The Single Blog

          I have yet to meet a girl who doesn’t want to be married.  I’ve been told they’re out there I just have yet to meet them.  I know though that we are all created to love and to be loved.  Sure I have a lot of growing to do so I’m not impatiently banging down the door of Heaven for my perfect match.  At the same time, I know girls who got married when they were 18 and didn’t have the know-how or experience.  Is it one of those waiting things I’ll never understand?  I don’t think so.  What is it, then, about this waiting season, that the Lord is doing in my heart?

            Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s fully possible to fathom the “whys” of God.  As humans we like to have a checklist and when we’re all done we get rewarded.  But it usually doesn’t work like that.  “So God, if I have x, y, and z in order, you’ll give me a husband?”  God does not operate on our clocks!  

            Remember how Hannah was barren and watched as her husband had children by another woman?  And how the woman laughed at her?  Where’s the justice in that, God?  Yet after much time he opened her womb.  I can’t explain that story to you.  Only Hannah understood in the end how much God loved her that he waited until the exact right moment to give her what she desired.  That being said, here are just a few things I think the Lord has in store for my singleness and time of waiting.

            One thing I think he’s doing is revealing who the guy really is.  Every girl has a desire for a husband.  I am not ashamed to admit that when I was little I was boy crazy.  At the tender age of 4 I had a crush on Curly from Oklahoma.  Some years later, my imaginary friends were imaginary boyfriends.  Yet, did I, back then, really know what I wanted?  Were men real human beings or just imaginary knights in shining armor?  It’s taken some time, but I think I’m beginning to understand what expectations are important to keep and what I need to toss in the unrealistic bin. (Side note: I can’t tell you what yours should and shouldn’t be.  That’s up to you and the Lord.  I’m tired of people dictating what others’ expectations should be.  Let it be.)

            Also, without a husband to care for me I’m learning interdependence.  The Lord has been teaching me how to lean on him and trust him for everything I need.  He’s my husband!  I can tell you I’ve definitely enjoyed being independent for a season.  Yet I know I can’t do it alone!  I know He needs to sustain me and bring me a community to surround me and fight the good fight with me.

            Another thing God is doing is creating desire.  Allen Hood told the story of God creating Eve in such a dramatic way, I’ll never forget it.  He played Adam naming all the animals.  Each time he named one, he was looking for his helpmate.  Each time he got more and more frustrated.  “Come on, God, where is she?  Elephant.  Tiger.  Agh!”  My writing does his sermon injustice, his illustration was to show that God waited to in order to create that deep ache in Adam so that when Eve appeared it was so much more amazing.

            Ladies, isn’t it better to stick to God’s timetable?  Don’t we believe that what he has in mind is infinitely better than anything we could ever dream?  Match.com has nothing on the God of the universe who knit you together in your mother’s womb.  He truly wants the best for us!  In all of these things I am learning, I realize that I am already beginning to fill my greatest calling: partnering with the Lord’s heart for my husband.  After marriage we are called to that.  Why not start now?  Why not begin to ask the Lord who this man really is (his hang-ups, his destiny, his dreams)?  Why not allow the Lord to create a deep, holy desire for matrimony in us?  Above all, let the Lord minister to your heart.  You’ll be amazed at the treasures that you find.

Am I really in control here?

         “It’s ok. I’m in control of this relationship.”  I remember telling my friend when he got justly upset at some comments a young man had made towards me.  Yet this is the same thing I said a year earlier when I was in a very similar relationship.  Perhaps a little more guarded this time, I still felt it my missionary duty to continue to be friends with this person.  I thought I was in control and nothing could get out of hand.

            Fast forward, I just got accelerated into a mountaintop season of perspective.  Now I am seeing my life through a different lens.  Even though I grew up in the church and had every reason to seek out good and healthy relationships (and did), I had already settled for two emotionally (actually three) abusive ones.

             I was shocked when I googled emotional abuse to write this blog because I never recognized my feeling of being taken advantage of as such.  My two biggest excuses were “It’s no big deal” and “I’m in control.”  Here’s the worst one: “But he needs me.”  Woah!  I just sang a song from Oliver about that.  Yes, yes I do know something about abuse.

Signs that you’re not in control:

You feel manipulated

You feel like you have been de-valued

You are being ordered around

You feel belittled

            Thank God for community, right?  These are the ones who rallied around me and said, “This is not what’s best for you.”  When one of my guy friends said, “Get out of the relationship.  He is way out of line,” I noted their words and really prayed about them.  However, I analyzed their motives and thought they were being a bit too overprotective.  As stated above, unfortunately these two times I didn’t listen as well as I should have.

            I’m not going to say that I was not wise.  Especially the second time, I think I was very wise in a lot of the ways I handled the friendship.  It was of course under different circumstances.  This time I actually fought back.  I stood up for myself in more ways than I did before.

            However, the wisest thing to do in these situations is to physically GET OUT.  I was so blinded by my missionary love that I took a lot of the abuse.  In this situation God gave me an immense amount of pure, Christ-like love for him.  I therefore concluded that it was my duty to love him into church.  I was blinded by this unconditional love and was unable to see the truth that I needed to leave.

            In this I am learning an important lesson: I am not in control.  Wounding from my past is allowing me to be controlled by other people.  It goes much deeper than people pleasing. (If you want to know the details of these stories, please just ask me in person.)

