How to make a home

It is well past the first day of autumn but we have not shivered until today. Tonight I came home late and turned the lights off, save the string of white lights strung above our mantle. I lit the candles and the fire and am sipping tea while one roommate curls up in a cowl-neck scarf and eats leftover chili. Here is when I feel most at home in what is not home, and what I am coming to learn, may not ever be home.

I read a blog yesterday about a mother in Dubai who is making home there, as best she can, amidst all the things that war against her natural instincts.

The world clatters into our haven and tries to thwart us at every turn; we know it waking up and we know it going to sleep. The poet Richard Wilbur called it "the punctual rape of every blessed day" and the language may be harsh, but the days are nothing if not harsh, no?

I thought as I read her writing, home is hard however you make it. She has children underfoot and a husband to cheer and mountains of laundry and I have none of those things. But I do have bills to pay and a home to keep clean and a car whose check-engine light came on today, flashing at me in a fury. And I do these things alone, which, I sometimes think, is just as hard as doing them with a whole family underfoot.

Who of us chooses our cross and bears it well?

But home is what we make of it and we are all making home into something. This whole summer home has felt like a burning log, something bold and beautiful and soon to be only ashes. That is melodramatic, I'm sure, but how many of you with your picket fences and backyard gardens and daily schedules would handle the division of your home any better? I don't mean to compare, I just mean to say, be blessed and stayed in your covenant family because for some of us the front door of our American dream is a revolving one, always taking someone away.

I have to remember that home is what we make of it, but it is only our home for today. Tomorrow it might not be the same, it might not feel the same, and it might not be what we planned.

I have a friend who is getting divorced this year, nobody told her it would be this hard, she said through tears on the phone last week. I didn't know what to say because I did tell her once that it would be this hard. Another friend lost his wife two years ago. He parents on, but life is not what he expected, he says, and what he plans now for his daughters is that life would be an adventure, surprise built into their life. One more friend plans for her future, but there are so many variables she is learning to hold one hand open and one hand loosely—better to not plan too hard, too much, too deep.

When I was young, I'm not embarrassed, I dreamed of being a homemaker, donning an apron and making soup from leftovers. I still do dream of that in my moments of weakness, when I sit myself in a pile of self-pity and bask in the pool of what I think I deserve. But I am finding more and more that making a home is not so much the decor and menu and chore-charts and laundry. Making a home is making do with what I have today even if what I have today is not what I dreamed of having today.

But it is something.

Tonight it is white lights on the mantle and a lit fire, a roommate in her wool sweater and tea, quiet, calm, full and rich. For tonight I am home.

WHO CAN help US?

A friend asked me recently if I had any thoughts to contribute about what it means for a single person to be fruitful and multiply. It was nicely timed because I'd just written a post on adoption as sons based on the idea that singleness brings with it a barrenness no one wants to acknowledge, so all of that Genesis stuff was fresh on my mind. But then I went to a wedding. And watched a movie about adoption. And RSVPed to a few more weddings. And listened to some friends talk about their new relationships. And held a newborn baby. And suddenly anything I thought I had to say or think about singleness or fruitfulness went the way of hoop skirts and handlebar mustaches, that is to say, extinct.

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I have this other friend. We don't get to see each other often, she lives on the other side of the 70 mile metroplex we call home. But usually all it takes is a glance at one another at church or a text or a simple thought and we're on the same page. She's a talented, beautiful girl, with a talented, godly husband. They live in a beautiful home they've made into a haven. People might envy their idyllic lives, and in some ways, I wouldn't blame those people, this couple has what many people only dream of.

But they don't have a baby.

And that's what they dream of.

She and I, we're the sort of friends who enter into one another's pain, and though it is not the same, it is the same: we both want what we do not have and there is no guarantee for either of us that we will ever get it.

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The longer I am single, the more women come into my life who struggle with infertility, a staggering number of painfully quiet pray-ers.

So I began to listen. I began to listen to their stories, to their mourning, to their agony, to the ways in which they felt inferior or on the exterior or incapable. I began to listen to their tears and their fears. And here is what I am learning:

We are all barren souls, empty wombs, and carved out holes. We, all of us, long for something not yet here and it might be as beautiful as marriage or a baby or it might be a simplistic as a big screen tv or better career. We want. We ache. We ache. Deeply in us for something to satisfy the gnawing inside of us.

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Another friend of mine left our church recently, choosing another church to call home for a season. Why? I asked him. To find a wife, he said. I stared at him—if you're a good man and you can't find a wife at my church, you're not looking to your left or right. But then I realized something: there's a gnawing in him. An ache. A barrenness. A desperateness.

"It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper fit for him."

