byproduct and not the goal. We will not be able to rest and "arrive" until the day that we at last fully experience our citizenship in heaven. It's going to be work until then. As Paul says in Phil. 3:13-14: "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

So back to Peter.

Peter may have started to sink, but Jesus reached down and helped him up in that moment.

Those moments - both the moments where we are walking on water, and the moments where we need Jesus to help us up - are necessary to grow our faith and our relationship with God. Know that both moments will come, and keep walking forward.

Curation and the Lonely Heart

It's so easy to make our lives look fantastic on social media. Wait for that picture-perfect moment, snap a photo through your ever-improving iPhone camera, slap on a filter and share through all your social media pages in one easy step through Instagram.

My latest soapbox has been to bring a dose of reality to Instagram. On the picture above, I wrote: "Not shown: the regrettable decision to wear the boots which are hot and giving me blisters." It had been a really beautiful day, to be honest. I walked out of brunch and decided it was too nice to do anything but be outside in all my favorite city sites. A new friend felt the same way and came with me, so the afternoon was altogether pleasant. By the time I took this picture, though, my feet were legitimately angry. And I still had another 2-3 miles to walk back to my car.

It was a great day, but I tell this story because we are well aware of our own "sore feet" and less than stellar moments, but we don't see many of them when we scroll through Instagram and see the filtered highlight reels of everyone else's lives. (Note that the word filtered has a dual meaning in this instance. Clever, eh?) We know our own realities (sore feet, lonely night), but we see the picture perfect moments of everyone else (the moment the sunset is perfect, the views at the end of an arduous hike), and it's hard not to assume that we are missing out and doing something wrong because our lives are not as perfect as everyone else's.

When you're single, this effect is magnified. You watch chick flicks (even sometimes if you're a guy... I know you do...), you see the "date night" Instagrams, you see the "we're engaged!" Facebook posts and you see all the #mancrushMonday and #blessed and #bestboyfriendever. Looking through your newsfeed is the highlight reel of everyone else's perfect love life.

Oh man. Life sucks. I don't have an Instagram picture of me and my handsome date from Saturday night.

Except.

When you talk to people about their marriages or dating lives, it turns out they are not actually perfect. There are fights. About which soap goes in which dispenser or which color the living room should be, in the best cases, and about much deeper things in the worst cases. The longings and struggles that we feel in singleness don't go away in marriage, in fact, sometimes it can be more challenging because there's someone there that we feel should make us stop feeling those things.

I'm not down on marriage and relationships, so I'll stop there. My point is really just to illustrate that we don't get a full picture of what relationships look like through the curated version of someone's life on social media.

So what do we do about it? Because as much as we may know that we are seeing only the good parts, it's hard to stop feeling like we are missing out.

First, I love my friendships with my married friends, and especially my friends with kids. Friends, I love your kids, I love seeing pictures of them, I love spoiling them... but they serve as a good reminder of all the blessings that come with singleness! And talking in a deep way about the struggles of life with my married friends is a reminder that marriage is not a magic bullet. It's a blessing, for sure, but it doesn't solve all the struggles of our hearts.

Second, if you're really struggling, just take a break. I stopped looking at my Facebook newsfeed following recent events (that shall not be discussed here) and guess what... I didn't miss it. Now, I was also on vacation for the first few days, which illustrates another point if I haven't convinced you of the fallacy of social media... we are never looking at social media when we are busy enjoying life and creating those "Insta-worthy" moments.

Finally, maybe considering joining the revolution with me? Let's all just start being honest. Don't embarrass your husband by posting about your fights, but maybe let's start curating our social media posts in a way that highlights the ordinariness of life. I have a friend who does a great job of this. She posted an adorable video of her daughter claiming her older brother's new vest... and then hours later added a story of the same daughter crying when she couldn't have the vest. I love it because it's honest and it's not sugar coated.

Below is the second most liked thing I've posted on Instagram this year, with the caption: "I don't want to be one of those people who brags about my life on social media, but look! I found the other sock!"

Join the movement with #thisgotreal.

Are We Shallow? Part Two

So as someone pointed out over lunch today, I never actually addressed the question that I posed in the title. They also pointed out that girls are shallow, too.

So, men: you can re-read yesterday's post and replace "lovely" or "beautiful" with whatever you happen to be insecure about.

And today, no one is off the hook.

Women, we aren't shallow, right? We don't walk into a room and decide who is worth talking to based only on their appearance, so naturally we can take an uppity approach to those shallow, immature men who only go after the "hot girls".

I'm sure that we've never dismissed a guy because he was shorter than us, or on the quieter side, or had less education than us, or... I'll stop now.

So we're all shallow. About different things. So two questions: 1) why? and 2) why does it matter?

There may be other reasons why we are shallow, but I can really only think of one: we are insecure. I have actually heard girls say that they don't want to date someone shorter than them because they feel big, and they want a guy who will make them feel small. I appreciate the honesty, but if you don't deal with your own insecurity, then how can someone else help to remedy that? In the same way, I am sure that men want a beautiful girl on their arm so that other men will look at them and think "wow, he's such a stud for landing that hottie." And then they won't be thinking about his receding hairline...

When this fuels our shallowness, we need to deal with it without dragging others into the equation. Read part 1 for a start, but also meditate on who you are in Christ. Let him fill those insecurities rather than putting the burden on someone else.

So why does it matter?

