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.