            Fortunately, there is a God who is really in control and he loves me so much!  Each time I got abused he got fed up and physically removed the threat.  I am always removed from the situation.

            I was really incensed against men who mistreat women before I sat down to write this.  It is not ok for anyone (male or female) to continue to be mistreated in relationships.  There’s a righteous anger coming out of me today as I came face to face with unrighteousness and perversion once again but with new eyes.

            I’m going to make a bold declaration today.  The cycle stops here.  I like to present my readers and myself with an alternate list of signs that you are in control of a healthy relationship.  I found these on a university’s counseling center’s website and I thought they were very insightful:

Basic Rights in a Relationship

•       The right to good will from the other.

•       The right to emotional support.

•       The right to be heard by the other and to be responded to with courtesy.

•       The right to have your own view, even if your partner has a different view.

•       The right to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.

•       The right to receive a sincere apology for any jokes you may find offensive.

•       The right to clear and informative answers to questions that concern what is legitimately your business.

•       The right to live free from accusation and blame.

•       The right to live free from criticism and judgment.

•       The right to have your work and your interests spoken of with respect.

•       The right to encouragement.

•       The right to live free from emotional and physical threat.

•       The right to live free from angry outbursts and rage.

•       The right to be called by no name that devalues you.

•       The right to be respectfully asked rather than ordered.

Friends, lets prayerfully grab a hold of these.  They’re like God’s promises over you.  “I want you be in a relationship that looks like me and my church.  I want my perfect love reflected in you.  You shall behold me as I am holy in pure and holy love.”

Relationship rights taken from this website

http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/relationship-problems/emotional-abuse/

“Can’t you hear when you go off-key?”

I was a part of a fascinating vocal workshop once upon a blue moon where I heard the instructor challenge one of the students.  I can still hear his shrill voice as he asked the question.  I thought, “Um, no.  She can’t.  Give her a break.  Obviously she’s not a singer.  Just tell her she did ‘ok’ and let her get back to her day job.”  Little did I know, he was actually doing her a favor.

            A few minutes later, he was working with her, making her sing slowly, line by line each painstaking note.  Something magical happened when she did this.  She actually sang on key!

            (Since then I have worked with a few young singers and noticed the same thing.  Most people aren’t tone deaf.  They’ve just allowed themselves to get away with singing wrong just because it’s easier.)

            Now, singing the correct pitches or whatever they’re called is not a problem for me.  So why do I bring this adorable story up?  The answer is that while I was reading my last blog, I heard that line in my head.  Of course, it came out of nowhere but it made complete sense to me.

            I’m not a great writer.  What I mean to say is that writing does not come naturally to me.  Thoughts and how to organize them or emotions and how to make them sound colorful are things that I am good at.  I am horrified by how many grammatical mistakes and plain old bad writing I let myself get away with though.  I realize that the way I write is for writers like singing off key is to singers.  Sure, it could happen even to the best of them.  But they practice painstakingly and edit to make sure that it does not.

            All this to say, after reading my last blog I am convicted that I do not love my writing enough to give it all it demands: to proof read more than once, to make it beautiful and not just adequate.  I want to be an artist and an effective communicator.  I want to sing on key. 

My Thoughts on the movie The Artist

I know what you’re thinking.  I know, I know.  I should have watched the movie ages ago.  The truth is I kept putting it off because I knew I would be a weeping mess.  Guess what?  I was a weeping mess.  It was a good weeping mess though, the kind where you get most of your thinking done.

            The writing was so full of symbolism that I felt like I was in a Shakespearean play.  I love stories with things that mean multiple things.  For example, the writer cleverly chose his hysterical dog to represent the main character.  The dog obviously does not speak and is multiple times overlooked.  However he plays a very important role.  Even the physical proximity of the dog to him in each scene is telling of his emotional state.  When he strokes his dog it is almost as if he is stroking his own ego.

            The artistry of the film itself goes without saying.  Perhaps my favorite scene is when George notices things making noise in his dressing room for the first time and how much it jolts him.  The fact that the scene where he leaves the studio is filmed on a staircase with her above him is just one of the many brilliant shots the cinematographer carefully portrayed.  She was above him, moving up in this fast paced business while he was moving down, on his way out.

            The healthy emotional perspective behind the film goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway).  The past does need to be let go and sometimes we need to swallow our pride.  However, the past should be recognized as important as it paved the way to the future.

            The most interesting thing to me was George’s tragic flaw.  It was fascinating to watch his downward spiral.  He loved himself but that very love of himself made him loathe himself.  He desperately needed for the world to love him but in this new world he felt like the one-trick pony whose trick was outdated.  He lived as a victim.

            It is definitely true of artists to be so driven by their own egos that they cannot move forward.  This hit home for me.  A friend of mine explained to me that I’m all or nothing.  Either I love myself because I am adored or I hate myself because I am not. 

            George also let his marriage dissolve because he is so focused on himself and his own problems.  Like him, I have the tendency to take people for granted who want to love me because I’m so concerned with being adored by the world.

            At the end of the film I knew that it was aptly named.  This film was not just about one man.  It was not a historical look at the emotional trauma caused by the talkies taking over old film-star’s lives.  It was about the collective artist or, to put it another way, every artist.  How should we react in such a quickly growing field?

            When we get disillusioned, we need to re-invent ourselves.  We need to start thinking creatively again.  We need to start thinking outside of ourselves.  Most importantly we need to do.  Stop living in the past.  Start living now.