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I sit in need these days. I wonder how I could ever be a helper fit for anyone and then I remember Christ's words in John: I'm sending my Spirit to you! He will help you, guide you into all truth.

He has made a helper fit for us, all of us.

So friends, I just want you to know that I understand and you understand and more than anything He understands and we, all of us, are called to help. I help my babyless friends by reminding them of God's faithfulness. They help me by reminding me that marriage and a home doesn't equal completion. Women, we help our brothers by being approachable, willing to take risks. Men, you help us by not overlooking what could be the best spouse fit for you.

But more than anything the Holy Spirit helps us all by guiding, teaching, comforting, and filling us full, to overflowing.

You may feel alone, but you are not alone.

[PURE?] ENJOYMENT

"I enjoy your company." Because life is too short to mess around, I admit, I've asked a guy frankly on more than one occasion, "What's your intention?" The conversations are never fun, never comfortable, and never feel very fruitful. But it scratches the itch, gives them the opportunity to 'fess up, and lets me let my heart move on. In about 98% of these conversations I hear this one line: I enjoy your company, but...

This past weekend JR Vassar spoke at a conference for the home-group leaders at my church. He spoke on the Trinity and it was, let me tell you, enjoyable. It was heady and theological, it was convicting and reassuring, and it was life-giving and healing, but more than anything else, it was enjoyable.

He spoke about enjoying the gospel and never have I wanted to simply enjoy someone enjoying the gospel before as I did him. He's a brilliant guy with a deep love for Jesus and the Word, he obviously loves my church family and my pastors deeply, he's the pastor of a church plant in my native north—what is not to enjoy about this guy? But see, he wasn't talking about enjoying him, he was talking about enjoying the gospel—a different thing altogether.

This week, this month, I'll tell you, it's been hard to enjoy the gospel. There are some things weighing on me, family, time management, book details, the heaviness of my job, homesickness, tight finances, roommates, sleep, these things push in and crowd out my joy quickly.

I've started to enjoy things and people who enjoy the gospel, but it's not the same is it? It's not the same as enjoying the gospel. Enjoying the depth and richness that exists in being rescued from the clutches of death, covered with the righteousness of Christ, and called a son or daughter of a King. There's joy there, right there, sitting in that.

Yet I'm too busy enjoying the substitute instead of The Substitute, the creation instead of the Creator, the friend instead of the Groom.

But He's truly is the better choice. He is.

So here's my question to you today: what or who are you enjoying today?

Are you enjoying the company of a girl or guy because you haven't found "the one?" Are you enjoying religious things instead of God Himself? Are you enjoying the attention of your children, your readers, or even your spouse instead of dwelling deepest on the enjoyment that God has in you and you can have in Him?

ADOPTION as SONS

Once I climbed to the top of a Himalayan foothill to watch a sunrise over the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal. The sunrise was brilliant and beautiful, but what I couldn't take my eyes away from was a small girl and her brother who stood in front of their broken-down stone home at the top of that hill. I took her photo and she took my photo, black and white film. And then I put my hand on her head and asked God to give me babies of my own. They did not need to be babies made from love and knit in my womb—I asked Him for babies from other worlds and other hills, babies with black hair and black eyes. I asked Him to make me an adopter.

That was seven Augusts ago and I never knew it would take so long for Him to lend His ear to my cry.

I thought marriage would happen in between then and now.

I thought a baby or three would have been knit already within me.

I thought I would have been there and back so many times, bringing home babies without homes.

But sometimes God lends His ears to our cries and sometimes His answers are, "Not yet."

I have friends who struggle with their womb's inability to make, hold, and keep a baby inside them. I have sat across from them and I have heard their cries, the cry of a mother who feels less a mother because she has no child to mother. And I have felt that angst in me too. Singleness brings with it a form of barrenness, though we won't say that of course. We won't say that because only the married should expect to have progeny, seed.

Last night I think about God and I think about the groaning of creation to be with our Father. I think about how desperately my soul longs for heaven and God and all that is eternal. I think about my adoption into a kingdom like His. I stand in front of my broken down home and he puts His hand on my head and longs to bring me home.

I think about a father who has already adopted his children, but who is waiting to bring us home.

And I think about my Nepali girl and her broken-down stone home, my hand on her head, my ask to God. I thank Him that He has lent His ear, been near to the needy and brokenhearted, the orphan and barren. And I thank Him that what feels far off is a mere moment, a vapor, a breath to Him.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first-fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8.22-23

JOY and the ABACUS

Praise God for the abacus.

