Once again, this is a serious post. I almost feel like I am failing my blog when I write something serious, but for now this is what is in my head and heart.
My brain has been really sidetracked lately. I go to school each day and get another step closer to applying to the nursing program. Each test is just one more stepping stone to my goal. Each project is just another thing I have to do my best to get an A on. My friends and I have developed OCD when it comes to our grades and seriously get mad at ourselves for anything less than a 100. I mean, even if we do get a 100, we get mad if we missed an extra credit question (and the accompanying chance to get our overall average up another point or two). We want to be the best because we know there are probably two hundred other students trying just as hard to be among the 60 that get selected this coming spring. It's a scary, scary thought. Everything we have been working towards comes down to how we look in an application packet.
Last fall wasn't this scary. We weren't applying yet and still had a year to get everything together. Now it's our turn and all of our dreams come down to how we do this semester, if we do well enough for our teachers to write recommendation letters, how well we do on the entrance exam. It's enough to make you lose sleep (obviously...since I'm writing this at 1:30 AM on a school night).
Anyway, somewhere in the middle of all this school stuff this year, I started feeling sorry for myself that I'm not married yet (yea, this has been the theme of my pity parties this year). Tonight it finally clicked in my head....amid all of my school stress and longing to be with my someone, I've lost sight of where I'm headed and what God has called me to do. I mean, I've known that I belong in the mission field and that I was born to do this, but I've been sitting here wondering..."but God, why? Why can't I have what I want? How come I have to wait? All the other girls are married and are having kids now. When will it be my turn? Why are You requiring this of me when it hurts so bad?" I know I'm not the type to date just to have fun...regardless of how it's viewed, I just don't want to give parts of myself away like that or risk taking from someone else what doesn't belong to me. Does that mean I really have to wait for what seems like is going to be at least another 5 years before I'm granted my heart's desire? I don't want to be thirty and unmarried!
But, as is often the case, it seems that when I'm hellbent on wallowing in my own pity and doubt, God allows me to stay there until I finally see where I've come to. Tonight I think I saw that. I don't know when or where or if I will be married. It doesn't matter. There is work to be done. When I think about it, I would rather spend my life being single and following my Savior to wherever He calls me, than being married and living without Him. He may have someone planned for me. He may not. I don't know. I do know what He has given me right now. He has set a task before me, a mountain to climb, a race to run. I know He is by my side every step of the way. He loves me more than I know. How can I not give up my wishes and desires to a God who willingly gave up so much for me at Calvary?
It seems like being single should just get easier, or that you will get so used to that it won't bother you anymore. Well, you do get used to it, but that doesn't make it any easier. On the contrary, each year that passes just makes it more difficult as more and more of your friends get married and have babies and you still have to find a date to take to weddings and funerals (ok not funerals but it just seemed to fit...). That would make for an awkward first date though...."Yea that was my great aunt Laverne. She was dead for a week before they found her. So what do you do for fun?"
Seriously though, looking back over the last 6 years, it feels like I've been wishing that I belonged to someone, that I shared my life with someone, that my heart was claimed. Well, I do, and it is. You might think that sounds funny. There is no guy sitting next to me, no awesome date set for Friday night. But my heart is spoken for and I belong to Him. And that is beyond treasure, beyond enough. It is well with my soul.
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