Marriage has been on my mind a lot for the past several months. I got to ring in 2012 by celebrating my dear friend Shauna's marriage to her wonderful husband Michael. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a blast. :)
Other than that there have been tough family situations, politics, and turning 30 that have brought marriage to mind as well.
Recently I started reading a book called Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect by Connally Gilliam. Normally I don't read many dating/relationship/singles sorts of books. I read some of the most popular ones in college and as I didn't find it to be all that fruitful I haven't returned to that genre.
I stumbled across this book on Amazon and the subtitle, pink heels on the front, and then the reviews convinced me to give it a shot. I read the excerpt on Amazon and was amazed and a little freaked out that this woman seemed to be in my head. She resonated with me in a way that was both encouraging and frightening. It's a bit disconcerting to have someone else articulate the things that, if they ever escape the depths of your psyche, never travel farther than the pages of your journal.
The encouraged part of me won out over the slightly freaked out part and I decided to get the book. I have been highlighting things like mad and will probably share more in the future, but this bit is most applicable to the thoughts milling about my mind today.
"Says Soren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher, 'Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.' [. . . ] Kierkegaard is right: All this unbounded freedom can leave a girl a little dizzy. Upon what do I base decisions about the future? How important is my job? What should I look for in a relationship? Can I really know anything for certain?"
It is dizzying having the world at your fingertips, especially when you always imagined that you'd be facing that world with someone by your side: a partner, a friend, a confidante.
Gilliam goes on to explain that boundaries are necessary to enjoy freedom. When we are boundless, fear and anxiety hinder our freedom. With the comfort and safety of a boundary we accept, we can enjoy our freedom. Subconsciously I had envisioned that by this point in my life that boundary would be a husband. Not in a controlling sense, of course, but in essence an anchor--stability, groundedness.
I'd wager it's safe to say many single women feel the same. I certainly can't speak for single men, but I'd love to hear insight from any who may be reading this.
The next realization may seem obvious, but I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with it. I believe what God says in Genesis about it not being good for man to be alone. That necessarily extends to woman as well, as she was created to rectify this situation. Man & woman were meant to be partners. Even with the closeness Adam had with God in the garden, God still saw Adam as alone.
Given this, I cannot say for sure why the desire to marry is never fulfilled in some people's lives. That it may go unfulfilled in my life is perhaps my deepest fear. What I do know for certain is that we are living in a broken world, and a lot of things are not how they were meant to be. So while I, and many others, are still longing for a tangible boundary, we do have available to us Someone who is more reliable, stable, and constant than any earthly boundary we could hope to find. Can we more fully enjoy the freedom of this day and age if we accept God as our anchor? As scary as it is to admit, the answer of course is yes.
Perhaps red balloon dreams are more easily awaited when you are not expecting them to also be your anchor.
When all the world is spinning 'round
Like a red balloon way up in the clouds
And my feet will not stay on the ground
You anchor me back down
"Anchor" - Mindy Gledhill
Other than that there have been tough family situations, politics, and turning 30 that have brought marriage to mind as well.
Recently I started reading a book called Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect by Connally Gilliam. Normally I don't read many dating/relationship/singles sorts of books. I read some of the most popular ones in college and as I didn't find it to be all that fruitful I haven't returned to that genre.
I stumbled across this book on Amazon and the subtitle, pink heels on the front, and then the reviews convinced me to give it a shot. I read the excerpt on Amazon and was amazed and a little freaked out that this woman seemed to be in my head. She resonated with me in a way that was both encouraging and frightening. It's a bit disconcerting to have someone else articulate the things that, if they ever escape the depths of your psyche, never travel farther than the pages of your journal.
The encouraged part of me won out over the slightly freaked out part and I decided to get the book. I have been highlighting things like mad and will probably share more in the future, but this bit is most applicable to the thoughts milling about my mind today.
"Says Soren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher, 'Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.' [. . . ] Kierkegaard is right: All this unbounded freedom can leave a girl a little dizzy. Upon what do I base decisions about the future? How important is my job? What should I look for in a relationship? Can I really know anything for certain?"
It is dizzying having the world at your fingertips, especially when you always imagined that you'd be facing that world with someone by your side: a partner, a friend, a confidante.
Gilliam goes on to explain that boundaries are necessary to enjoy freedom. When we are boundless, fear and anxiety hinder our freedom. With the comfort and safety of a boundary we accept, we can enjoy our freedom. Subconsciously I had envisioned that by this point in my life that boundary would be a husband. Not in a controlling sense, of course, but in essence an anchor--stability, groundedness.
I'd wager it's safe to say many single women feel the same. I certainly can't speak for single men, but I'd love to hear insight from any who may be reading this.
The next realization may seem obvious, but I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with it. I believe what God says in Genesis about it not being good for man to be alone. That necessarily extends to woman as well, as she was created to rectify this situation. Man & woman were meant to be partners. Even with the closeness Adam had with God in the garden, God still saw Adam as alone.
Given this, I cannot say for sure why the desire to marry is never fulfilled in some people's lives. That it may go unfulfilled in my life is perhaps my deepest fear. What I do know for certain is that we are living in a broken world, and a lot of things are not how they were meant to be. So while I, and many others, are still longing for a tangible boundary, we do have available to us Someone who is more reliable, stable, and constant than any earthly boundary we could hope to find. Can we more fully enjoy the freedom of this day and age if we accept God as our anchor? As scary as it is to admit, the answer of course is yes.
Perhaps red balloon dreams are more easily awaited when you are not expecting them to also be your anchor.
When all the world is spinning 'round
Like a red balloon way up in the clouds
And my feet will not stay on the ground
You anchor me back down
"Anchor" - Mindy Gledhill
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