Being a Mrs. or a Miss

I've been thinking a lot about the future, what will happen when I graduate from Simpson. Will I stay in Redding, or will I return to Washington? I'm going to get my credentials to become a teacher, but where will that lead, and what will I teach? Yes, I would like to teach music, but who knows? There are so many different paths that I could take, and I'm not really feeling a pull in any specific direction. Only one option is the one that's been pulling at my heart, and yet it's the one that I have no choice in.

I know for one thing is that I want to get married. But I also know that I can't plan my life as though I am. I'm not saying I want to get married tomorrow, but one day, it is what I want more than anything. The hardest thing ever is not knowing if that will happen. It's ever harder being at Simpson, surrounded by couples in love with each other and in love with God, getting engaged and married left and right. They have exactly what I want, but I have no promise of getting that. Beyond not knowing, it is so hard to know that the thing I want the most is something that I cannot work towards on my own. It's not a degree or a program I can enroll in and come out with a husband. It has to be another person loving me as much as I love them, and that has never happened in my life. I could write a book called Unrequited Love, or Life as the Third Wheel. It's so tough to be completely happy for those around me, ditching me for that person. But it's something I must learn to cope with.

A little over 2 years ago, I was at the LIFE conference. I remember one of the speakers saying that in order to fully follow Christ, we must be willing to give Him all those things we've been holding onto. I wept and wept and wept, but I gave to God my desire to be a wife and mother. I no longer have those things to hold onto. Since then, I have been forcing myself to see the single life as a possibility. To live my life for God without a man by my side, or even without children of my own. I'm not saying that this will never happen, but before that day, this had never been a possibility for me, it had never entered my thought that I could possibly not get married. And the journey of figuring out who I am alone has been a difficult one. Full of tears, lots of journaling, and talking with, pleading with or yelling at God. But I have grown incredibly. It has been, and continues to be, a tough journey; but without it I would not be the woman I am today.