Forever a Foreigner

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2

I never expected to leave university single.

I didn’t really even give it much thought. I expected marriage to just sort of…happen. Growing up, it seemed like all the married adults I was close to had the same story: they went to college, dated, found “the one,” graduated, and then married. Looking back, I smile at my naïveté.

Imagine my chagrin when I, too, went to college, and then found myself approaching graduation without ever having dated–not even once.

How had things gone wrong? Was it me? Was something wrong with me?

It dawned on me that I might have to forge my own way after graduation. What was I going to do with my life? How was I supposed to make these kinds of decisions alone?

I felt a sense of confusion and maybe even a bit of panic. I was mentally unprepared and at a loss. This wasn’t how I thought the story was going to go.

The Gravity of Marriage

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:31-32

As I sought the Lord’s will regarding life after graduation, God began to direct my thoughts and desires towards full-time ministry. I began to explore different options, but I still felt directionless and uncertain.

It was then that a young man expressed interest in getting to know me better. We began to date, and this relationship lasted for about a year before ending with a mutual parting of ways. Though this relationship never got very “serious,” God used it to force me to think seriously about marriage for the first time. I had been taught all the right things about marriage from the Bible before, but it was only now that it sank in.

The sacredness of marriage became real to me–the depth of the commitment, the imaging of Christ and His bride, the church, and the seriousness of the commands for the wife to submit to her husband and for the husband to love his wife.

There were some examples of marital trials around me in my life. One extremely dear and close family friend had married a godly pastor. Before her marriage, she endured intense persecution from her family, and her marriage to this man felt like a beautiful happy ending. I had been in their wedding, held their firstborn baby. Then, a few years later, her husband rejected Christ out of bitterness. The intensity of that betrayal brings tears to my eyes even now, and I am so much further removed from the pain than his wife is. What if that happened to me? Could I, like her, remain faithful, endure the heartbreak, and submit to my husband even through such circumstances?

Thinking of these matters put the fear of God into me about marriage. I no longer thought about it in a vague or careless manner.

The Joys of Singleness

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am….in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 7

Paul’s perhaps somewhat biased remarks on marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7 make me laugh, but I understand him a bit.

After that young man and I broke off our relationship, I departed for Cambodia almost immediately for a short-term assignment, to help a missionary family for one year. I was still in a period of searching. It did not seem like I would be getting married anytime soon, and I was not yet sure what God wanted me to do.

It was also during that year, as I lived on my own, far from family and relatives, that I made some further realizations.

One was that I actually liked living on my own. I am solitary by nature, and very independent. It suited me.

More importantly, though, is that I found that God delighted me in a way that a man could not. If I found discontentment creeping up on me, I would turn my thoughts to Christ and find Him far more wonderful than whatever I was imagining in my head. This led me to a greater love for, joy in, and dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I also found that God had a purpose in my current status. It was during this year in Cambodia that God made it clear that He could use me as a full-time missionary there. It had taken several years of waiting and searching, but now I knew He had work for me, and I found great joy and peace in the certainty that I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do.

I was happy in my singleness, and now with a goal in mind, I turned my face forward and ran the race with a renewed purpose.

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,
“Yet a little while,
    and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
    and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Hebrews 10:35-39

Is There a Unicorn in My Future?

After I headed back to the U.S.A. to raise support for going to Cambodia full time and had started traveling to different churches, I happened to cross paths briefly with a man who was on fire for the Lord. His passion for Christ and for God’s Word surprised and attracted me. (No, this is not the beginning of some love story.) Seeing his example of love for God made me realize that I had no desire to marry anyone unless they reached this standard.

The last remnants of searching and wondering (is this the one? will I meet him here?) in my heart faded away. It struck me very clearly that if I were to get married, I would have to meet a man who had zeal for Christ, someone who I could follow in serving the Lord, and he would also have to be someone who could love and put up with me. If such a unicorn existed, I had not, to my knowledge, met him yet.

I found a profound relief in this realization. I stopped thinking that maybe there was something wrong with me. My thoughts stopped searching for potential suitors. In fact, I emptied my mind of the matter, dumping the whole marriage thing entirely in God’s hands.

If God wants it to happen, He can arrange it, and I can trust Him to do something amazing.

Now, in my daily life, I rarely think about these matters unless I’m asked.

“Are you looking for a husband?” is a common question.

“No,” I answer. “I’m not looking for a husband. But if God arranges one for me…” I’m sure it would be awesome.

Do I want to be married? Not unless it’s with the man God would have for me. If such a magical man exists, it would surely be a very delightful thing to be married to him. But until God arranges that, I will do the work I am given.

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled….For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them….But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Hebrews 12