First, it hurts other people. If you're a man, and you've never thought through the impact on your sisters in Christ when you reduce all of their personhood to a single characteristic and dismiss them for it, you should really understand that it hurts to get brushed aside. I can't imagine that the way men feel when they are treated for other superficial characteristics is any different. I'm not saying that we have to strive to make everyone feel attractive - I don't think that's our job at all - but to so obviously pursue people who only have certain superficial characteristics, I would argue, is to not be treating our single brothers and sisters in love.

Second, it hurts us. Let's go by the numbers here. I have three filters that are deal breakers for me: if a man is going to be eligible to date me, he must love Jesus, be single (I don't think that's unreasonable) and be age-appropriate (arguably a squishy filter, but I keep the age range fairly wide). Doesn't seem so bad, but I live in a city where there are more women than men, the population skews younger and, oh, by the way, it's the least churched city in America, so the percentage of men who love Jesus is lower. It's kind of a small pool. (Back in the days when I was actually doing online dating, I did a search on Christian Mingle, and three men showed up. One of them, my friend knows and has been talking about setting me up with. The other two were not actually active on the site. But I digress...)

So if I start layering anything shallow onto my filters, I am way cutting down on potential mates. Plus, I don't think the filters add any value. When we are looking for a life partner, the things that matter are character and shared values. I want to build my life with someone who has integrity, who's going to love me through the hard times, who's going to pursue Jesus with me, who's going to walk in grace. Can I really understand that by putting a minimum height filter on my eligible pool? I think that compatibility and attraction do matter as well, but I can't get at that if I put a minimum education level filter in place. I would even argue that although I don't click with someone immediately, it doesn't mean that over time we couldn't develop a great relationship.

Okay, so if I've argued convincingly on the first two questions, it begs a third question: what do I do about it?

I think I know the answer, but I'm kind of afraid to put it in writing because it still scares me for all sorts of other reasons, and I don't want people to hold me accountable for it. I think we need to be open.

I have a lot of excuses for not being open. I find small talk awkward. I'm afraid of getting hurt. But I think I need to get over both of those things and get to know people that I maybe wouldn't consider at first. I need to say "yes" more often. And I need to say "yes" when all that is asked of me is a conversation... because one of my guy friends once told me I say "no" without saying "no" by the way that I act. And another one said that I'm "intimidating and unapproachable."

We don't need to end up in relationships with everyone who comes our way, but as brothers and sisters in Christ, we do need to treat each other with love and dignity. It's not our responsibility to make each other feel attractive, but I would argue that it is our responsibility to NOT make each other feel unattractive or discarded. And if someone asks you to grab coffee... why not just say yes? It's 60 minutes of your time... and a free coffee!

Are We Shallow?

Spoiler Alert: Even though the inspiration for this post is the all-too-frequent conversations I've been having about whether Christian men are too shallow, this one's aimed at you, ladies. I'll let the pastors and the accountability groups and the discipleship deal with the men, if in fact they need to be "dealt with."

Despite my harsh intro, ladies, I feel for you and I empathize with you and I know your struggle and your pain is real. I have had SO many conversations with girlfriends over the years about feeling overlooked and unattractive to men in the church, even though we seem to be perfectly desirable to men everywhere else.

So here's my disclaimer: I don't know why men in the church are so hesitant to pursue women and seem to come across as more shallow. Even if I did, I have no power to do anything about it, so I'll leave that one to the bros.

Here is my question, ladies: why do you care so much?

I can look into my own heart and venture some guesses into the answer. We want to feel lovely, to be delighted in. We want to know that there is potential for us to find someone. We want to feel like we are "enough".

When men dismiss us based on our appearance, we feel devalued, second class. It hurts when they won't approach us in the first place, and it hurts even more when they really know us and value our company and all our non-shallow characteristics. We feel like we are not enough.

May I suggest, beautiful sister, that perhaps your yardstick shouldn't be a shallow man who is struggling with his own insecurities and sin?

We want so much to feel lovely and beautiful, but I would argue that additional male attention is not going to accomplish this for us.

Sister, you ARE lovely and beautiful. God delights in you. He sees you as beautiful now, he is making you more beautiful, and one day you will tangibly know and experience the fullness of your beauty.

That's not enough?

What would be? Having some schmoe be attracted to you here? That is a fleeting yardstick, and it's unsatisfying. There is no permanent solution to that need to feel lovely and beautiful apart from the work that Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. If you're looking for anything else, you will feel unsatisfied.

And as far as feeling like you'll never find anyone... You know what I really don't want? A guy who feels like he has to settle for me despite not being attracted to me. You know how God can work with just the smallest amount of effort? The God who calms storms and stops rivers and holds the sun back can so easily work in the mind of a man to make him attracted to me when he needs to be. So if a guy is not attracted to me... it's just not what God has for me. Plain and simple.

If I do get married, I want a man who genuinely is attracted to me. I don't want him to be shallow for other reasons, but he can be like "I am a blue eyes, curly hair and muscular calves guy, and I find you so attractive." Or something like that. I've never actually met a guy who is really into a girl's calves, but if I do, I'll have all those running miles to thank for landing me a man. But hopefully he's also, and moreso, like "you love Jesus and that's the biggest reason I love you." (And if you happen to be reading this, Future Husband, good luck, since I am clearly off my rocker when it comes to you.) (But ladies, not about the other stuff. God the Father thinks you are stunning and that's what matters.)

In conclusion:

• You are beautiful, inside and out.
• Your yardstick is that you are delighted in by the Father.
• Men who are not attracted to you do not define your beauty.
• If a man is not attracted to you, it's not meant to be. So let go and be available for the next one.

