Mrs. Right, Schmisses
Right
by Beth Parent
I guess
it was mid-college some time when I first
encountered the concept of becoming Mrs. Right
rather than spending all my single years looking
for Mr. Right. It was revolutionary for me.
Until then, I'd spent years upon years wondering
or blatantly pointing out what was wrong with
all the men I knew. I had never even considered
the fact that maybe I needed some improvements.
I set to work immediately.
My faith journey went on a roller coaster of a
ride as I sought God for my own selfish reasons,
trying to "get something out of Him" that I had
predetermined was necessary. I finally came to a
point where I realized that seeking God for a
husband or a career or a pony is not only
equally ridiculous, but none of it is seeking
God at all.
For all my underlining and highlighting in
Paul's exhortations to the Ephesians about the
roles of husbands and wives, I wasn't any closer
to God or a wedding. I wasn't getting to know
God at all and was therefore failing egregiously
in my attempts to better myself because
everything I'd learned was still only serving to
make me more and more selfish. I gave it all up.
I started to really ask questions about God,
leaving off any tempting addendums about
husbands or boyfriends. I started looking for
answers to questions about who He is. I talked
about Him with my friends. We studied the Bible
together. We learned about His character, His
love, His pursuit of us and His Son. We
challenged each other and held each other
accountable for our actions (and our inaction).
We reached out to others. We fell. We picked
each other up. We sinned. We loved and prayed
for each other. We grew.
College ended, a year passed, graduate school
began, a year passed, I went on a spirited jaunt
across
Europe, months passed, graduate school
ended, months have passed, and here I am. It has
been years since I first started trying to
become Mrs. Right, and I am still single. It
recently occurred to me that there must be
something terribly wrong with me that I remain
alone whilst my strong and steady single friends
are slowly becoming extinct. Did they achieve
Mrs. Right status, leaving me drowning in their
wake? How did they know what to do? And why
didn't they clue me in?
There is a horrendous problem with the
suggestion that we should spend our time as
singles becoming the right person for someone
else; it makes us believe that until we find
that someone, there is something wrong with us.
If we spend our time, energy and emotions
preparing for some unknowable, unforeseeable
future mate who will be the indication that
we've finally bettered ourselves enough to
deserve the love that goes hand in hand with
marriage, and that mate doesn't come, we receive
a message that we are unworthy of marriage,
unworthy of love, unlovable. We are less of a
man or less of a woman because of our
singleness. And that message is a complete and
utter lie.
Our femininity/masculinity is simply part of our
humanity, and we are absolutely not less of a
human being because we aren't sharing our lives
with another human being in matrimony. It is not
our spouse's job to make us fully ourselves. Nor
is it for them that we become so. To make our
time as singles all about our spouse is idolatry
and lies. To make our marriage all about our
spouse is no different. Nothing is about us, and
nothing is about them; it's all about Him.
A good friend of mine always says that marriage
is not for our happiness but for our holiness. I
say the same goes for singleness. God is
constantly shaping us into the likeness of
Christ. He is preparing us for an eternity with
Him, not a lifetime with another person.
I operated for years under the false assumption
that I wasn't married because I wasn't "ready."
What I thought that meant, I have no idea. I
just figured that when I was "ready," God would
usher in Mr. Wonderful and we would live happily
ever after. As existential as it may sound, I
think now that the only real reason I'm not
married is because I'm single.
As long as I'm following the will of God, then
each phase of life is a purposeful part of that
will. My life could have taken an infinite
number of different routes, but the decisions
I've made up to this point have led me here.
There are a couple of men I probably could have
married if I'd set my mind to it, but obviously
I didn't want to, so I shouldn't complain about
being single. It's right where I'm supposed to
be - not because I'm not "ready" yet, not
because I haven't fixed all of the annoying
things I do, and certainly not because God is in
some way holding out on me.
In an article I've kept for years, Paige Benton
spells it out: "If he fluctuated one quark in
his goodness, he would cease to be God....I am
single because God is so abundantly good to me,
because that is his best for me. It is a cosmic
impossibility that anything could be better for
me right now than being single."
But just to be clear, I would like to be married
some day. I haven't given up on that yet. And I
haven't kissed dating goodbye. Shoot, I haven't
kissed anything since the late 90's. So bring it
on.