When He was dolling out brains and gifts, knitting me together in quiet, He crafted me into a right brain, made me a host of creativity. Math left me crying with my head in my hands through school and college. If it was not for a professor who shut the door of a classroom containing me, him, and two blackboards filled with chemistry equations, promising me we would not leave until I could solve every one of them, I would have never passed CHE101. A faithful friend tutored me for six hours before an algebra final, which I aced, and promptly forgot everything I'd just learned.

So praise God for the abacus.

This ancient tool made for counting was—in the creative bastion of art and literature of my childhood home—used for more than simply adding and subtracting. For hours my hands would spread and separate those colored beads, creating patterns and chaos. I knew it was intended for mathematics, but to me it seemed more a thing of art and beauty.

The concepts of math have always felt far from me. I am always sure that I could manage my way through them if necessary, but I have been clever about my vocational choices and I never double recipes. When I take account of what I need to count, I focus instead on beads of joy, colors and patterns of life in front of me and count them thus.

So when yet another friend brings her heart to the threshold of my inbox, when I sit across from a friend at lunch, when I get a desperate text message from another one, when the trials of our faith are near and close and oh, so painful, you will not find me saying to count it all joy.

Because counting is painful.

And, for me, counting is a process. A long, slow process.

It cannot be rushed or formulated into additions, subtractions, and divisions.

Counting all things joy means taking each bead of sweat, each beautifully painful moment, and each complicated pattern, and it means counting it, touching it, feeling it, and knowing it is part of a whole abacus. But sometimes counting is slow going and that's okay.

Praise God for the abacus, praise Him for tangible numbers and complicated patterns. But praise Him more that His math isn't always our math and sometimes what feels like our subtraction is His multiplication.

SLEEPING ALONE

I wake slowly, face-down, stretching my legs, cupping my toes over the end of the bed, feeling my calf muscles pull and retract. My head is lying flat, on 400 thread count white sheets. I am facing left, the breeze from my open window setting across my face, the window's linen blind pulsing steadily in the same breeze.

I spread my right arm out feeling the empty space in my bed. My heart sinks.

There has never been anyone in this space, but I still feel the void all the same. My bed has never been shared, I have never been cuddled too tightly, or felt the aching space of an evening argument which keeps two hearts and bodies apart. I have never had to fight anyone for the covers and when I am cold, I am cold alone.

I stretch my left arm out, toward the window, rest my hand on the screen. My heart breaks a little more every day. It breaks itself and heals itself, and it does it all under the watchful, loving eye of God, so I am not alone, though I feel alone.

I used to worry I would not be married by 24. Then I worried I would not be married by 29. Now I worry I will never come to terms with always being alone. It is a hard thing to share one's bed with no one and it is a hard thing to wake every morning feeling more undesirable than the night before.

Friends think they are consoling when they say marriage is hard work (who among us thinks it is not?) or when they complain that she steals all the covers or he snores or she likes to cuddle and he only like sex. They think this is consoling.

But it is not.

Because the night comes slowly, every blessed day, like the poet, Richard Wilbur, said, a punctual rape, same in, same out; but morning comes quickly and I spread my arm across this empty space feeling aloneness more than ever before.

Fabs Harford wrote about Fasting from Intimacy and this resonates in me because there is no monster inside of me more ravenous than the one who craves intimacy. I lean across the table in loud restaurants and ask hard questions. I hug tightly without discretion or discrimination. I touch the hands and shoulders of people I love, and sometimes barely know. I lean in. I do this because I am starving for intimacy and I am unafraid of that monster. I know he can kill me. But I know I will starve without his hunger.

Singleness is a beautiful thing and when I take account of the past decade I see a faithfulness to its beauty in my life in a way that only comes from grace, but I also see a succession of tiny funerals every step of the way. A cemetery full of them. Adventures I have had alone. Mornings I have woken alone. Moments I have reveled in alone. Each one bringing joy in its experience and mourning in its completion.

Life is meant to be shared and marriage is not the only way to share life, I know this, but the mystery of two flesh becoming one is a mingling that cannot be known by me, with my bed all to myself, 400 thread count sheets, open window, and quiet morning. And I mourn this.

Tim Keller preached a sermon called Jesus, Lord of the Wine, and he teaches how Christ is the Lord of the wedding feast, how His first miracle was in a wedding, turning water into wine and how this is a sign to us that He is for our joy. And not just our eventual joy, as the old Calvinists would have us believe, but for our present joy, our joy here on earth, in empty beds, empty hearts, and single flesh.

I meditate on this morning before I break my night's fast.

The hunger in my belly a reminder that there is a feast before me, whether it is the feast I envision for my life or not, it is a feast that brings joy somehow and in some way. And there are mornings when it will be hard, like this one. There will be nights when my fast from intimacy is painful and I shake my fist at God, or ignore Him altogether.

