Limbo, purgatory. A lot of people have this attitude towards singleness. It’s the waiting room for something greater. And we simply need to get ready for what’s through the other door. I struggle with the attitude that we need to work on ourselves in order to be “ready enough” for a relationship. I don’t think it’s something that we can pre-emptively discern.
What does this state of readiness look like? Is it a discernible line on a chart of growth? Is it predicated on how many people I don’t hurt in those “winter months”?
Like purgatory, (which is, by the way, totally and admittedly made up by the Catholic Church and something that if you’re a believer in the Bible and the notion that “God is love” and grace you can confidently toss aside), there’s an attitude that we have to do it all. That a relationship and a marriage is something we earn.
But when talking to every person close to me who has gone on to meet, date and marry the person they are with. I have heard it said that they certainly didn’t feel they “deserve” the person they’re with.
Now, they’re not saying that they’re a terrible person and the person beside them is perfect. I know this because their follow up is that they recognise the hand of God in their relationship and their marriage. They recognise that it was all Him.
The thing is good behaviour does display an element of attractiveness. But if that behaviour is out of fear we either end up in relationships based on fear of losing someone. Or we end up falling away from someone that God may very well desire for us to be with because we based it on our works, and not His work in us.
I’ve fumbled the ball in this area. In a difficult season, I held onto a relationship out of fear. But the relationship wasn’t for me, that was clear. What wasn’t clear to me at the time, however, was that I was putting my best behaviour on to try to remedy a relationship rather than let it simply slip away when it should have.
Years later, I’m coming to see this central reality:
1. I AM worthy of love. Not by my own merit, but because God said so, and it stands fast.
2. My “readying myself” for marriage is not an act in order to “get” marriage.
It’s a faithful response to the love that I’m not only worthy of but I have been lavished by the source of love. Because I love God, I’ve set my heart on growing and letting Him heal my heart for His good pleasure. And if His good pleasure is to see me united with someone else who also recognises their worth and receives His love, then that’s incredible. If not, then receiving His love is incredible.
You may never see the line in the sand that says “hey, just five more steps and we’re there.” In fact, I reckon faith is about recognising that the place you’re standing in right now, with God by your side, is where you need to be. I reckon faith is saying “it may be five steps, it may be an inch. But Your will and Your timing are what I desire overall.”
Then, all of a sudden, the line that God draws with His own finger in the sand is behind you, and for a moment you turn around and go “huh. Cool,” then turning back to His beautiful adoring face and saying “so, this person is pretty great.”
WRITER: Ruth Hodge