mikao's world

"Life, Love, and Other Mysteries", and Other Hard Things to Say

Some Christian pop band of some sort has an album with that title, I have no idea which one, and although I think the music's cheesey I have always liked the title.

Neely wrote a post a little while ago that I have wanted to comment on for awhile, or at least continue on somewhat of a rabbit trail.

I am 26 years old, I don't have any children, I've never been married or in any serious relationships, but I have had my heart broken and crushed and trampled on a few times or too many times to count. I have lots of friends from Bible college and other Christian circles who are my age or older or younger that are married, but I also have quite a few who aren't married and seem to be in the same boat.

I don't have many non-Christian friends. Being in a bubble for five and half years (and only sometimes escaping in the summer) does that to you. So I can't really comment on what it's like to be a non-Christian of a similar age. I don't know if non-Christian women my age lust after the idea of marriage and relationships the same way Christian women do.

I had many Christian friends who met in college and married either during their post-secondary years or shortly after. Many went to college expecting this dream to become a reality. They would go to school, get married, and continue with the "perfect" life to go on to raise a family together.

This may be a broad generalizing statement, but I can't think of any single women I know who are content in their singleness and aren't looking. It's hard to meet a man and not analyze his physical and character qualities when we've been groomed to have a mindset that the love of a man and marriage is what we need to seek to attain. Marriage will offer us security and comfort and the possibility of the life we've always dreamed of.

We are caught up in the dream of a perfect man and a perfect courtship and a perfect life ahead in marriage and raising a family.

Yet here there are, so many of us, completing college without a relationship, starting working without that other half and facing the world often feeling and being alone. Searching and looking for the one.

I wonder what it's like to be a non-Christian at this age. Do they seek this dream as well? Common-law and promiscuous relationships would seem to be more rampant among non-believers. Is it a result of fractured morals but misguided hope? Do non-Christians have it easier when they pursue relationships they don't forsee lasting? In pursuing temporal pleasure rather than long-term commitment?

Do Christians have it harder or easier waiting it out hoping for the right relationship?

I don't know the answers, and I don't expect anyone can really give me these answers. So much of me did not want to finish my post-secondary education not married, or at least not without a relationship. I didn't expect to find Mr. Right there, but I certainly hoped to find him somewhere along the way. Maybe that was my downfall.

I find it annoying when people constantly mention their single status and the fact that God hasn't brought them that person yet. I hope I don't do it too much. I hope I don't sound judgemental.

I don't know if I want to say that I want to be content in my singleness. I don't know that I truthfully want that. And that's hard to say.