Six months and counting is a long time to leave a blog a
post-free zone. In this age of constant communiqués, such a casual sabbatical
is pretty much social-media suicide. You are what you tweet as it were. But I
have a fairly good reason for having been under the radar: being knee deep in
finishing up a manuscript and getting married.
Yes, pop the champagne! Or rather the champagne was well and
truly popped as me and my best beloved were witnessed by family and friends
enter into a covenant agreement with God a fortnight ago. Yup, there are
definitely three people in this marriage; me, him and my favourite-favourite,
JC. Much is made of getting married and the preparation around the happy day
and I purposely chose to not blog about either. Until today of course, oops, ma
bad. Churches have often created a sense of panic around the subject of love
and marriage; with singletons being made to feel that the wedding day, is some sort of spiritual finish line. Praise God! You are married! You have become one of the
‘bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh’ elite! No more chilling on the
margins of church life, the horrendous lot reserved especially for those still
single post their thirtieth birthday. No need to ponder about guilt-free sex,
because you can do as much of the horizontal lambada as you please, without the
raised eyebrow of judgment from some in the pews with you. Sometimes, with all the hoop-la around the
topic you could be mistaken into thinking that this is the whole point of the
whole point. But of course it is not.
Marriage is one of the many blessings that God gives to us.
Because by its very nature it is relational, we often long for it, and
fairy-tales, movies and literature have been pretty good at over-egging the
pudding in regard to this particular happy=ever=after! If we look at the first instance in the bible
of a couple getting together, it was God’s idea to begin with:
“It is not good for
man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
The first part of this verse often gets more of the airtime.
We focus on singleness not being the ideal. The verse seemingly goes one
further: it is not good to be
alone! Things are not cheer-worthy until
one has had a Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire ‘You Complete Me’ moment, either as
the recipient or indeed the deliverer of the speech. And in the interim there
is whatever distraction you shove in its place. But this is not the case as is
seen in the second part of the verse, in which God states ‘I will make a helper
suitable for him.’ As an incurable romantic, the phrase ‘I will make a helper’
warms my heart; God makes a promise, he will definitely make someone. So
if this Valentine’s Day is one where you are flying solo, know that there is
definitely someone, should it be your heart’s desire of course, as we do not
serve a bullying God, and not everyone is called to marriage, who is in the works.
The next part of the sentence is even more exciting ‘suitable
for him’. One is drawn to the various connotations of the word ‘suitable’. I
like to think of it in clothing terms. Some items just do not suit you. They
might look great on a hanger or incredible in a magazine editorial, but all
wrong on your body. Sometimes, things may suit you for a season, you wear them
to death and then one day, you put it on, and you just know that you are sick of
that look, and off to the charity shop it goes. In some instances, you think
something suits you, rock it and look back at pictures of you in said item,
usually courtesy of someone uploading it on Throwback
Thursday and think: “what on earth was I thinking?!” I know, I certainly
think that with stuff I’ve worn and if I am being truly honest, some of the
people I have dated. So my message to
those still on the dating journey, think investment pieces all the way.
As for
my darling husband; to use the clothing analogy, he is the perfect LBD,
effortlessly stylish, flattering yet comfortable, guaranteed to make me feel
sensational when worn, and most definitely a timeless, forever piece in my
wardrobe. I am sure there are many others who feel exactly the same way about their special person too, so let us all give thanks to God, today and always for the person made just for you.
