***DISCLAIMER*** This blog is about dating, relationships, and marriage. Present and Future Racers: you can read this when you get off the field. 🙂
Look! It’s future me!
When you are a single woman of a certain age (27 in my case) and most of your close friends are married and having babies, you spend a lot of time thinking, praying, and talking about marriage. While I’m not of those single women who has a Pinterest board devoted to a mythical wedding (because that would be embarrassing), I have spent quite a bit of time hoping for the eventual day when a man would decide he loved me enough to spend the rest of his life with me.
A few months ago I had dinner with some of my favorite people: Hillary, Rachel, and Kira. As Hillary had gotten married just a few months prior, our conversation naturally turned towards the topic. A common theme that came up among us single women is that the men of our generation don’t really seem interested in pursuing us. And why should they? We make it easy on them to be passive and inactive.
Yay! Weddings!
As women, I think we’ve made it easy for men to remain boys. We see their lack of action, their passivity, and decide we must do something about it. So we ask them out. We take initiative in the relationship, we become the pursuers. We begin to assume their responsibilities in the relationship, giving them the perfect excuse to do…nothing.
That nothing is a something, loud and clear. I’ve come to recognize a few things in these years of wilderness. To begin with, if a man isn’t asking you out, there are two reasons. The first is that he’s simply not interested. The second is that he’s interested, but too afraid of rejection or too uncertain to make his interest known. In the first case, you’re wasting your time. In the second, you’re wasting your time with an immature boy and not a man of character.
I’m beginning to ascribe more to the traditional ideas of gender roles. Men and women are created equal, but separate. There are strengths and traits and characteristics that we have to compliment each other, not compete against. I have begun to see the value of stepping back and creating the space for men to step forward and be men. I don’t want to start pursuing my husband before he starts pursuing me; I would feel like I had to assume that role for the entirety of our marriage.
Even more than that, marriage is supposed to be an earthly representation of our relationship with Christ. In the heavenly story, the Bridegroom pursues the Bride. She doesn’t strive or manipulate or try to convince the Bridegroom to marry her. He chooses her. That is exactly the love story I want here on earth.
Pretty much my face when I’m talking to a crush….
To the single women who read this: Work on being a godly woman of character and walking in intimacy with the Lord and stop striving for marriage. Guard the thoughts you allow to take root in your mind and heart in the areas of men and marriage. Ultimately, your fulfillment comes from God’s love, not man’s.
To the single men: if you like her, ask her out. Be bold and courageous. Asking her to coffee is not committing your life to her. It’s just coffee. And don’t you dare flirt with her if you have no intentions other than friendship.
To both: be mature enough to recognize that when things don’t work out, it’s not a reflection of your value. It’s ok to have an honest conversation and tell each other if you’re not feeling it. It just means you tried and there is no shame in that.
At the beginning of 2013, I prayed two prayers concerning my future husband. The first is that this would be the year I would meet him, if I didn’t know him already (nothing on this front yet, but I’m still hopeful). The second prayer is that God would make it obvious in the way that this man pursues me that he is my husband.
So, in light of all these recent revelations, I’ve come to a conclusion. If I want the kind of love that is a representation of Christ’s love for the church, I must do… nothing. I will not pursue or manipulate. I will not step into the role intended for the men. I will be a woman of God who is obedient to Him and hopefully along the way, He’ll bring someone along. And hopefully that someone is a man of character who will say, “Hey, I think you’re pretty great and I’d love to spend more time getting to know you. Can I take you out to dinner?”
And I will say yes.