Just Let Go

"I'm letting go... and falling into you..." - From Letting Go by Steffany Gretzinger

***

The spotlight shone obnoxiously in my eyes: the heat of the light, the total and utter blackness of everything else conveying the full weight of it's pressure.

Beneath my feet, there was nothing but a wire. The spotlight on me, I felt the pressure to perform, and yet I felt paralyzed. I was utterly exposed. I could see nothing but blackness outside of the light firmly fixed on me. Terrified of falling, of failing, I could not take a step.

Several years ago, as I was going through the MBA application process, this was a recurring dream I had. And then, I had the dream again...

And suddenly, consciously, I just let go and fell off the tight rope. The fall was peaceful and softened by a huge, soft safety net.

I pulled myself from the safety net and walked to a door in the room. Walking out the door, I found myself on a beautiful garden path.

I was filled with relief.

That was the last time I had that dream.

***

This post has been sitting in my draft list for probably close to a month. I haven't finished it, or published it, because I wanted to have "arrived" before I posted it.

I've been finding that old idol of perfectionism creeping up in my life. I want to get this contentment thing perfect. I want to surrender perfectly. I even find myself waking up thinking about Greek noun forms because I'm so desperate to memorize them so I can do well in class. (A class where I find myself feeling competitive but that has no grades or bearing whatsoever on my future.)

I crashed this week, though. Woke up Monday morning feeling sick and weak. And I had to just stop.

I like to come up with plans. If I can just chart the next few steps, I can start stepping my way out of a situation and make some progress. If I'm battling spiritual attack, I just need to find the right verse from my memory bank and meditate on the truth. Step 1) identify the source of the attack. Step 2) find the right verse. Step 3) repeat until I believe it.

I've realized that there is no plan or perfection in letting go.

You just... let... go...

A week or so ago, I was fighting off some major spiritual attack. And I was going through my three steps. And I went to the gym, thinking that a run would be a good distraction, but the intervals my coach had set up for me were too hard for how I was feeling that day. Cue more attack.

As I was walking back to the parking lot, I realized I just didn't have it in me anymore to walk through all the steps. So I just stopped and said "Daddy, I need you."

And immediately, I felt a rush of peace.

***

This post was originally supposed to be about letting go of all the pressure that those of us who are single find ourselves under... Pressure to be more open, to try more networking, to stop worrying about our singleness, to give "so and so" a shot, to try some new online dating site, to put ourselves out there, to stop believing the lies about ourselves that have built up over the years...

I was tired of worrying about it. But every time I decided to let go, I started worrying again. I would stress about my actions, and was I properly protecting my heart, was I leading anyone on and yada yada yada.

I couldn't stop.

I think we all do this, single or not.

We live as if it depends on us. As if God is up in heaven waiting for us to perform the right way so he can bless us with joy or contentment or some sort of tangible blessing. As if we can somehow live our lives in such a way to avoid pain or suffering. As if there's a perfect magical formula we can figure out and then put our lives on auto-pilot.

We can't.

All we can do is let go and fall into grace.

Is God REALLY Working All Things for my Good?

And we know, that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Chances are, if you grew up in the church, this was one of the verses that you memorized back in Sunday School.

It's possible, likely, that you have had someone quote this verse to you when you have gone through a difficult time, or been waiting for something. It's one that tends to get quoted along with Psalm 37:4 ("Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart") and Jeremiah 29:11 ("For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.")

I was walking with a friend this week, who asked how things were going, and I replied "I'm really learning that God actually works all things for my good, that he is for me and that he graciously gives me all things, and so it's been going really well lately."

And he said, "you've got to be careful with that. God doesn't really work all things for good like you expect."

Now before delving into an argument about the inerrancy of Scripture and calling him a heretic, I explained further what I believed Romans 8:28 was referring to, and it turned out we were on the exact same page.

At our core, we all have a story about how we see our lives shaping out. For many of us who are single, for example, that story is so often oriented around the path to marriage. Since this blog is focused on singleness, I'll follow that thread throughout the rest of this post, but we can also have stories rooted around our educational achievements, our career successes, our financial stability, our children's success, the growth of our ministries, and on and on.

With a story focused on the path to the altar, when we read that God works all things together for God, we intuitively read it as "well, if that door was closed because guy/girl #1 was not interested in me, it's because God has someone even better lined up for me." You probably even have examples where you've seen this happen.

This is not what Paul meant when he wrote that, and it's not what God promises in all of the verses I mentioned above. Whatever narrative we may have in our lives that leads us to expect specific outcomes from God is not our true story. (And I already blogged about that!)

Here's what we often think about that:

I would submit to you, though, that what God is really promising here is infinitely better.

Here's the thing about our stories: they end, they cause us to live in worry whether things are going well or not going as we hope, and they never live up to their promises (even if we achieve them).

They end...

The stories that are rooted in things here on earth will come to an end one way or another. If the story is about the dream wedding, either we will die without it happening, or we will have it and then it will be over. We can achieve career success, but then we retire.

They cause us to live in worry...

Have you ever gotten That Thing and lost it? Probably. We've all been through that unless we've lived an incredibly charmed life. When our story is oriented around That Thing, we worry that we won't find it. When we have it, we worry that we're going to lose it. We worry that God doesn't really understand what we need or how we would like the story to shape up. Living in worry is not a good way to live.

They never live up to their promises...