But He is for my joy and joy is there too, in the song of birds outside my window, the Roman blind shivering in the breeze, and the 400 thread count sheets, covers all to myself. There is joy there—a small, but ebbing joy.

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Every Single Season

We've been having a spate of perfect days in Texas. I suppose there are no perfect days anywhere, but if they exist, they are present and accounted for here. The skies are clear, a spotless blue, the temperature is 72, the air is sweet and breezy, the sun warm and not wearing out its welcome. Every day I sit outside on our back porch and breathe in sun. Last winter I cozied and busied myself inside with wintery things, trying so desperately to make it feel like a familiar season, but when summer hit and the real cabin-fever set in (who wants to be outside when it's the 68th day of temps above 100?), I wanted those January days back.

This winter weather is getting every bit of me it can.

While I am calling to mind the things for which I'm grateful this week, it seems that singleness is topping that list for real. I italicize that because I have exercised that muscle of gratefulness before, but it has never felt familiar, good or right. It has always felt like a cheat, stealing away the best years of my life, chances for babies, young love and all that.

But the past week I have seen it nothing other than a sweet, sweet gift. I used to be jealous of my friends who married young, fresh faced and fertile, and I think it's worked out well for them. But I wish I hadn't spent my jealously on that.

I say to my dear friend last night, after we laugh at her three-year-old's antics and she challenges and encourages me, "I have literally spent the best years of my life doing things that my younger married friends may never get to do—and I have never been grateful for that. Ever."

I don't know if God has marriage for me someday, plenty of my friends say it will happen and there's always an acquaintance I see at a wedding who nearly pinches my cheek and says "Next time it'll be you!" (Note: if you're pinching the cheeks of 30 year olds and saying that, please stop.) I don't know if my own children are ever in my future. I don't know if a wedding is in my future. I don't know if I'll ever be loved with the sort of love I have looked at jealously. I don't know.

But here's what I know: I don't want to waste this season, this perfectly crafted season. I want to live it large, open, others-minded, with risk, faith, and possibility. I want to live it in its time, fully embracing this gift for this day. I want to keep my eyes on the blessings of this portion and I want to live it as abundantly as the Spirit allows.

Back in New York it's snowing and icing. My favorite people are curled in patchwork blankets and shoveling snow. They're making crock-pot soup and drinking hot tea with honey. It's winter there, a New York sort of winter. But here, in Texas, we're having a different sort of winter and it's not wrong or misplaced or a cheat, it's by design.

And I'm so very, very thankful for it.

The Earth Stands Still

It's hard to know that it's Christmastime here in Texas. The cold is gentle, the rain soft, the ground bare, and I have not set anything under the tree. There are gifts to be sure, but they'll be dispersed through the year. The candlelight service at church helps; we hear about the Advent Past Advent Future, a thousand candles are lit and our faces glow. It feels like Christmas then, for three songs and ten minutes.

A friend and I sat across from one another for a few hours after church. We are not the hiding sort and we both confess first thing that Christmas is hard when you are 31 and single. I don't mean to ask for pity here, Christmas is hard for any number of reasons for some of you and Christmas is everything wonderful for the rest of you. I just mean, at this juncture in our lives, Christmas is hard to bear. We talk about the already and the not yet, we talk about the incarnation, God in flesh coming down to us, we talk about the holy, the hush, the goodness of God and how difficult we make things for ourselves.

There has been one song on repeat for me this week because it is about uncertainty, even amongst certainty.

There is a tension we live in that reckons us broken over and over again because we know the end of the story, but we're still living out the story and it is the living that is hard.

Tonight my campus pastor taught about how the first Advent, the coming of God incarnate was only half the story, but how we often times live as though it is the whole story. We forget the second Advent. We long for it, but forget that it's coming.

We forget that what we do in the hush of today is holy in heaven because of what He has done and what He will do.

I come home and light a fire, some candles, put my song on repeat.

I want to live in the tension, but I want to live in today too. I want to know that it's His love for my today that brought the first Advent and it's His same love for my tomorrow that brings the second. But I want to know that even though it does not feel like Christmastime, it is today and today is enough.

Tonight the earth stands still, all over it, there are families stopping and gathering and celebrating something.

Tonight I'm celebrating that I do not know what tonight will bring, but I know it is full of promise because He kept the first Advent and I eagerly wait for the second.

Married to Gladness

I've worn my share of satin and strapless gowns, carried bouquets and endured updos. The old adage "three times a bridesmaid, never a bride" used to sting, but it's been about 12 times now, so I don't let it bother me anymore.

My best friend gets married in two weeks. A crazy, whirlwind, surprise relationship. We talk about how six months ago we couldn't imagine this happening. Now we can't imagine it not.

