It was the strangest thing. I attended my cousin’s wedding last weekend and watched completely without the usual emotion. There was a time I’d get misty because it was something I thought one day I’d find – as others would get misty remembering the day they found it.
You get to a point in life, however, when you realize that if the marriage train were going to stop at your station, it might have already done so by now, at least as you look around at so many of the friends with whom you grew up. And at a point a little farther along, you quit being upset or worried about that because, who knows, going back and trying to do that now might feel a little like trying to go back to kindergarten to redo that fingerpainting class you didn’t do so well in. Life moves on and so do its priorities, as does what you learn.
So I felt sort of worried at first when I wasn’t feeling anything. I was worried that I had become this cold, hardened or bitter person, turning in to that curmudgeon – albeit still not a very old one, in my mind at least – whom we all see and never want to become. But actually, quite the opposite was true. What I felt was genuine happiness for my cousin and her wonderful new beaux and what I said were prayers for great success in their marriage instead of begging God not to forget a cookie for me. It was as if I had graduated even as I watched a different graduation play out in front of me.
We may not have gone to their school and really, it’s not about any of us or that. We cheer because there are people we love and care about up on that podium receiving diplomas. I'm not saying I couldn't or didn't celebrate with others in the past, but there was perhaps just a little bit more – okay, maybe a LOT more – of me fixated on and reminding myself of my wants. After all, who's the hopeless romantic? Hand raised - here!
Of course, there’s always the possibility my learning isn’t over and I may well return to that class to discover I still need to get fingerpainting down and become a pro, but if I don’t, that’s fine too. Like Paul, I am learning daily “how to be abased, and . . . how to abound. Everywhere and in all things . . . both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” (Philippians 4:12) That’s a process by the way.
Sometimes all we singles, myself included, wake up thinking about some distant fish that got away years ago, wondering what we were thinking or how we couldn’t have seen the signs. But we know that the plans God has for us are good. He says that he wants to bless us and not to harm us and to give us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11-13); and that He makes everything beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
So with that in mind, we each have our struggles, whether we are married or single. Each of us has difficulties to face. And to everyone the grass seems greener on the other side at times, because after all: what great big lawn isn’t pleasant when you don’t have to mow it? But on whatever side of the fence we live, we are given a gift, because he takes our burdens (Psalm 55:22, Matthew 11:28-30) and makes it possible for each of us to say, “I can do all things through Christ[a] who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
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