Tim Keller has a really great sermon about the story of Jacob and Leah. To provide a quick synopsis: Jacob sees Rachel (Leah's younger sister) and falls uncontrollably in love with her. He agrees to work seven years to get Rachel as his wife, and after those seven years pass, Jacob gets his bride... But "in the morning, behold, it was Leah!" (Gen. 29:25) The reality is that all things are really "Leah" in the morning. CS Lewis describes this well in Mere Christianity.

"Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us."

God has a much better story on offer for us.

His story never ends.

God has sent his Son to redeem us so we can have a relationship with him for eternity. Our purpose in life is to glorify him and we will do that throughout eternity.

He promises we have nothing to worry about.

When we choose to believe what God says about us and has for us, we can rest in his promises. God's work in our story is to shape us into his likeness so we can bring glory to him. It rests in the saving work Christ accomplished for us on the cross and does not depend on us. I do not need to stress about how or whether God is going to use me because it does not depend on me.

What he promises is better than we can imagine.

In Ephesians 3:20, Paul talks about how God "is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine" (NIV). We focus our lives on what we can see or imagine here, focusing on the best of what we can see on earth. God promises so much more.

If you don't quite buy this, but are intrigued, Tim Keller also has a great sermon on Romans 8:28-30.

What's Your Story?

It somehow came to pass that on Saturday morning at 11 a.m., I found myself on a couch on the campus of an old university across the river in a meeting of "The Society of the Two Tasks". The topic of discussion for this particular meeting was world views: what are they? How can you tell what someone's world view is? What are some of the different world views?

Naturally, we all approached the discussion with the framework of assessing and addressing the world views of others; in particular those hostile to Christianity. But the instructor soon turned the discussion inward: is your world view really in line with what you profess to believe?

He proposed that we all have, at our core, a story. Our story can be along the lines of "I'm going to shape the industry I work in and make a difference" or "When I get my degree, all the hard work and effort will be meaningful", etc. From this story, flows our identity: "I'm a career woman" or "I'm a smart academic". From that flows our actual convictional beliefs (which often contradict our "confessional" beliefs, or what we say we believe). Then come our priorities, and finally our actions.

***

It then came to pass that on Sunday night, I found myself lounging on the couch watching a chick flick with my roommate and her boyfriend. It had been a long time since I'd actually watched a chick flick* and I found myself disillusioned and annoyed with the plot line.

I had a realization, though. Most of my life, I've been saturated with all things romance: Christy Miller novels in high school, well-intentioned (don't date) dating books called "When God Writes Your Love Story", chick flick after chick flick and romance novel after romance novel. Thanks to the purity culture, at full steam during my teenage and young adult years, so much of that core story started to shape itself around love, romance, marriage and God's plan for my love life.

It was so well intentioned: make wise decisions, think about the future impact of the choices you make today, (don't let getting pregnant in high school mess up your future). But it also had the by-product of shaping that core story in my life to be a romance novel in which everything that God did in my life was part of his his plan for my life... my love life.

***
God is teaching me that my story is very different.

This is our story:

God created the world, and it was good. Man and nature were in perfect shalom, and God created man and woman out of a perfect love and a perfect community. The purpose of creation was to bring glory to God. Mankind was tasked with cultivating creation and creating culture. Man sinned and broke that perfect relationship. Sin disrupted shalom and suddenly the joyful task of work was cursed with thorns and thistles.

But God had a plan.

The punishment and consequence for sin is death: separation from God. God could not judge sin apart from eternal separation from us, so in love he sent his Son Jesus to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died. Jesus bore our punishment and rose from the dead, conquering death once and for all.

When we choose to accept what Christ has done for us, we are saved, being saved and will be saved. At once, we are positionally saved - in God's books, our record is spotless. We are being saved - we undergo the process of sanctification as we learn to live out a perfect relationship with God that is marked by obedience and submission. We will be saved - there will come a time when we experience full shalom without also being exposed to the consequences of sin here on this broken earth.

When we are saved, at least two exciting things happen:

1. God promises that he works all things for our good.
2. We get to participate in bringing glory to God as he uses us to restore creation and live in community with others.

So that story replaces our other stories. It is a timeless story - we will be fulfilling that story throughout our time on earth. 

It is a story that does not lead to disappointment... Have you ever noticed chick flicks don't have sequels? No one cares what happens in the hard times after the wedding... that isn't funny and doesn't make us swoon. 

It's a story that leads to a lasting identity... child of God, co-heir with Christ, worshiper of God.

I know we all know this... but I think there's value in pausing to reflect. What is your story? What are the narratives shaping your life? How are they shaping your priorities? What disappointments are rooted in having a different story for your life than the beautiful story of what God has done for you and calls you to?

As you consider this, remember... grace and love are at the root of the story. Sanctification takes time, but we come to it from a place of victory. We are loved and accepted, even when we don't remember that we are loved and accepted.

*I actually used to really love a good, lighthearted, funny chick flick, but I can't remember the last time one actually came out. Everything these days is either "bring a box of tissues" or super raunchy, neither of which satisfy my chick flick need.

When Faith Gets Tired

"When my faith gets tired
And my hope seems lost..."

- Lyrics from "We Dance", Steffany Frizzell Gretzinger

The last few days, weeks, even months have been filled with such a deep joy in understanding who I am in Christ, and the beauty of the promise and the plans he has for me. Yesterday was the climax, buoyed by the joy that comes from cooler weather and the first fruits of New England fall.

I don't know what happened today.

I normally wouldn't blog about having a rough day, but over the past few weeks, I've had conversations with people who have been discouraged. Today, I just want you to know that for all that I believe that God is good and God has a plan and the deepest joy in our lives comes from bringing glory to him, I'm just with you in the discouragement and the fatigue of fighting the lies I believed all my life.