She's not the first best friend to get married, there have been plenty of those. But there is something uniquely different in my heart about our friendship and her marriage. And you might be surprised when I tell you it's gladness.

That's all, just gladness.

For every friend who has walked the aisle, there has been a stab in my heart. A knowledge that things were changing and I was not only powerless to keep them from changing, but I was also powerless in joining along in their adventure. Now, as friend after friend has gotten married, had one, two, three babies, bought homes, fought through finances, planted gardens, settled down, remodeled, I've felt that kinship drift down the way of life and growth.

I spend my weekend mornings alone, sipping coffee and writing. I work in an office 9-5 every day and spend my evenings doing whatever I want. The thought of having to wrestle over finances doesn't even occur to me, it's simple and easy when it's just me. The only discussions about birth-control are hypothetical and shrugged off. My life, I know, is easy, enviable, maybe, at times by my once white-dress wearing friends.

I've envied their lives too. Trust me. (Though I suppose that's not hard to believe.) There's something about stability, deep love and marrying your best friend, raising kids, planting gardens, even arguing about finances, that is just so beautiful to me. I want that. I do. 

But not at the expense of gladness. 

I've been surprised at how easy the gladness has been for me this time around. How every discussion with her boyfriend about rings, and what she liked and didn't like, every bit of talk about her beautiful new/old home, and every time I couldn't help but smile at her happiness, I've been surprised at how easy it's been to genuinely feel that.

I really mean that: surprised. I sometimes want to pinch myself, ask myself if I'm sure it'll stick, but let me assure you, it'll stick. Here's how I know:

Singleness doesn't scare me anymore. Oh, it's not a state I relish or dream about being my life-portion. It's not something that I think will be the most fun, most selfless, most adventurous way of life. It's not something I don't think about when I am alone and feeling it acutely. I just mean, it doesn't scare me anymore.

We have settled into a comfortable routine, singleness and me. I hope that routine never turns me into the crazy cat lady, I hope it turns me into a happy, joy-filled, adventurous single person, one who is filled with gladness at every physical representation of the Christ and His bride. I hope that the comfort of my singleness pushes me to productivity and points to Jesus. I hope it shouts the gospel. That, like Paul said about the single woman, I would be concerned about the things of the Lord, how I can please Him.

This would make me the most glad. I think.

(green wedding shoes)

I'm sans vehicle this week and I can't say I'm sad about that. It's just routine maintenance, loose ends and loose screws, nothing to worry about. But the trusty mechanic is a 40 minute drive away (you have to trek for worthwhile things like trusty mechanics these days, especially if you're a single girl in a strange city), and so the whole situation is a bit of a hassle.

One I'm happy for, though, to be honest.

I said to a friend yesterday morning that asking for help is hard, I'd almost rather do anything else than swallow my pride and say, "Will you help me?"

It's not the advice asking or the wisdom seeking that's difficult, I'll gladly get counsel from anyone. I know enough to eat the melon and spit the seeds. It's the actual physicality of the help, the action of help, the working hands, the rubber meeting the proverbial road. Or, in this case, the rubber literally meeting the road in the form of hitching rides all week.

It's so hard for me.

My parents raised me to be a pioneer and not the wander in circles sort either, but the real get your hands dirty, show the world what a work ethic is, brave new worlds sort of pioneer. They raised us to be self-reliant and resourceful. This works well best when applied to seven boys, which they had; it works less well when when applied to one girl, which they also had; and it works least well when that one girl reaches age 30 and has found herself a very independent sort who needs help often, but doesn't like to ask for it.

Relate?

The nagging dislike of the ask rears its head most often in regard to all things cars, but don't let that fool you. If I needed help with everything else, it would rear its head with it all. Pride hath no particulars, it seeps into every corner and strangles even the most able.

It's just that unless I have to ask for help, I wouldn't know that the pride was there, glaring, waiting to pounce, willing to pounce, wanting to pounce.

Sometimes we need a finger pointing back at us to show us what's already there.

My finger is my car. It always has been. And I think it probably always will be.

I am paralyzed by the unknown and everything beyond a speedometer, a clutch and a gas-tank is unknown.

Here's the clincher, though: I want to keep it that way.

Because I'm a learner, and I'm convinced that if I put my mind to it, I could figure out enough to get me by, to not walk into the crusty mechanic's shop with "I'm a Single Girl" written on my forehead. I'll bet I could throw out words like carburetor and radiator and mechanicator and other -ator words and impress them a bit. Probably impress myself a bit.

But here's what I've decided to do instead: be ignorant.

I shrug my shoulders, I confess that I know nothing, I turn my hands palm up, I beg rides, I ask for a liaison, I hand off my estimates, and I ask questions with my eyes. I give blank stares. I do this on purpose.

