When I was eight years old, I was convinced that Prince Charming was waiting just around the corner. My cousin Katie and I would dress up and act out weddings, naming our grooms (actually, most of the time I made her be the man...sorry, Katie) and tossing plastic eggshell halves as make-shift flowers.
When I entered high school, I was excited. Lots of people meet their spouses in high school...don't they?
Um, no, Kendall, they really don't. Maybe some. But not "lots."
When I entered college last year, finally people were saying, "You know, Kendall, you'll probably meet your husband in college!" And I was like, "Huh? Yeah, sure, whatever."
Secretly I was thinking, I was more prepared for marriage when I was eight than I am now.
True? Probably not. Okay, definitely not. But I had far more confidence in my feminine abilities as an eight-year-old. No one had told me girls needed to look a certain way. No one had told me I should preferably marry someone handsome and rich. And attracting a man? Not a concern. We would see each other from across the room, our eyes would meet, and we'd be married in the morning.
By freshman year of college, marriage had become an item on a to-do list with several to-do items under that bullet.
"Be mysterious."
Got it. Guys don't need to know everything about you. I'll work on it.
"Be available."
That's easy enough. I'll just...
"But don't appear desperate or over-eager."
Um, okay, that means I should.... Huh?
"You have to be physically attractive to the opposite sex."
Alrighty. Make-up, check. Nice clothes, check. Hair, still recovering from my poor decision to chop it all off, but hey, shouldn't he love me anyway?
"Be interesting."
Oo! Oo! I know, sometime in the next year I'll go to an exotic location where I'll save a dying breed of mutant pygmy giraffes. Don't worry guys, I got this one.
"If the moon is half-full and you come across three trees with knots that look like faces, you can text him first, but otherwise..."
*sigh*
How about this one?
Be consumed by Jesus Christ.
Heh, yeah... That doesn't sound very effective. If I surrender myself completely to Jesus Christ, won't He, like, send me to a third-world country where all the men are three feet tall and I'll smell bad all the time? "Exude the odor of vomit from caring for the malnourished" is nowhere on that list underneath the glowing bullet point "Get Married"... And neither is "Become a Nun." In fact, I'm pretty sure those two bullet points cannot co-exist, and if Jesus had His druthers, wouldn't every woman be a nun? Uh-uh, no way. Giving myself to Jesus, and the marriage dream goes out the window. I just don't see that happening, so, buh-bye.
"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!" -Matthew 7:11
Jesus doesn't get enjoyment out of making peoples' lives miserable.
No, really.
You see... He loves you. And He wants the best for you.
We need not fear giving ourselves up to Him.
We do, usually, have this expectation, though. We expect our life to be given back to us. Our dreams, our hopes, our wedding ("Here's my marriage, Jesus. Just remember, this is a five-year maximum loan. I expect it back before then. Preferably with interest.").
Yeah... I'm not going to guarantee that you'll ever get it back.
But giving it up to Him is not a certain death sentence to your dreams. Giving your dream of marriage to Jesus does not mean that you resign yourself to certain lifelong singleness. My dream of getting married is very much alive. The wedding location is planned, I know what kind of dress I want, and I have four or five names I still need to put into a hat to figure out which one of my amazing friends and family will be my Maid of Honor. And this dream will be fulfilled...if that's what's best for me. Otherwise, single life will be even better than getting married. I firmly believe that. If Jesus does not call me to marriage, that means that life without marriage will be more of an adventure and more glorifying to Him than life with marriage would have been.
Marriage is not the goal. Jesus Christ is the goal. He loves to fulfill dreams, because He is good! He knows you and He loves you. He sees every longing of your heart, and He has ultimate power to either fulfill those longings, or change them.
Married? Me? Maybe one day. But I'm ripping all those little bullet points from my to-do list...even "Get Married." "Be Consumed With Jesus Christ" is number one on that list. Scratch that...it's the only thing on that list. Because when we pursue Him, when we fall in love with Him, when we allow Him to satisfy us beyond what is imaginable, everything else will fall into place.
