SINGLESOMETHING (From the Archive)
A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 2 Issue 10 originally published in October 1994
This past month marked a very special anniversary in my lite. I celebrated twenty-six consecutive years of breathing. It will be followed in a few short months by my nineteenth anniversary for being allowed to handle scissors, my eighteenth anniversary for blowing nasal milk bubbles, and my sixteenth anniversary for when I was first single.
Certainly I was single earlier, but that's just about when it started to matter. No true man even considers marriage until he’s “the big ten.” At that point, he begins to consider it heavily as a source of both nausea and nightmares.
Even at the ripe old age of fifteen, "hearing bells” meant it was time for a taco. But now the big "two-six" has fallen and, like my 1973 Atlanta-Fulton County library copy of Daniel Defoe’s "Robinson Crusoe," I would be past due. Thankfully, I have also just celebrated my first anniversary of marriage: a constant reminder that I am no longer single. I am now a double.
So, here I am, twenty-six years old, looking back upon what I once considered a deadline. The closure to my singularity. Marriage. The Bible says that the institution of marriage itself intended to be a picture of Christ's love for the church. Personally, I never saw the correlation
until the past year. As a child, this comparison stated nothing more to me than the fact that we would be with Jesus forever. As I grew, I realized that it referred to an intimacy that Christ desired. Now, I realize that we truly cannot exist without Him.
The problem remains, however, that so much of the church is just dying to stay "single." There are many plusses to the act of being alone. There is no one to be blamed by and no one to enjoy.
There are no tough words, no kind words, and no minced words, but most importantly; absolutely no specified responsibility toward anyone. We call ourselves "bachelors by choice” while crudding up something God intended to be holy with hidden agendas and personal secrecies.
Certainly, one reason that the church is still filled with injustices, indiscretions, and egomaniacs is due tot he severe lack of personal accountability and commitment to both the church and the husband Jesus Christ. As I have learned in the real process of marriage, it is those vital elements kept secret from the other that lead to destruction.
If we continue to shirk our side of the “marriage” and never reveal our true challenges, true heart, and true self to the husband, we will continue to bask in the comfortable facade of living on our own. We will continue to wallow in the place where we never change because it would
be too darn uncomfortable to get used to the God perspective.
My original challenge in finding a mate was that I was looking for someone who fit every element of me rather than looking for someone who would help my challenges to change. There are many old maids and old men in Christianity who are still looking for the perfect shoe to fit their deformed feet in the happy hopes that they will be accepted for who they
are. We will never change as a body of Christ until we realize singularly that who we are may not be all that wonderful just yet. We love the thought of being in God’s perfect will because we love the thought of being perfect. We aren’t always so hip on letting Him do what He will.
There are no easy roads. The path to Christ is a narrow one. We will not become the perfect bride by shopping for a comfortable self-acceptance in a house with hymns and a steeple. We will only truly hear wedding bells when we have accepted the pain of realizing that somewhere inside each and every one of us there is something that can be better and closer to God, and that “something" won't be remedied until we take a chance and make a true commitment that looks far beyond what we have been and realizes our place in the healing arms of our true Husband.
Next: “The Hot Coffee House of Trout” A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 2 Issue 11 originally published in November 1994