Day 20

I was reminded this morning of a conversation I had with God on a rooftop in China when I was seventeen. At the time I thought I had conducted myself as the ideal little Christian girl—no dating, no kissing, modest wardrobe—the whole nine yards, and therefore I was daft enough to believe that God owed me a really good marriage in return for my compliance to His rules. But that’s what the church as an organization generally trains us to believe, right? Follow these rules because they bring about these good outcomes. A + B = C. And here came God and disrupted all my thinking with a softly whispered question. Will you do this because you love me, because I ask this of you? Even if you never get the outcome you want? Essentially, what if A + B = Ø?  It was life-altering, that conversation, as I wrestled with God to surrender what I thought I was owed to love and obey His heart for me, for His sake and His alone, regardless of the outcome.

Entering this relationship with Aaron nine years later, I thought I was safe from all that. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get married, but I was trying to open my heart to being vulnerable and accept God’s goodness for my life. I didn’t want to refuse to follow Him into a good thing because of fear. I was just obeying what He was asking of me. I didn’t feel like I was owed anything. But maybe that wasn’t true. If He was going to call me into dating, engagement, and marriage, then I think I had some preconceived notions of how that should look. I was open to things being unconventional to a certain degree (because let’s face it folks, when have I ever opted to do anything the conventional way?), but there was still a remnant of that good Christian expectation left within me. Date a certain way, hold good boundaries, throw in some conflict-resolution, add a serving of wise counsel and presto—a good healthy marriage and a happily-ever after (tempered of course with a realistic dose of hardship that the Lord would transform into something beautiful). The formula could still be boiled down to A + B = C.

But I did A. I did B. And C was not what happened. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s not the conventional story I was fed to believe about love. It’s nothing near a fairy tale. And I’m not saying this from a place of bitterness, but maybe more of a reality check about how we think about love in the Christian world. Letting the first man you fall in love with and kiss be the man you marry doesn’t always work out like we think it will. It’s a nice thought, but in my case unrealistic; and it wasn’t because I sinned or did something wrong. Love is just a lot more messy than that.

I can’t say I’ve gotten fist-raving mad yet, but I can feel anger stewing around somewhere in my heart—indignation that I did everything “right” and this is the outcome I was handed. But I was struck afresh today by the fact that God doesn’t owe me anything.

“When we stand back to consider the premise—that God owes us a good life—it is clearly unwarranted. If there really is an infinitely glorious God, why should the universe revolve around us rather than around him?” Timothy Keller from Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

God doesn’t owe me a marriage. Period. He doesn’t owe me a date or romance at all. He definitely doesn’t owe me a fairytale. And he even doesn’t owe me an explanation about Aaron. Because I know God’s heart I know He will be patient and understanding with me. He will be gentle and un-offended with my anger, my grief, my questions. He may even answer some of them in time. But the truth remains, He doesn’t owe me answers. I haven’t been robbed or cheated, or treated harshly. I have been treated with kindness. Rescued out of my sin and given an inheritance far above my worth. If we want to talk about what I’m owed, there are things much worse than broken engagements I could put on that list. It doesn’t change the fact that this is hard, and grieving is okay. But I’m slowly letting that truth sink into my spirit today. It helps to put things into perspective, like a pinhole of light poking through the oppressive ceiling of grief.