"Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord."
Psalm 27:14
i missed the whole "true love waits" phenomenon in our contemporary christian culture by a few years. i had started attending church my sophomore year of high school and by the grace of God, avoided falling into relationships where i was pressured to compromise my purity. had the true love waits merchandise been around at that time, i'm quite certain i would've clothed myself in it, parading my purity as if it were some prolific banner of righteousness. it would've complimented the self-righteousness. you have to remember that, at sixteen, i equated my christianity and my salvation with my performance, so my choice to remain pure had to be earning me some huge brownie points with God, right? um, wrong...
"Pride precedes a disaster, and an arrogant attitude precedes a fall." Proverbs 16:18
it would be another sixteen years - and one divorce later - that i would find myself single again. in the wake of divorce, i expected things would be different here, you know, in adulthood. instead, i find myself in the midst of a culture (and a dating scene) that is eerily similar to that of high school, with all of the same pressure and confusion and no parents setting curfews or laying down rules. there is the same societal pressure, this ambiguous, unspoken expectation that every woman should be with a man and that if she's not with a man, she should be actively looking for a man and if she's not actively looking for a man, then she is just waiting on the right man. this is prevalent even among the Christian circles. everyone is looking for someone and if you're not, clearly, something must be wrong with you.
it is the story of our culture and of our media and of our animated fairy tales. we buy it hook, line and sinker and we sell it to our children. we buy into the belief at a very early age that we need a another person to complete us, that true love with another human being is what will make us whole, that we need someone to write the ending to our story so we can live "happily ever after".
sweet friends of mine, what if i told you, He already has?
what if the world has so twisted and deformed the truth of God's love, we have become overly eager to substitute it with romantic love? what if we have this whole thing backwards? what if this is the reason that young women give in to promiscuity? what if this is the reason we live in a culture plagued by broken hearts and broken homes?
the truth is, we do someone to make us whole. to complete us. to write the story of our ever afters. and that someone is God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
He had pursued my heart with such intensity that i knew He wanted all of it; and all of me. when i surrendered my life to Christ, i turned in my heart along with it. obviously, the one i had was broken and yet, i was still trying to give it away, piece by damaged piece. when i received my new heart, i knew that it was no longer mine to share. and for the first time in my life, i began to learn the beautiful sufficiency of Christ. what if he'd redeemed my having lost everything to reveal this one great truth, that He really is all that I need.
[and please note, i'm not implying that He orchestrated the loss of my life as i knew it. no, i took care of that on my own by way of a little thing we like to call free will. we like that phrase more than we like sin. you know, it just sounds better.]
but in the midst of my loss - and my lostness, He found me. He called me home and He called me to remain in Him and in Him alone. maybe for a season. maybe forever. and i can honestly say, to me, it matters not. God, in his infinite grace, has taught me the same lesson He taught [my good friend] Paul who shared with the church at Philipi when he wrote:
"I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am." Paul's letter to the Philippians (4:12 msg)
and so i bought myself this ring, the one in the picture. black and silver with two phrases engraved on it: "true love" and "will wait". this ring is not a reminder, it is a delcaration that true love will wait. i am aware, painfully aware, that this may seem a bit strange for a 32 year old, divorced mother of two children. but i'm willing to let the haters hate. at this stage in my life, it has much greater implication than its face value. it is not merely a reminder of God's will for sexual purity; but a declaration that He is the One True Love and in Him, i will wait. for everything. He directs my path and my heart. i am not waiting on God to provide me with a man. i am not living in the hope or waiting for some sort of future fulfillment that will come through a relationship with another human being.
i read a beautiful quote: "a woman's heart should be so wrapped up in God that he has to go through Him to get to her." the moment i read that, my heart - the new shiny one inside of me - lept. i believe that. i believe we are far too accustomed to manipulating our own lives, especially our "love lives" according to our own will, and then hoping and praying God will get on board with it and if we sense He might not be, we turn an apathetic shoulder to Him... until we find ourselves alone, wondering where we went wrong.
the ring, in and of itself, has turned out to be a great conversation piece. it provides the perfect opportunity to share God's story of redemption in my life and immediately declare where i am in my life and in my walk with Christ. in social settings, i've found it humorous - no, make that hilarious - to watch the eyeballs of men suddenly gloss over the moment i make reference to God. Christ himself, who called me to this season of my life, becomes my shield and men flee, literally flee, at the mere mention of His name.
true love will wait. His love is the only true love. it is patient. it is unwavering. above all, it is sufficient and it satisfies my soul. in this love, His love, i will wait for whatever He has planned for my future.
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