For the past few months, I've been focused on "setting my mind on the things of the Spirit" (paraphrase from Romans 8). For years and years, I believed a lot of lies about myself that I used to build up a wall of protection because I didn't really trust God enough to protect me in those areas of deep vulnerability. Today, the lies started creeping back in and it's been a battle. Even when we know the truth, it feels like it just takes so much effort to be focused on the truth of a God who at times is much more intangible than physically present.

I don't have any deep answers today. All I can say is that I've been listening to this song on repeat:
We Dance

"When my faith gets tired and my hope seems lost,
You spin me round and around and remind of that song,
The one you wrote for me...

And we dance."

That Moment

Until the movie 27 Dresses came out, I thought I was the only one who loved to watch the groom in that first moment he saw his bride.

I was at a wedding last night, and the moment was no exception. In this case, I had known the groom for four years, before he pursued his wife. He pursued this woman for seven months before she was even willing to consider him. To be fair, they lived on different continents, but I've watched their relationship unfold across the distance and this moment truly was a beautiful moment.

For many years, I would always watch that moment somewhat wistfully. "Will it ever be me?" is what I, and I'm sure many other single women, always think when we see that.

But a few years ago, as I started to understand better that marriage is a picture, a metaphor and an illustration, I started to see that weddings are an opportunity for me to see the spiritual reality of what happens when I am in Christ.

That bride walking down the aisle IS me. The groom beaming back at me and delighting in me is God the Father, who has such a deep love for me and pursued me by sending his Son to bear the burden and punishment of my sin. And I am clothed beautifully and radiant in white, not because of what I have done, but because Jesus exchanged the filthy rags of my sin and rebellion for his radiant white garment of a life lived in perfect submission to the Father.

And so, while I won't deny that I would love to physically don a beautiful white gown on this side of eternity, I bask in the joy that every time I see a bride walk down the aisle, it's a picture of my beauty and how the Father sees me and delights in me. It's also a reminder that the day where I experience that in a beauty and reality that transcends what we see here on earth is coming.

The Cold, Hard Truth About Singleness

"So what's your stance on your singleness?" A new friend recently asked on an impromptu Starbucks run after we'd finished serving together at church.

I've been mulling over that question since that conversation, and I feel like so few people will give the really honest answer in an encouraging way. We've been taught that we're supposed to be content in Jesus, or that we should be putting ourselves out there, or that we're not whole until we're married, or so many other things, that we don't always let ourselves just feel what we really feel.

So here's my honest answer:

It's hard, it's easy, it's good and it takes a lot of work.

It's hard.

When you're single, you learn to smile through all the celebrations of other people getting the things you desire deep down. You dutifully trek off to Victoria's Secret for a gift and wrap it in a pretty package and haul it off to the bridal shower. You've learned that when the DJ invites "all the couples" onto the dance floor to join the wedding party, you hightail it off to the bathroom so you don't need to sit there watching. You've taught your couple friends that you are a perfectly delightful third wheel.

But under all the coping, you wonder whether you'll ever have an opportunity to open scandalous packages of your own or find someone to slow dance with or have a man that your friend's husband can bro it up with while the four of you hang out.

It's easy.

My life consists of keeping track of precisely one person. I need to make sure that this one person can meet her financial goals and stay healthy and relax as defined by all the things that are important to her. This one person gets to decide where she wants to go on vacation, how much she wants to spend and when the precisely optimal time to travel is based on all the variables that matter to her.

Marriage comes with a lot more complications. I have talked to exactly no one who has every said that marriage is easy. Two schedules? I can barely keep my own schedule from getting too busy. That isn't the most complicated part. And when you throw children in the mix? Don't think that even warrants a discussion.

It's good.

There are moments where I genuinely feel God's blessing in my singleness. I count it an incredible privilege to be in a place where God can use me specifically in this way and specifically because I'm single. I won't dwell on this much longer because I already wrote a blog post on the gift of singleness, but there is a genuine joy that comes from being used by God and bringing glory to Him.

It's a lot of work.

So I genuinely, 100% believe what I wrote about how singleness is good. But. I don't always find myself believing it, especially in those moments that are genuinely hard. Some believers would tell you to just smile and trust Jesus. I won't say that they're wrong, but I don't think that's an easy thing to do.

Finding joy and contentment in singleness takes a lot of work. I think there are a few things that are really key to thriving in singleness:

• Taking your thoughts captive to Christ. You will find so many moments where your mind starts that downward spiral, where you start to feel sorry for yourself or believe that God got it wrong when he made you. Recognize these thoughts and stop them.
• Understanding what God promises and what he does not promise. It can be all too easy to look at how God's blessings are manifested in someone else's life that is different from your own. This coveting can lead to thinking that God has let you down or disappointed you. God promises that he will work all things together for your good, but "your good" may not look how you expect. It often does not look at all how you expect.
• Reflecting on how God has already been faithful in your life. I journal. Sporadically. But most of the journalling in the past has been during times and seasons that I walked through that were really hard. And I love that I journaled through those seasons because I read back on those times, and I see how the things that I struggled with felt as intensely real as things I struggle with now. But now I read through them knowing the ending and seeing God's faithfulness and how he genuinely worked them for my good. When I remind myself of that, I know that whatever I may be facing today, I will look back and see that God was faithful.
• Meditating on God's promises. I love Romans 8. I memorized it. This morning, I woke up and just walked through it before I faced my day. And I felt triumphant as I got to Romans 8:31 and 32: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" I know Scripture to be true. I know these promises are true. And I may not feel them all the time, but that is where my hope lies, and I need to walk in it.