Well, sort of on purpose.

Because I need to need to ask for help. I know this. If I don't need to need to ask for help, I will craft my self-made kingdom and walk out a self-reliant life, and I will never have a finger pointing back at me, reminding me of my need.

This isn't about cars, you probably knew that. But it is still a bit about cars. It's a bit about finding the places in our lives where we feel raw and exposed, where our souls are given opportunity to worry and don't take it. It's about being intentional about letting our needs and requests known and feeling the weight of being here on earth, where we're not finished yet.

It's about oil pans and mufflers, yes, but more it's about swallowing my pride and asking for a ride. It's about tipping the mechanic well, because he knows something about which I've remained ignorant and should be valued for it. It's about shrugging my shoulders and saying, I don't know and I don't need to know.

He numbers the hairs on my head and cares about fallen swallows, surely He cares for me.

It's somewhat of an oddity to me that the most viewed entries I've written are: on singleness and not highly commented on. It doesn't bother me that comments lack (though I LOVE connecting with my readers, so if you're reading feel free to give a shout out!), but I think it's a bit telling that those entries are garnering high traffic with comparatively little response. Here's my hypothesis: we're embarrassed.

Yup. That's it. Just that. I know, my hypotheses are highly complicated.

It's embarrassing to be 30 and still single when your much younger friends are planning weddings or being fathers or homeschooling their kids or sending out yet another birth announcement. It's embarrassing to be the one who hurts on the inside, just a bit, when yet another friend says "I do" and you're the single girl in the line beside her. Not hurt at her, just that tiny twinge of longing. It's embarrassing to ask the questions out loud and not sound like you're complaining or longing or fearful. It's embarrassing to not know if today's portion is forever's portion.

(me on the fly)

Here's some encouragement to you, though, especially if you're one who stumbled onto this blog because of a link to a post on singleness:

First, you're not alone. I was in a meeting the other day with some single leaders and the percentage of singles at my church was mentioned. I did a doubletake, a say what? I go to a huge church. Well, huge for any northeasterner! But between six and nine thousand people in the DFW area call The Village Church home and of them, about 1/3 to 1/2 are single. So here's what I want to say to you, you are not alone, even if you feel alone. You're not. I was surprised by that number, especially since I get around, I know a lot of people, but I was suddenly staggered by how many people I don't know! So please don't feel alone. The facts say you're not. Go meet some people.

Second, don't be afraid. I don't know what you're afraid of. I don't know if it's loneliness that keeps you fearful. I don't know if it's the future that makes you afraid. I don' know if it's the fear of failure, or of being too much, or not enough. I don't know what it is, but please don't be afraid. We often delude ourselves into thinking that we'll feel perfect confidence when a man takes care of us or a woman trusts us, but the truth is that you've already been loved perfectly and that's the only thing that can drive away fear. Don't be afraid of tomorrow, tomorrow is already taken care of, walk faithfully and joyfully today.

Third, don't be embarrassed. If you're not alone and you're not afraid, you have nothing to be embarrassed by. You have the opportunity for community and you have the opportunity to be a confident pursuer or confidently pursued. And, sisters, even if you're not being pursued by a man, trust me when I say that your confidence will draw other girls to pursue you for discipleship and communion. You will have the opportunity to teach them to be unembarrassed by their singleness, but to live without fear about tomorrow.

Listen, if you're here, reading over my shoulder because you're single and you're looking for community or need prayer for your fear, I want to know you. I do. I know that might seem forward of me or you might not believe me, but believe me. I want to know you. You can comment here or shoot me an email me here. I will pray for or with you. I will tell you to hop on a plane and come visit me. I will try my best to encourage you. But more than that--I will point you to Jesus who is the only hope for your deepest longings to know and be known.

He's not surprised by your singleness.

He's not scrambling to put together a plan you've somehow messed up.

He's not fumbling over details and times and dates.

And He's not embarrassed by you.

Unpacking yesterday’s post:

I read once in a book four things to remember about who you marry.

If you marry, you marry a sinner. That is, you cannot escape the sheer fact that your spouse will sin against you and in front of you. He or she will fail you time and time again in certain areas. You will feel acutely the weight of their sin by the fact that covenant have made you one.

If you marry, you marry a man/woman. You marry someone who is perfectly designed to be just that. Ill-equipped, very literally, to be anything but what they are created to be. And that means that he may not understand why you fuss with makeup, but will probably appreciate it. And you may not understand why he grunts on the bench-press, but you'll appreciate it too. He won't want to share every detail of his day and you won't won't understand his primal urges. That's okay. You're not supposed to be the same.

