This one is going to be kind of long. It consists of an email I got from a fan, and then my response. Happy reading.
First, the email:
Hey Woman Who Schmoozes With Famous Authors,
"Just so you know, if a girl is trying to be content in her singleness, going on and on about how wonderful guys can be is probably not the greatest idea either."
I wrote "Other things guys are useful for" because your post was excellent, informative, logical, funny... and devoid of emotions. It seems to me, if you are going to write about relationships, or refer to them, that there should be some emotions involved.
"...but it’s also important to remember that if you aren’t happy with your life BEFORE you get married, you aren’t going to be happy with your life AFTER. I’m pleased to say that I am quite content with life before."
You say that you are "content" but in the previous line you use the word "happy" to express the emotions of life.
ARE YOU HAPPY?
It's OK to be a little lost and lonely while being single. God made man and woman to complete each other. GEN 2:24 "... and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." We have friends and family that can help cover that void for a time of singleness, but they cannot fill that void. I wanted you to express some feelings, some emotions. To deny that they exist allows them to build up. A pressure that can be released unexpectedly. For example, if you happen to met a nice guy, but not the right person for you, those pent up emotions can overwhelm you. You could end up making a big mistake. But expressing these feelings, talking about them, allows us to become acclimated to them, almost like building up a resistance. :) Hopefully, this allows us to gain control over those wily emotions.
It seems to me that if you can't talk about not being single, should you be single? Just a thought. No accusations, just food for thought and a view from my side of things.
May God bless us daily,
David
And my response:
I’ve discovered that another of my spiritual gifts is my ability to overanalyze things. I’m especially gifted at it. So I’ve taken to attempting to understand how I feel about being single. Here’s what I have discovered.
My feelings about singleness really have very little to do with whether or not I’m married. It’s more about a natural attraction to men. I like men. They are funny, they are good-looking, they are good-smelling (most of the time), and they have deep manly voices and big strong hands. I LOVE that.
But I think there’s sort of a double standard when it comes to women liking men. If men like women, they just like women. That’s it. If women like men, they just want to get married and have babies. I think that’s unfair and untrue. Do I want to get married someday? Sure. (Although I have a few thoughts about that as well. But that’s a topic for another day.) But my attraction towards men has very little to do with the fact that I want to get married and have babies. When I meet a new guy I don’t think. “Oh, maybe he’s the one!” It’s more like, “He’s funny and hot and I enjoy hanging out with him.” Do you see the difference?
But as women enter their late twenties and are still single, it’s sometimes assumed that we’re starting to worry about whether or not it will happen for us. Like I’m constantly worrying “Will I ever find the man I’ll spend my life with?” I guess what I’m really trying to say in these posts is that it’ll be totally cool if I DO find that person. I think we’ll have a great time together and make a great team and do some awesome stuff. But I’m going to have a great time doing awesome stuff anyway. So if I don’t ever find someone, I’m not going to die a bitter old maid. How can I? God has been more than gracious enough.
So am I glad I’m single? Not really. I mean, if I had a choice, I guess I’d rather be hanging out with hotness. But am I happy being single? Yes. Absolutely. (I mean, if I was married with kids, you think I could blog as much as I do? It ain’t all bad. :) )
I'm also not sure how I feel about the phrase "God made man and woman to complete each other." I think maybe "complete" is not the right word. Perhaps "complement?" I would hate to imply that women who never get married are not complete and whole people.
And believe me, I know plenty about BIG mistakes. For real. It's conceivable that I might accidentally (haha) date the wrong guy because I like guys in general (hence the need for the Jan's Man Approval Committee.) However, I will NEVER marry the wrong guy just because I want to be married. The thought makes me want to throw up. I literally have nightmares about marrying the wrong guy and I wake up with a sigh of relief and say "Thank you, God! It didn't really happen!"
Thanks for the insight and encouraging me to better understand myself.
Jan
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6 comments:
I suppose we will simply have to agree to disagree. I believe that men and women were made for each other, but not to complete each other. I understand that God made Eve for Adam for He said "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." But it also says "and they will become one flesh." The New Living Translation says "the two are united into one." It does not say "the two halves become one." It implies that they are meshed together and are no longer distinct from each other like they were before. A unity was created; a spiritual unity, an emotional unity, and a physical unity. I'm not sure that God would have chosen the word "helper" if Eve completed Adam. It would have been more like "Oh, hey, I forgot part of him. I remembered all his fingers and toes, but the wife slipped my mind." He would not have made an 'incomplete' man by forgeting Adam's brain or heart or even eye lashes or taste buds. If Eve was necessary to complete him, they would have been made together. I believe that Adam was complete before Eve. Lonely? Perhaps. I also feel that though I want marriage for myself someday, I am not currently deficient. I am not a partial person. Can you imagine if I was only 50% of who I was supposed to be? Oy vey.
And just so you know, I got an email from Ms. McCulley. She said "And yes, that was really I who left the comment, despite what your friends thought."
So be on your best behavior. You never know who could be watching and reading...
David-
Also take a look at the second chapter of Colossians. "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead."
I'm not going to get into complete or incomplete, but Solomon wrote, "If two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
My two cents
One is lost.
Two is very good as long as one of those is God. Paul suggested that being unmarried was best for him so he could serve God.
Two without God is the blind leading the blind ending up in a ditch.
Three (man, woman and God) is the optimum for most people.
The great theologian Rocky Balboa said, “The way I see
it, Adrian has gaps and I have gaps. But together, we ain’t got no gaps”.
Oh, and I will claim to be a Jan Fan. I've never met Meredith but she sounds fun.
I complitment is much better than complete. If man and women were not complete without each other than some really influential people in the history of Christianty have not been complete, like Jesus, Paul, Mary Magdalene, etc. God has made each of us complete without another person. When a man and woman are married they do become one flesh, out of two complete people.
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