Old Rooms and Worn T-Shirts

It wasn't long ago that I had THAT conversation. You know the one:

Me: Yeah, so, I'm interested in you.
Him: Not so much.

And at first I felt a little bit sad. He's a good guy, and those are hard to come by. But then I felt two completely unexpected feelings wash over me: familiarity and comfort.

I've been there before. And as I went to those old places, I could remember acutely the details of the times and places that I got "rejected."

Sitting under the desk in our old office, on the portable phone in high school.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of his car as we drove through the nighttime country roads.

Standing in the courtyard at business school listening to the partner at my dream firm explain why they weren't making me an offer.

It felt like being in an old familiar room where I could trace the scratch marks in the well-worn dresser with my finger. Like holding a well worn t-shirt rubbing the holes in the places I know all too well. There was something oddly comforting about that feeling. That t-shirt that bore so many memories, that carried the labels of "not good enough", "not pretty enough", "not smart enough."

And then, in my metaphor, I made a stunning realization. I wasn't moving into the room. I wasn't wearing the t-shirt.

I don't wear t-shirts anymore. I wear a dress that says "beloved, delighted in." And as I revisited the memory boxes in that old room, I saw the labels that I had once used to pronounce a judgment on me tell an altogether different story.

The guy from the first story... Married his high school grad (prom) date and has four beautiful children. Lovely for him, but my life would not be the same adventure if I had four children in tow at this point.

The guy from the second story... Ten years later, we are still really good friends. Over the past ten years, I've seen that despite being really great friends, our lives do not move at the same rhythms. He is a great guy, but not the one for me. (He'll probably read this post... Hi!)

That job... Would have taken me to Atlanta. God moved me to another city where he had work prepared for me to do.

There have been many, many other "rejections" in that old familiar room. But I no longer see them as rejections. I see them as divine providences - moments where a sovereign God used his hand to weave my life into the beautiful tapestry it is today.

What Do You Want?

"If you would just be content being single, God would send you someone."

At this point in my life, this statement is patently ridiculous. I don't know if it even warrants an analysis, but just in case you're curious about why I think it's completely untrue, I've actually already blogged about it.

All that said...

I still find myself hesitant to actually admit my desires and pray for what I really want when it comes to my love life.

Many months ago, as I was praying for My Future Husband, I caveated my prayer something like this: "hey God. I'm going to pray for my husband. I don't know if I'm ever going to get married, but if I do, that's who I'm praying for. I'm not saying that I expect you to do anything in that area of my life, but if you do, then this is my prayer. Okay. I don't want to pray this every time, so just keep this as our standard agreement."

As much as I am loathe to admit it, and as much as I will "lovingly lecture" anyone who expresses any form of needing to be content as a pre-requisite for anything, I think I am still hedging my bets in some way.

Desire is a good thing. There is something in our desires that points us to God and what he has for us. Unless we are desiring something sinful, there is so much value in recognizing our desires and bringing them to God. There is no desire that is too small or too big to lay at the feet of our Father.

Even more, the Holy Spirit will actually transform those prayers that we bring into us asking for what we would ask for if we knew everything God knows.

Okay, complicated. Let me unpack it.

1. God knows everything that is going to happening.
2. God is working all of those circumstances for my good and his glory.
3. Ultimately, I want what is best for me, and to glorify God.
4. If I didn't have the Holy Spirit, it would be hard to pray for what I want, because I don't know what the future looks like and I could be asking for the wrong thing. ("What if I ask God for job A, but the industry job A is in is about to take a downturn and I would get laid off?" "What if I ask God to help Mr. Dreamboat fall in love with me, but that would take my life down the wrong path?")
5. The Spirit turns what I actually pray for into what I would pray for if I knew what was for my best. "We do not know what to pray for as we ought... the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26,27)

So freedom. We can come to God as we are, without trying to contort our desires and what we want. We can just lay them at his feet.

The Gift No One Wants

Though I can't recall any of the other details of the night, or even who I'd been with, I remember the moment vividly. It was one of those moments that I wanted to bottle up and carry with me in pill form so that I could savor it again in a moment of discouragement or weakness.
I was driving home after spending the evening with another single friend, and we had really great conversations and I really felt like I was able to encourage her in her singleness, and I just remember feeling incredibly content that God was using me in my singleness and by extension, incredibly blessed and privileged to be single.
If you're about to tune out because this sounds too Pollyanna-ish, I will confess that sometimes I do feel like this woman featured in a Babylon Bee article.
But lately, God in his grace has been giving me a taste of the blessings of singleness.
This is not going to be one of those posts where I write out all the reasons that single people rule, and married people drool. I actually spoke on a relationships panel a few years ago about singleness and I think I made singleness out to be way more awesome than it always feels. I'm happy to take your suggestions, though, if you want to contribute to any future posts.
Today, though, I want to focus on the bigger picture. Because ultimately, your marital status isn't actually the point. Your marital status is really just a tool that God uses to accomplish his purpose in your life. What is most important in life is to glorify God and be satisfied in him, and living that out does not depend on any external factor. God uses a whole array of external factors to accomplish that in your life.
Right now, God is using my singleness. I can tell you lots of ways that God is using specifically my singleness:

1. I've got street cred with my single friends. "Oh, you want to use your singleness as an excuse to make unwise decisions? Well, guess what, I am in the same boat and I still don't think that's a good idea."
2. I have so, so much more time. Unfortunately, rather than using my endless free time to pursue hobbies (underwater basket weaving, anyone?), I pour it into helping to keep a church running and discipling other women. (Oh wait, that's way better than basket weaving)
3. I really have no other choice but to wrestle through truth and grace with him. Yes, I have friends to talk to, but only God is always there. At 3 a.m., I can't turn to someone and talk about my struggles. I have to talk to God, and I think that's awesome.

