Real Life Marriage: The Hardest Thing

(Photo by Arris Affairs)

Two months. That's how long we've been married. It's been wonderful and super painful. It's been joy-filling and heart-wrenching. The hardest thing? The loneliness. And no, it's not because of my husband. It's because of me.

I've felt lonely these past two months. Lonely for the old me. Everything about marriage and being a wife is new. And it's good and growing and beautiful. But sometimes I long for the old me, where I knew a little more about life, or at least in hindsight, thought I did. I long for the comfort and safety of routine and my way. I honestly sometimes long to be selfish and not have to think about anyone else. I long for the times I thought I knew how to love people. I rue the painful, yet productive pricks the Spirit gives as I learn to love the new person who is permanently in my life.

I've felt lonely. Lonely for my parents. The whole leaving and cleaving thing wasn't as hard as I expected in terms of forming a new family with my husband. I enjoy marriage and all of its adventures. But I had no idea how much I relied on my parents until I left them. Now I have to rely on my husband, and though that's a good thing, it's hard and painful. I find myself grieving the parent-child relationship I had, even as I rejoice in the new bonds Chris and I are forming with my parents as a couple.

Marriage is tough. Not because of fighting or relational tension or discomfort so much as because of the way it exposes my flaws. My loneliness has exposed my great need for God, and for Him to be first above all else. My loneliness has exposed my sin and my need for sanctification. My loneliness has exposed my selfishness and my struggle to really love another human fully and completely.

Marriage is good and growing. I thank God for it, and for my husband. And I thank my husband for being patient and gracious and kind to me as I deal with these things that are hard, and that I never thought would be as hard as they are.

To God be the glory. Great things He hath done (and is progressively doing).

Singleness is a Lonely Place.

I've been single for my entire life. It wasn't such a big deal when I was in high school, or college, or even a little bit post college. I had my family, my friends, and my people. But now, as I pass 30 and head into the wide unknown of the future, my singleness hurts.

As a teen, I always thought I would get married and have my own family post-college. I had life planned out up until that point. When college ended and I found myself unmarried, I wasn't quite sure what to do. But God provided a place for me to live with college girls and they became my family. In some ways, it was weird being the only working adult in a house full of college students, but I became a surrogate mom of sorts. In that role, I harped on the girls to keep the house clean, tried to model a "normal" sleep schedule, and even signed the discharge papers for a roommate who had an unexpected emergency room trip. I found my place, for a few years.

My college friends got married and some of them moved on. I started graduate school for counseling and though I felt called to talk that step, I still had the idea in the back of my mind that I might get married afterward. "Counseling would be a good side job if I had a family," I thought. But grad school came and went and even my very best friends married and moved on. I decided to move myself.

I had no expectation that I'd get married when I moved home to Arizona. But I also had no idea that I'd end up actually living at home with my parents for over two years (and I'm going on year three!) This has been a redeeming time, but I am also realizing how very lonely I feel. I'm trying to figure out where I fit and how to find my own community outside my family of origin, and it's HARD.

There isn't a great place for singles in the world, and especially in the church. I hid out for awhile after I got home, trying to find a community of people like myself. But I mostly found older singles recovering from divorce, married moms my own age, and much younger high schoolers. I didn't do a whole lot with any of them because I felt out of place and different. But then I got desperate for community and convicted that I needed to try it, and I and started to humble myself and reach out more. I started going to the Bible study of mostly older, married women, hanging out with 18 year-olds on worship team, and basically doing whatever I could to find and associate with people. As a result my singleness has begun to be acknowledged and I have made some friends, which is refreshing in some ways. But now it's like I'm the poster child for singleness and the receipt of extra advice and feedback in that department. It's kind of a catch-22.

My mom says I'm sensitive about my singleness, and I think she's right. Singleness is a my reality right now, but it's not the sum total of my existence. I'm a counselor, a daughter, a friend, and a child of God. I have a lot of relationships that need love and attention, and in some ways, my singleness allows me to give more attention to those than I could if I was married. Singleness has some benefits, too. As a single, I can travel at will (as long as I schedule time off work). I have expendable income. I can make decisions and take risks that, to some extent, don't adversely affect others. I am able to hang out with a wide variety of people that I otherwise might not be able to. Do I still want to be married? Yes, but I'm not sure if that's God's will for me, and I know I can be lonely even in a marriage, because only God can completely meet my needs.

