continued from the post... singleness [part 2]: the idol revealed...
as i have learned to trust the lord more, i finally became okay with examining why i was so afraid of being single. there are two main fears that lie behind my inability to be content with singleness.
fear # 1: something is wrong with me
there has to be a reason i am not married, so something must be wrong with me. perhaps i am just not ready or i am too independent. socially awkward. unattractive. too strong. you name it, it has crossed my mind. this lie that something is wrong with me is self-imposed but fed quite regularly by the enemy and compounded with promised solutions in the world. some times it can be fed by those around me who treat me differently because i am not married and cannot understand their life. sometimes, i feel like just a young kid waiting to grow up and be an adult. my friends have all spun the wheel in the game of life successfully and i am still one pink peg in the station wagon waiting for my turn. to add even more doubt, there are others who love me but who feel sorry for me and want to know why i am not married. i begin to ask that same question and my only answer is that something has got to be wrong with me. this of course is not true.
the correct answer to why i am not married is that god has not written this as part of my plan. but that is too scary and out of my control because what if is never part of my story?????? so i will refuse to believe it and come up with tangible solutions that i can do something about. but over the last few months the lord has been chipping away at this fear. i had to admit it first and quit trying to fix it on my own. he has shown me that in him, i lack no good thing! that his spirit resides in me. that though i have flaws and many things to work on, he is refining me. that i am fully loved and accepted by him, not because he feels sorry for me, but because he has chosen me! i am his beloved!! and for the first time in my life, i found that more satisfying that the affirmation of another person. that i was normal, a sinner, but not some weird person beyond being loved.
fear #2: i am missing something huge in life...
as i continued searching through my fears, i realized that i still held marriage as some magical end all in life. that if i did not get married i was going to miss out on something so big that it would be detrimental to me and my life experience. that my desires would never be fulfilled and i would be in want for the rest of my single/miserable existence. yes, of course i will miss out on certain experiences if i never get married (sex being number one on the list), but the lord has been faithful to show me that he will satisfy all of my desires, even physical desires. i had heard this before, but i always thought the people that said it were weirdos. however, i have actually found it to be true. when i trust in him, delight in him, and fear him, i will lack no good thing and he will indeed satisfy me.
the thing that makes this hard to believe is that he does not always satisfy my desires with what i want or in the way i want. since things do not go down as i thought they would, i panic and fear that god will not come through and i will always be lacking something. i forget the scriptures and the promises he has made to me in his word. i refuse to believe them because they are not coming true the way i want or in a way i can see.
so the root of this fear, is that i do not believe in my heart that the lord will take care of me and that he is indeed enough apart from his blessings. that he loves me, that he can satisfy my desires, etc. so rather than trusting, i hold onto this idea of marriage as the end all - half looking for god to satisfy my desires and half looking and hoping they will be satisfied in a man. all of this is of course under the mask of delighting myself in the lord.
so how do i fight these fears?
to be continued...
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