If you marry, you'll be married to a husband/wife. This means, simply, that wives, you ought to respect and submit to your husband, not to every man who has leadership gifts. And husbands, you're called to love and cherish your wife, not every girl who looks at you with doe eyes and is needy. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't want to join together in helping your single sisters and brothers out, but intrinsically, you're weren't meant to do that with every man or woman. Just your one.

If you marry, you marry a person. A real, live, living, breathing, thinking human being. With feelings. And needs. Some as simple as eating three times a day, some as complicated as being heard thoroughly and fully. But it's a person. Just that. A person. Simple.

(everything love)

I'm writing this because I see a tendency among singles in churches: we're getting our emotional, spiritual, mental, and sometimes physical fill within the context of community and it's keeping us just satiated enough that many men are putting off seeking wives and women are feeling frustrated by the feeling of "putting themselves out there."

Stop seeking perfection in your future or present spouse: reflect the image of God, live a fruitfilled and multiplying life, and marry the one who is not perfect, but the one perfectly crafted for you.

It's a soul pornography, I think, this rush we have to fit every need and sit, abased, in our lethargy. To gain our fill on something that isn't ours to own or hold, and to act surprised when it is taken from us. I talk about community and here I know I walk a fine line.

Because I love communing. I love giving and sharing and having all things in common. I love that.

But not at someone's expense. And not, especially, when they are left at the end not knowing it was at their expense.

I talk about the tendency I see around in my single brothers and sisters, to give and take and cover and feed and encourage and fill the needs that, in some ways, were made to be filled by one man or one woman. It pains me to say it, because I love and long for Acts 3 in more ways than I can possibly say in this place. I long to go from house to house, breaking bread, sharing things in common, all for the good of the gospel, for the spreading of the word.

Instead, though, I find myself fat on the feast.

I'm not even sure how to say this, how to phrase it, what I know is this, though: If you are single and feeling it, feeling less than everything you think a man or woman wants in you, please know this: you weren't designed to compete with a community of people who together embody the perfect person.

Brother, you cannot be tall, dark, handsome, handy with a wrench and a guitar, gentle and funny, the life of the party and the deep intellectual. You cannot be impassioned with a sense of mission and empowered with a trust fund eight zeroes long. You cannot dunk well and run marathons and counsel wisely and write treatises. You cannot be equipped with cooking skills and a twinkle in your eye and a maddening ability to salsa to any sort of music. You aren't that good.

You're just one man.

And you, sister, you're not going to have a perfect golden tan and be a gorgeous blond, tall and petite at the same time. You cannot cook a delectable feast and give any guy a run for his money on the volleyball court. I dare you to be completely yourself, comfortable in any clothing and yet also look the part, perfectly coiffed for every occasion. You are not a good flirt as well as a humble communicator. You cannot love children and have read every classic written. You are not the most witty and it's nearly impossible for you compete with the girl next to you, because you'll never be like her. You aren't that perfect.

You're just one woman.

(julie harmsen)

It's soul pornography, what we've done, creating communities in which our every need is filled by ten or twelve women and men. Ryan, to fix the car; Jon, to swing dance with; Peter, to talk deeply to; and Mark, to shoot some hoops with. Becky, to cook the feast; Erin, to make you laugh; Beth, to give the pushback; and Sylvia, because she's easy on the eyes.

You were meant to reflect one God. His character and personhood is the only perfection to be found. Only in your humble imitation of Him will your joy and His glory be shown through you.

Sister, you were not meant to fill a dozen dreams from a dozen men and Bro, you are most likely the perfect man the less perfect you are.

Community isn't meant to illustrate the gospel, not fully. But marriage is.

Stop marrying the community and marry the person.

We are wiling away our Sunday in good ways, with coffee and conversation. Honest questions and solid answers. Communing in life.

It is good that The Bird and I decided to do our series on community this week and I hope you'll keep coming back for it each day this coming week. I say it is good, though, because it has been a challenge for me in this season.

I am built for community. We all are, I think. We are built for communing and sharing and partaking, mourning and rejoicing with. We are built to need.

But there has never been a time in my life where community has felt further from me. I am from a culture where doors are always open, extra space at the dinner table is always made, schedules are cleared for relationships and where personal space is rarely a consideration (sometimes to a fault).

In my last home I never knew who would be sleeping on our couch, floor, or upstairs room when I woke up in the morning. We lived outside in. We lived transparently and openly with anyone who would cross the threshold of Home. All were welcome.

I miss this life.

No matter how often I say, hey, our doors are always open, it just doesn't seem to happen here in the way in which I'm accustomed.

This isn't bad. It would be bad if it were ongoing. But I understand that I am new here and things take time.

