But here it is:
- When you're focusing on being single, everyone around you decides to get married. Literally. Everyone. I almost feel bad for how many weddings are going on around me because at this point it's just kind of another date on the calendar for me. Not that I'm not ecstatic for my friends that are getting married and starting this wonderful life together, but when kids I used to teach in Sunday school start sending wedding invitations, it starts feeling more like a joke that's been beat to death than a new, exciting chapter in someone's life.
- Which brings me to my next 'revelation.' The danger in being single for so long is that it can make you very jaded and very cynical. This is dangerous for someone that naturally has a no-nonsense approach to romance and life in general, but again, when my old Sunday school kids are getting married, it's hard not to laugh at the irony of it all.
- Not thinking about pink elephants will inevitably lead to you thinking about pink elephants. That's the old idiom right? I've been single for well over a year and a half now and for the most part, it wasn't that bad. In fact, I think I got to be pretty good at it. But now that I'm 'focusing' on being single it's like a whole new season just appeared in my life. Nothing has really changed, but now that I'm focusing on it, it seems so much more difficult! It's weird, I'm usually not one of those relationship guys-I mean, I'm not the type that always wants to be in a relationship. In fact, my track record is one where I'm usually single for a very long time before I decide to commit and settle down with one girl. But this season for some reason seems so much more difficult to not get nostalgic or daydream about has been and what could be.
- God works in the little things. I don't necessarily think I 'learned' this here, but it has definitely served as a bold reminder. This season has me spending so much time alone that it's like I have no choice but to talk to God. All the time. But this has probably been my favorite part of this whole journey so far. I do almost everything alone. And not in a negative connotation, but I'm pretty consistently on my own, which has forced me to grow and learn about everything I never wanted to know. I've spent more time in the produce section of HEB picking out bell peppers these last few months than I ever have in the last 27 years! But all this alone time, I have so much more time to talk to God. And it's been awesome. I wish this could also mean that I've been a 'great' Christian for the most part, but sadly, I've dropped the ball more times than I'd like to count. I'll spare you the details, but even in my alone time, God has not left me. Which is comforting and sobering at the same time. Anytime I drop the ball, he's there to quickly rebuke and rebut. But on the other side, when I'm feeling just kind of down and out, he's there to encourage and speak life into me. In all this time, I've also gotten some pretty heavy---'revelations' I guess you could call them. Which is also exciting. And scary at the same time. One of the things he's impressed on my heart pretty heavy lately is the desire to pray for my wife. Which I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of. I love the idea that I'm praying for this woman that I've never met and that somehow, spiritually, the things that I'm praying for now, somehow have some huge, tangible impact on her life. But honestly, it's hard. It's like if I'm trying not to think about pink elephants but I have to pray about pink elephants at the same time, I'm just pulling at myself from opposite directions…
I'll be real here and a little raw. I hate how much this season has made me dependent on God. There. I said it. I. Hate. It. It's hard and it's humiliating. To think that at 27, I still don't have my world put together enough that he has to set me apart for some season of God-knows-what to learn God-knows-what. I feel like a little kid that got grounded. I feel like so much is being taken away from me, even though I never had it to begin with. Like I did something wrong and I'm having to sit in time-out to think about what I've done. And it sucks. It sucks that there's no appeal process, no bargaining, no pleading. Just take it for what it is. And the worst part is, I have a choice. I can choose to go through this season and be obedient or ignore it and do whatever the heck I want. And I honestly wish sometimes, I would just choose the latter. But history and experience have taught me that when I do that, I'll inevitably end up right back here doing this exact same thing, wishing I had done it earlier. It sucks.
So I sit and think. And learn. And promise to grow and be nice and kind and thoughtful and whatever else I'm supposed to pick up from this season. I know this isn't all that uplifting and encouraging, but I just want to be real for a second. I don't like being disciplined. But more than that, I don't like being undisciplined. I've been there. I've made undisciplined choices with my life before and suffered the consequences of it. So if there is a silver lining here, it's a small one. A very small, faint one that I have to cling onto for dear life. If going through a season of learning discipline and building character and integrity sucks. It's infinitely better than going through a life never having learned those things.
And that's what I hold onto. The fact that God knows what he's doing. The fact and the history that he's never let me down and he's never cheated me or shorted me when he promised me something big. So I sit. And wait. And learn. Wishing I could plea and negotiate some sort of clemency, but deep down knowing even if he granted it, I wouldn't take it.
Proverbs 15:5. Only a fool despises a parent's discipline; whoever learns from correction is wise.
