The Question of Eyebrows or Why I'm Still Single

Is it my eyebrows?  You laugh, but that is a real question that I have asked myself about why I'm still single.  I look around and it feels like all of my friends are dating people, engaged to people or married to people.  You may come up with a quick rebuttal: Preposterous! You know plenty of single people!  That's true, but their numbers are dwindling.  Sometimes I feel like a lone oak on a sprawling Texas prairie. 

Hang on just a second.  Why am I the lone oak?  Why do I have to be the lone oak?  Is there something wrong with me that I don't know about?  Are my eyebrows the wrong shape?  Do I have bad breath and no one bothered to tell me?  Am I one of those socially awkward people who don't know they're socially awkward?  All of my deepest fears materialize into a phantom of relational ineptitude.  I let out a long, horrified AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

But really, it's not an unreasonable question to ask.  If nearly all of my nearest and dearest are waltzing their way to the altar, why aren't I?  So I turn to the checklist… To the checklist I turn:

No communicable diseases.

College degree.

Love for Jesus.

Cooking skills.

World traveled.

Arm wrestling skills.

Job prospects.

Good legs.

Musical abilities.

Of course, there are holes.  I can't do a backflip on the trampoline, and my harmonica skills are less than stellar.  I can't tell jokes, and I haven't read War and Peace.  The questions return.  Really, Is there something wrong with me?  Do I have a personality deficiency?  Did I miss Mr. Sunshine somewhere along the line?  Let me tell you, I've had the privilege of meeting some outstanding guys.  Did I bypass a hint somewhere and thereby forfeit all chances of romantic bliss?

The questions turn heavenward.  God, don't you know I want to get married and have kids and grow tomatoes?   If You really loved me wouldn't You give me what I want?  Did You make a mistake and stamp "called to be single" on my forehead?  Surely we need to get this show on the road.  I'm 23. Time's running out.  I'm practically ancient! 

If God laughs at my prayers sometimes, I don't blame Him.  Of course He knows what I want.  Of course He loves me and always gives me what I need.  Clearly, what I need right now is an autumn in Australia as a youth intern, not a boyfriend.  How do I know?  Because that's what I have.  I have an amazing roommate and fabulous friends and a church that is so cool because their median age is 70.  I have a place to live and kids to laugh with three days a week, and high school girls who challenge me to think through my faith because they ask big questions. 

Is that a valid answer?  "Because that's what I have"?  With as long as I've been going to Sunday school and youth group and a small Baptist university, you'd think I'd be able to say something more convincingly elaborate.  On the contrary, I think the more we walk with God, the more we walk in trust of His character without needing to know His next move.  The more we walk with Him, the more we realize He is utterly other, entirely unbound by human constraints of culture, time or ability.  So in the end, sometimes we just have to say, if I'm walking with Jesus, I trust that where I am is a good place to be. 

This realization will not make me feel content for an interminable amount of time.  My heart is like a nomad in the Sahara.  It wanders.  Being content is something that has to be revisited and reworked.  I have to be reminded that while there are plenty of things wrong with me because I'm human, they aren't necessarily what's keeping me on the bench during the dating game.  I have to understand that in time, my days will be full of romance and singing the ABCs with small children and juggling dinner/soccer practice/tantrums.  In time, I will look back to my year in Australia and think about how it was easier to serve God in the community, back in the days when I made my own schedule and lived on toasted sandwiches and granola washed down with French-pressed coffee. 

For now, my days are full of morning tea with playgroup moms and afternoons at the library.  They are full of holding little hands and distilling Bible stories to their basic elements so they make sense  to people not raised watching Psalty.  There are new friends to love and recipes to experiment with and literature to devour.  Could I really ask for more than that? 

To long for the future is to ruin the present, and where can we live, if not in the present? 

Love,

Little Miss Sunshine

*Editing credit goes to SG, who will soon be a famous author/editor.  Someday I'll dust off this blog post to show my children I was once edited by the great SG. 

The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.  Psalm 126:3