I know this blog has really been just for a few of us and to have some good laughs. So excuse me for a second if I get too serious. I love talking about the crazy things that happen to us in life or that we do. Honestly I just have a bad memory so part of creating the blog was to help remember all the fun crazy times!
I’ve been somewhat holed up for the last two weeks rediscovering that I like reading (yes, I’ve also been extremely sick so that hasn’t been a lie!). I’ve read some really good books recently, on theology and opinions, and am just now starting some poetry (I know, who would have thought?...I don’t quite understand poetry yet but I’m only two weeks into my love of reading).
Anyways, I’ve been realizing something over the past six months that has been really hard for me to take in and understand. I’ve always wanted to get married. My dad gave me my second grade drawings of what I wanted to be when I grow up a few months ago that he had kept all this time. It was a story book of me standing at a stove cooking and caring for my family, with three boys and one girl at a kitchen table, and a hamster in the corner..?... This isn’t quite how I envision married life now but it does show that I had the desire to be loved and cared for from a young age.
I joke a lot on the blog about finding a guy. In reality I think it is hard for me to let single men close to me. The male figures in my life have really been my close married friends. I cannot express how much they have impacted my life between us all moving across the country to NY to play local concerts and help at a church, sleeping under the stars in Walmart parking lots because vans broke down, relying on each other for strength in good times and hard times, and then being ok with coming back to good old Olympia, WA when it was time. They have truly been an example of what strong men are. Just today one of them helped fix a car headlight for me while I laid in bed all day with a fever and watched Jane Austin movies (thanks Josh!). It was a little act, but meant more to me than anything has in a long time for some reason.
I bring this up because lately I have been wondering if marriage is not supposed to be my role in life. Maybe it is and just not right now. When I picture marriage I picture it as hard. I picture it as a partnership. I picture being able to spend time with someone and building a strong family. I picture being able to teach my daughters that they are beautiful for who they are and to do crazy things like making laundry soap with their mom. I picture having boys that are smart little witty geniuses (they’ll get that from their father of course). I picture being able to respect a man so much for his love of God that we could face anything together with God’s help and write a love story together around God. I picture being involved in his ministry, not necessarily a pastor’s wife because lately I wonder if some pastors even unfortunately get too tied down with church politics. I picture being able to love others and have an open home for anyone. It was around this time that I realized I needed to stop picturing things.
Here I am, in Washington’s beautiful capitol city, with amazing friends who love God. Not only do these friends love God, but they have hearts for reaching people. Over the past few months I have seen God pulling at my friend’s hearts to reach people. Not just reach people, but to combine with other churches, to unify churches to love others instead of segregate themselves from each other. Just last night we had young adults from multiple churches and backgrounds meet for a worship and prayer night. I realized that I was so focused on what I wanted my role in life to be as a wife, that maybe this isn’t the role I have been called to yet. It’s not that I would make a bad wife and mother, it’s just that it may not be my role right now. My passion is with mentoring young girls, or young female adults, and I have been given such amazing opportunities lately to really get to know some amazing girls and share each others struggles and encourage each other.
I have realized that I can love and encourage others and open up my apartment to others without having to be married. Maybe my role for right now is be an encouragement to these young girls, to listen to them, to share in their struggles. Maybe even to have girl nights and teach them how to make laundry soap! I am not saying that I am writing off marriage, some poor guy has probably been out there waiting for me to grow up and figure out who I am. What I am saying is that my role in life right at this very second is to be single and I want to do the best at is that I can. I want to be able to encourage others in our group, and love those people in Olympia that need to be loved (which absolutely terrifies me but I know creates strength).
So…..in addition to all that….part of my new love for reading came from listening to a podcast (I realize I am getting nerdier as this blog goes on), and then researching the speaker who turned out to be an author. He wrote this book recently called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. I have not read it yet but am going to add it to my now ever growing list. There is actually a conference that they put on every year in Portland that I think would be fun for a bunch of us to go to. I know none of us are rich and can’t really afford it, but maybe we can save up for the 2012 one if they do it and use tax returns or something? We all do love a good road trip, even if Portland is only a two hour commute away.
I’m going to go ahead and put a link for his book in here and a video to maybe get a free copy of the book. If I do end up getting one I’m sure I will let you all know because I’ll probably try to convince you all to read it! Anyways…..this may be the longest blog I’ve written but that’s where I am at in life. So for the few of us that read actually this…thanks for loving me.
http://www.amazon.com/Million-Miles-Thousand-Years-Learned/dp/1400202981/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
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