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.