By HEATHER CATHLEEN COX
Special to the NEWS
HeatherCathleenCox@gmail.com
Heather Cathleen Cox
I’m guilty.
I’ve bought into the hype that is Godly singleness, which essentially teaches that single women are actually ladies in waiting for the right man. I think I even liked a Facebook page about “Waiting for my Boaz.”
Sigh.
Drilling the fantasy: I just need to hold tight until my prince comes and finds me so my life can truly begin into the heads of young girls only teaches them they aren’t going to be good enough until they get married. Conversely, it implies that married life will be all sunshine and buttercups. And I know enough (even happily!) married couples to know that ain’t true.
Living in a perpetual state of waiting can actually cause a lot of undesirable emotions and situations, from fear to shame and even self-condemnation. Actually, I find it difficult to believe that when the Maker of the Universe created me, His intent was for life—prior to meeting my husband—to be less meaningful for the sole reason I was flying solo. After all, Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”
I’m totally over teachings that instruct we’ll miraculously become whole when we meet the one. The principle is also gender-biased. Women aren’t taught that men should wait to start living their lives until after meeting their wives.
The truth is, I hope my husband-to-be isn’t “waiting” until the day we meet to begin living a full, exuberant, Godly life. I pray daily that my future husband—wherever he is—is safe, healthy, happy, pure, and a lot of other things. But it would never cross my mind to pray that he’s vegging out on the sofa of life, shelving aspirations and goal-setting, until after we meet.
As healthy, vibrant women we’ve got to stop expecting earthly men to provide what only the Lord can. To all the single ladies, whether you’re naïve, hopeful and just setting out into the dating world or whether you’ve had failed marriage upon failed marriage that has skyrocketed you into singleness in your golden years, don’t believe the lie that you cannot be complete without a significant other. I am whole because Christ purchased my life on the cross and paid a debt I could not. I am complete because I can love, and I can love because God first loved me. So are you.
God knows the plans he has for us. He wants to bless us with our heart’s desire. Maybe some of us, myself included, are still single because we must fully comprehend who we are in Christ before we will truly be prepared to know the man of our dreams.
As an aside, when hoping and praying for our future guys, we have to stop hoping that the poor fella will be anything more than the life-partner God designed him to be. All humans are imperfect. How can he be our “knight in shining armor” if he is an imperfect human…just as we are imperfect? Besides, ladies, we hate when a man wants us to be anything other than our natural selves. Imagine your future guy’s relief when he finally meets you and all you ask of him is to be the person he was designed to be!
Ladies, if you’re still with me, I propose that instead of waiting for a husband, we begin prayerfully waiting on the Lord to make us into the best version of ourselves possible. This sort of waiting will require much patience and strength of character, found in the proverbial Wife of Noble Character. The Proverbs 31 woman is depicted as having a lot of traits, one of my favorite being strong. I assume that this means strong physically as well as in character; I also believe it means strong enough to work towards becoming the woman God called her to be…before and after becoming a wife.
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