Singleness is a lonely place, but I think it can also be a lovely place, if I let it. I just need to stop focusing so much on my loneliness and live life. Because if I just live life, I think I'll find myself more thankful, more grateful, more content, and more satisfied. Singleness isn't my life. Christ is my life, and He is the only One who will never leave nor forsake me (Deut 31:8).

Social Media as Catalyst, Not Connection

I've felt extra lonely lately. And I've noticed that when I'm really lonely, I scroll social media for hours. (Okay, maybe I do this when I'm bored, too.) I scroll looking for something to touch my heart, for something to impact my mind, for something to make me feel less alone. You know what? It doesn't work.

Brene Brown writes in her book, Braving the Wilderness that social media is a catalyst for connection, but not a substitute for community. “Face-to-face connection is imperative in our true belonging practice,” she writes (p. 140). Man, I think she's right.

When I've had a long day at work, when I'm tired and alone and just want someone to understand, I scroll. I look for belonging. And most of the time I don't find it. What I mostly find are beautiful lives, lived in beautiful places, with a beautiful lack of struggle. There's some honesty, but most of what I see is the reverse of what I have, and it makes me angry and envious and more tired.

On the other hand, when I actually get out in community, when I force myself to make face-to-face connections, I come home tired and exhausted, but a good tired and exhausted. I find that I don't want or need to check Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest. I'm content, ready to shower, eat my snack, and head to bed. I've had my fill. I've filled and been filled, and I'm ready to accept my aloneness, to belong to myself and live my own life without comparison.

Social media isn't bad. There is some real and great and honest stuff out there. But overusing social media is bad, at least for me. When I try to make it something it's not, a substitute for community, it fails. I fail.

So here's to using social media as a catalyst, not a connection. To connecting with real humans, with real hearts, in real places. To experiencing the beauty that is life lived with real people, even if that includes real struggle.

Incomplete

If one more person tells me to get a boyfriend, I think I will scream. Since turning 30, I've gotten more comments and questions about why I don't have kids and why I don't have a husband than ever before. And those comments have come from everyone from a five year-old kid to the oldest coworker I have. People, these things aren't necessarily in my control!

It's been a hard season of life and I can't deny that there are times that it seems like having a house, a husband, and 2.5 kids might make things easier. They would at least make me a "typical American." But I know in my heart that a house, husband, and kids cannot and will not complete me. I am incomplete on my own, but I find completion in Christ, and in Him alone. It is He who has begun a good work in me and will carry it on to the finish line of my life (Phil 1:6). 

If one day God sees fit to bless me with a house and a home and family, great! Finding my completeness in the Lord will help me with those relationships. But if I remain as I am, single and even living in my parents' house, Christ is enough. I am complete because Christ indwells my heart through the Holy Spirit, and He is enough.

So if you're thinking of giving me (or any of my other single friends) advice about life, please consider ways to push me towards Jesus instead. Please don't comment on my relationship status, or where I live, or on what I don't have. I don't need reminders of what I'm not. What I need are reminders of my worth in Christ and the complete riches I have in Him. God is my beginning and my end, and my identity comes from Him.

I Wanna Be an Island.

Sometimes I just wanna be an island. No, not a sandy shore next to the ocean, but an island of a person. I don't want to need people. I want to be able to go and do my own thing and not be alone. I want to take care of myself, my car, my life, and my health without anyone else. I want to avoid that pain that comes when I get close to someone and they hurt me. I want to avoid the inevitable grief that happens when a best friend moves away. I want to avoid the heart-wrenching loneliness that comes after I see "my people" and have to say goodbye. It'd be easier if I was a loner.