BUT... If I were to start dating someone tomorrow, that wouldn't be the end of God using me. It would just morph and change as I moved through other phases of life. It's just that today, God is using me in this way and I count that a privilege.

Think I'm crazy? Yeah, sometimes I think that's crazy, too, but as I dip my toe into the water of faith and take God on his word that what is best for me is to walk with him and glorify him, he parts the waters and gives me glimpses of deep joy. Here's what we know to be true from what the Bible says:

1. God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
2. The ultimately "good" or blessings in our lives are either to head off to eternity or to be used to further the name of Christ. (Phil. 1:20)
3. Everything "worldly" that we could count to our credit is worthless next to the joy that comes from walking with him. (Phil. 3)
4. We are God's poetry, and the purpose of our creation and redemption is to do the work he has prepared for us. (Eph. 2:10)

Our mission in life is to glorify God and be satisfied in Him. As we learn to trust him in that, to ask him to use us and to get the privilege of seeing him grow his kingdom, he slowly molds our hearts to find joy in that truth. But just like everything else that we walk through in faith, it is a slow process to mold us into seeing that truth. But, as he promises in Phil. 1:6, he will be faithful to carry that to completion.

Life in the Friend Zone

Raise your hand if you've ever felt like Ashley I (from Bachelor in Paradise).

You meet the (wo)man of your dreams, and you instantly hit it off and all is going well until you realize that things don't seem to be moving in quite the direction you thought it would be at by now... so you get up the nerve to say "hey, [(Wo)Man of Your Dreams], what's happening here?" And (s)he says "I think you're a great friend / I have a boy/girlfriend in another state that I didn't feel the need to tell you about / I'm gay / [insert additional reasons that are a clear indication you're in the friend zone here]."

Ugh, that sucks. Worst feeling, maybe ever.

And often the (Wo)Man of Your Dreams was a total jerk for leading you on and they didn't guard your heart, and that sucks.

I've been there. In my first post, I referenced my "dating" history, and it mainly consisted of meeting a guy, spending a ton of time together, having "the talk", hearing him say that it's not going anywhere and then proceeding to spend as many of my waking hours with him as possible until one of us moves or he starts dating someone else.

I'm not going to let those men off the hook... at least not for anything that happened prior to "the talk." I think it's important that men and women do more to be mindful of how their actions come across to those of the opposite gender that they spend time with.

BUT...

Everything after "the talk", and even some things from before, were on me. When we hold on to a friendship in hopes that it will turn out for something more, we are only setting ourselves up for disappointment.

When I moved to my current city five years ago, I was determined to break the pattern. A few things I've learned:

• Don't spend time alone with someone of the opposite sex unless it's a date, or clearly not a date. And if it's clearly not a date, don't assume it's a plot to spend time alone with you. It generally is what it is. If you ask a guy to help you move, and then treat him to dinner afterwards, it is not a date, and he is not pursuing you. If you ask a girl to help you study for something and you take her for a drink to thank her, it is not a date. If you position something as a group outing and then other people drop out, but it just ends with you and your dream (wo)man... IT IS NOT A DATE.
• Just a quick note, because a lot of girls have said "but I really like having guy friends"... I still have some really great guy friends. We hang out in groups and a lot of them have married my friends, and they are great inputs in my life.
• Don't fantasize. I've been guilty of this. You have a great encounter with someone, and you leave walking on the clouds and you're just so happy. And then after a day or two, that happiness fades. And then you're left with a vacuum where you desperately want to feel that way again... so you start to imagine and create stories. This will always end badly. Life is never going to match your fantasy.
• If (s)he says "no, this isn't happening, we're just friends"... that's it. Move on. The worst thing to do at this point is to continue to pine for someone and hold out hope for things to change.
• Don't settle for a dysfunctional friendship that takes the place of a dating relationship. I've been there. It's so nice to have someone. But you are just driving yourself deeper into disappointment and heartache when you settle for this. Eventually (s)he will find someone and then it will all be gone. Dear friend... we do not deserve anything. I am not entitled to a best friend husband who will be there for me the rest of my days. BUT... you ARE a child of the King. And you need to treat yourself with that level of dignity and not settle for someone who's going to use what they can of you without providing any level of commitment on their part.

And finally... know that you can't protect your heart with a set of rules. At the end of the day, while it's good to walk in wisdom, it is God who is in control and leading you down a path that will ultimately lead to your good and his glory (Romans 8:28). Getting hurt happens. But we have a God who is there in the hurt and is enough in our hurt as he is enough in our singleness. You can't move forward in any relationship without taking wise risks, and you can do that because you can trust that you don't face anything that can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:38).

Delighted In

"So ease up, but also walk in this. He delights in you. Not a better version of you... you. Right now you're sons and daughters. When my son stumbles about, I don't just lose my mind over that. If you think about all of the little pictures... Remember when kids start to walk? They only take like two steps and then fall down, but don't you just freak out and act like they won the Olympics?"
- Matt Chandler, Recovering Redemption; The Result: Justification, Sanctification and Adoption

It's taken me a long time to write this post. For a long while, I have thought that I was alone in my fears of being not good enough, not lovely enough, not skinny enough, not bubbly enough to ever warrant finding a husband... or a boyfriend... or even a second date. If I'm truly honest, there have been relationships that I have stayed away from because I thought that if he got to know me, that I would disappoint him and couldn't meet his expectations.