But I'm not content to have it stay this way.

So I am grateful for a visiting brother this week--one of the people who has taught me through blood, sweat and tears, that God sets the lonely in families and sometimes he uses lone individuals to BE family. I have always been set in families, my entire life, my natural family, my church family, my makeshift family--all these groups of people who take literally the mandate "be fruitful and multiply" even without the transference of genes and DNA.

I am the product of families.

And I am learning so deeply that I am creating a family even now. I am investing in my future family by creating family right now.

I do not have to wait for natural or adopted children, a husband's vision, a life shared in marital covenant. I begin now to create family, habits that I want my home to be identified by, a spirit that I want my habitat to encompass. I begin now to seek lonelies and create havens. My family. My community.

Living Single

Today I want to unpack a little more what I meant when I said yesterday, "Do not limit yourself to work minimum wage jobs 'waiting on the Lord to bring the man of your dreams.' What are your dreams for today? What is God putting in your heart today? Do that! Pursue that wildly and confidently." I think about this a lot because I have spent a very good portion of my life "saving myself and preparing myself" for marriage. This is not to say that I sat home making potholders and pining away for all the ways in which I could be a good wife and mother. No. I mean to say that I wrote lists of what I wanted in a husband when I was 15 and was disappointed to find that at age 19, there were still no prospects around. By age 24, I'd given up hope of being married and just decided to pursue a life of radical singleness, which, for me, meant I spent a lot of years yearning for contentment in the way I understood it at that point.

I got my college degree (two in fact!), spent a chuck of life in Central America, traveled a lot, budgeted to the penny, served my church, tried desperately to be the sort of undistracted single person that Paul says is possible. I describe those years of my life as years with blinders on. I was determined to keep myself undistracted from the siren call of marriage and motherhood.

When my pastor preached a sermon including a biblical definition of contentment, I felt that my world was about to be radically changed and the old radical was nothing more a wannabe. He described contentment like this: Doing what you're able to do with what you have available to do it. Until that point, blinders on, I'd just done what I was able to do. Just put my hand to the plow, kept my eyes on the goal (being undistracted), determined, resolute. After that definition I realized that though I was doing what I thought I was able to do, I was not using all of what was available to me!

Unpacking that first statement above, I want to talk about what we single women tend to say and the way in which we can tend to walk. Here's what we ask often: How can we do everything that we want to do in life and not become too good for any possible prospective spouse?

First, let's look at Sarah. The Bible says she did what was right in the sight of the Lord without any fear. In the same way we do the right thing without fear that we're shortchanging or outdoing what God has planned for us. That is our radical calling! To find a woman who is living a life free from fear is to find a happy, content, vibrant woman. She is radical in the sense that she is a rarity. This is undistractedness according to Paul (I Corinthians 7)!

Second, instead of thinking of all the ways you're limiting the pool of men who won't be scared off by your wisdom, knowledge, and college degrees, instead think of the limitless God you are serving. Do not pursue wisdom for the sake of wisdom, pursue it for the sake of the gospel. In the same way, do not continue in ignorance, skirting issues and feigning stupidity, because you are afraid that a guy won't be attracted to someone who equals or surpasses him intellectually. The gospel has the power to change us and we should never limit the ways in which it will change us. Desire after wisdom. Dig deeply for it.

Thirdly, in a practical sense, it is tempting to do one of two things,

1. Gather everything you think you will need for the rest of your life so that you can live a comfortable, middle class American lifestyle (career, house, dog, car, savings account, etc.) as a single person

or

2. Put off everything you want in life in hopes of a marriage someday (dishes, home, job, etc.).

In the first you are over-prepared for the life you now lead, single and unattached! Let yourself be unattached! Untie yourself from the pride of life that says if you do not have these things you are unstable and uncared-for. Live risky and flexible, and let the Lord surprise you in the ways in which He will provide for you.

In the second, you are placing your hope so securely in marriage that you are missing the opportunity to serve and practice hospitality today. Visit a thrift store and buy some plates. Make whatever place you inhabit a home, inviting and warm. Are you working a job you hate in hopes that someday you'll be rescued by a customer who turns out to be the man of your dreams? No. Search your heart and find out what desires you have that can be fulfilled today and then walk through every open door in your path until a door closes.

Too often we all are too concerned that we are going to fudge this master plan of God's if we misstep or take a risk, but God is so sovereign and so good. He isn't waiting for you to walk through the wrong door so he can slap your wrist and send you right back out of it. All things work together for good for those who love God.

So love God! Love Him and love what He's doing in your life today! Instead of being so preoccupied with lining your ducks up, prepare yourself for the surprise of His love toward you in unexpected places and ways.

_________________________

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