But I'm not an island. I need people. I'm not mechanically savvy, so I need my dad to give me car advice. I don't get all my health stuff, so I need doctors and a mom who is a nurse to interpret. I need people at church to preach God's words of truth to me. I need bankers to manage my finances. I need bosses and supervisors to teach me to do my job better. I need loved ones who tell me to tone it down or cut it out when I'm living life on the rev limiter. I need friends who teach me to have fun and remind me to do it regularly. I need people in my life to point out the beauty that I frequently miss due to my crazy, uptight perfectionist, Type A personality. Basically, I'm a crappy human when left to my own devices.

Being in relationships with others is the way God designed life. He's a triune God and he created Eve to fix Adam's loneliness. So relationships are His gig. But being in relationship to others is sure painful. The let-downs hurt. The loneliness sinks in deep. My inadequacies become glaring. The fact that I don't know how to love well becomes obvious.

People remind me that I need Jesus, and I do, so I guess I don't really wanna be an island. But some days, it sure seems like it'd be easier.

Discontent

So much in my life is going right. I've made it a year at my job. My parents bought me a new phone for my birthday. I recently got a new car. I just went on a beautiful vacation. And yet I'm still discontent.

I keep thinking that at some point all the pieces of my life will fall into place. That I'll find a home of my own. That I'll make friends. That I'll get married. That my job will be less stressful. That I'll feel settled and at rest. The more I go on with life though, the more I realize that I'll never quite get there.

This world and its imperfections are supposed to make me long for heaven. I need to be thankful and grateful for the good things here on earth, yes, but I need to accept that this dwelling place will never satisfy. The settledness I lack here reminds me that I need to look to Jesus to meet my needs and provide an eternal home. 

So here's to living with my discontent, for accepting it and integrating it into my life and allowing it to push me towards Jesus. I am weak, but he is strong (2 Cor 12:10).

Crazy-busy

"‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us."

~Brene Brown

This quote is perhaps another way to explain where I'm at in life. I've been crazy busy for so long. And now, as life slows a bit, all the emotions are hitting me in the face. I feel lonely. I feel scared. I'm angry. I feel sad. And I find myself trying to fill time instead of feeling. I go on more walks. I take on more projects. I try to sleep more. None of these things are necessarily bad, but they're just other ways I keep myself numb. They're ways I stay a human doing instead of a human being.

What I really need right now is to sit with my feelings, to ask God what He is trying to tell me through them. But I don't want to. Admitting my feelings makes me raw and vulnerable and real. And that's not comfortable, or painless. It's pain-full.

I know God made me a feeling creature for a reason. My emotions help me connect to other people. My emotions help me experience the richness of this world God has made. My emotions remind me that God is God and I need to be still and know Him (Ps 46:10).

So here's to letting down the armor a little bit, to feeling the feels, to trying to enjoy life a little more instead of numbing myself with busyness. Jesus, hold me close.

Waiting for What?

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

~Ecclesiastes 3:11

I've been feeling sad lately. Sad over lost expectations. Sad because I feel lonely. Sad because I don't know what is next. I was talking to my mom about how stuck I feel right now, and she told me that she doesn't believe that this season of my life is forever. I don't either, but what's next? I don't know.

I keep reading about waiting and how I need to do it. I know that waiting is a biblical virtue, but it's hard. Especially when I don't know what I'm waiting for. Am I waiting for a house? Am I waiting to get married? Am I waiting to finish my licensure credentials? To find a new community of close friends? To find the "perfect" job? (Though I like my current job). And how long will my wait last? Forever?

Spiritually speaking, I know that I am waiting for forever, for eternal life with Christ in heaven. But that doesn't necessarily make this current life any easier. When I read this verse from Ecclesiastes, though, I realized that what might make things better is focusing on the beauty now. I don't have to wait to do that. I can see God's beauty in:

His creation
The floral and fauna of the desert
The creatures that move upon the earth
My family relationships
My friends
The kids I work with
Good food
Happy memories
The people around me

These are beautiful and good things that remind me of who God is and what He is doing in the world.

Waiting is both passive and active. It's passively being still and not trying to do for myself what God wants to do for me. It's actively trusting in, looking to, and believing on God. Maybe focusing on what's beautiful now will help me began to frame this hard process of waiting not as a search for meaning, but as a practice in focusing on God who gives life meaning. Because ultimately I'm waiting for Him to do His work, now and in eternity.