“High King of heaven,
my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys,
O bright heaven’s sun
Heart of my own heart,
whatever befall
Still be my vision,
O ruler of all.”
-Be Thou My Vision
It was a rainy day and I was sitting alone in my car. The work parking lot was quietly bustling with umbrellas and car lights as people headed to and from lunch. I wasn’t eating or doing anything; I was thinking, praying, and contemplating. Desiring to be married, opening my heart (sometimes in foolish ways) and experiencing the heartache of yet another disappointment had left me so weary. I was feeling my age, feeling more urgent, more discouraged, and more of the many judgements that society throws at aging single women.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to be alone, childless, and living with an aging parent.
Years (decades really) of prayers for marriage, for children, for a future that I could feel proud of went seemingly answered.
I was left with the ashes of hopes that I once had. And here’s the uncomfortable reality: I still am.
Getting “older” doesn’t mean that desires, hopes, and dreams disappear. It doesn’t mean that disappointment no longer exists. It does mean that hard questions and disappointments can live alongside hope and joy.
Trusting and following Jesus doesn’t erase the confusion and pain of living in a world that’s broken. It does make all of the difference in why hope doesn’t have to die, even as our dreams do. Jesus bids me to let go of worldly hope (or hope in observable circumstantial outcomes) and instead embrace true hope (the hope that the Gospel gives me). It’s a hope that is far bigger and far more eternal than my short life on this earth. The best part is, nothing can take it away.
I may live the remainder of my life as a single woman who desires marriage – it’s uncomfortable to observe for any young women who hope for marriage, pathetic for those who have unapologetically embraced singleness as freedom, and alien to those who’ve lived the majority of their adulthood as married.
This strange, uncomfortable, longing in betweenness is what God calls some of his people to (sometimes seasonally, sometimes permanently). It’s not some cruel and unusual punishment for those of us who didn’t have the “equipment” to attract a spouse; it’s a sovereign calling and the circumstances by which we are called to make Christ known.
There may be questions and grief along the way, but believing that God is sovereign means believing that seemingly confounding circumstances are providential appointments.
Will you let go of hope being defined by better circumstances and instead look to the unshakable, eternal hope of future joy in Christ?
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.” -Jude 24-25
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