I think, though, that it's possible that I am not the only one who feels this way. From listening to a podcast with Brene Brown to opening up to trusted friends to reading multiple books, it seems that "the negative radio inside the head" may be more universal than I thought. If you also struggle with this, read on...

Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters in Christ: you are dearly loved and delighted in.

Chances are, you've heard the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). But stop and savor the end of the story. The son is walking home, dejected. He is ready to beg his father to simply make him a servant in his home.

The father sees him coming from a long way off. Wait. Why does the father see him from a long way off? Was he watching for the son to come home?

The father abandons all decorum and picks up his robe and runs to the son. And then he throws a big party!

This is the picture of God's love for us. This is how much you're delighted in.

Okay, so that's great, but I've been singing "Jesus Loves Me" since I was 4 and it still hasn't sunk in. And just because God loves me, doesn't mean that a spouse would ever delight in me.

So, a few thoughts... but all with the caveat that I am not so much an expert as a fellow sojourner along the way.

1. Really, truly understanding that God delights in us frees us up from needing to find that from someone else. We are free to pursue relationships because they bring glory to God and not to fill the need to be delighted in.
2. There is no man in the world who's got remotely anything on God. If God delights in me, there's no man who's too good for me. Not every man will be interested in me, but it's not because I'm not good enough... it's because God has another plan. Oh, and by the way, God promises that he "works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28), so you can trust that plan.

I know. That's still not enough. Here are a few things that I've been doing to let those things really take root:

• Stop the negative self talk. If you're anything like me, you might just have a voice in your head that is rooting for your failure. You smile at a man, and the voice says "careful, he'll never like you." You have a great conversation, and the voice says "you've seen how this worked out in the past. It never ends well." You have to silence that voice and refuse to listen to it. "Take captive every thought to obey Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)
• Meditate on the truth of who you are and how much you are delighted in. My company started getting obsessed with mindfulness and meditation as a part of their wellness program, so I decided to do some research on what meditation looks like as part of the Christian context and the biblical mandate. What I found is that meditation involves memorizing portions of Scripture, and then "chewing" on them. Recite the words in your head, go through each verse and emphasize different words and phrases. Repeat and savor the phrases that are especially meaningful to you. Some passages that especially speak to how much we are loved: Romans 8, Psalm 139, 1 John 3:1-3.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16-21 that we will "know this love that surpasses knowledge". Give yourself grace. The process of sanctification and understanding our adoption as children of God is a lifelong process.

Too Easily Pleased

It would have been the perfect "meet cute."

I was sitting at the bar at an ex-pat Canada Day party, eating poutine, when I caught him hovering in my vicinity. He shared a few laughs as I talked to people past him, but hadn't yet said hello. I finally turned to him, Canadian trivia game in hand, and asked "do you know who these guys are? I think I'm too young to know.*"

We managed to collectively identify all the Canadians pictured and I let him claim the free beer. (Not so much because I was feeling charitable as because I'm not a big beer drinker.) When I was cashing out my tab, he noticed that I was leaving and came over to ask for my phone number.

Indeed, it would have made for a charming story.

But.

Faith is my only deal breaker when it comes to men. The subject of faith had come up fairly early in the evening, and it was clear that we were not on the same page.

I tossed and turned that night as I thought "what if?" My "dating"** life was in the longest dry spell it had seen since I was 16. I had pretty much exhausted every dating site in the city and was firmly in the friend zone with every eligible man at church. What would be the big deal?

Now, I'll pause here because I know there are many out there who are ultimately seeking the same thing I'm seeking, and don't think it would be a big deal. In this particular case, I was wrestling because I knew that my mind was trying to tell me it wasn't a big deal, but my heart was in a place of yearning.

The next night, I went to a worship concert and as we sang the chorus "everything and nothing less... you deserve my every breath, my life, my song... I surrender, I surrender all" on repeat, I slowly found myself yielding.

I had been listening to a lot of Matt Chandler on my commutes the week before. In that particular sermon series, he makes a lot of references to the fact that we want an asterisk on some commands so we can turn to the back, and see an exception with our picture.

But we don't.

I spend a lot of time talking to other single women, and it's easy to think that God has forgotten us or that maybe we are being too narrow in our demands for a "man who loves Jesus." It becomes easy to think that we are the exception, that if we are to meet this "most basic of desires," that we have to compromise.

But I believe that in his love for us, God doesn't make exceptions. His commands are not so that he can exercise a power trip and show us that he's the boss (though he would be perfectly entitled to do so). His commands come out of a place of love and a knowledge about how we were designed to thrive and flourish.

When I long for that "ultimate relationship" and am tempted to settle for an imitation, I am ultimately longing for too little. In The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis says "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

My walk through this life is utterly dependent on grace, and I do not live every day with the right perspective and desire for what God offers me. I do believe that grace and a relationship with Jesus are for more beautiful than my finite mind can process. And so, today, I choose that.

* It turns out it wasn't so much that I was too young as that I had forgotten. I mean, Mr. Dressup was a staple in our household growing up. Casey and Finnegan were just hidden in the background, so I didn't recognize him.
**More on this later. Just a disclaimer that "dating" is probably not the right term for my romantic mishaps.