Saturday upcoming is my canceled wedding date. And despite
all my gratitude for the fact that I’m not getting married and for all the good
things and relationships in my life, I still find
myself bumping into this muddy sense of loneliness. It’s a buried sense of
ache, not for a specific relationship lost but for a dream set aside, a season
of partnership pulled out of reach, the face of a man I don’t yet know.
Graham Cooke teaches that every trial is not something to be
endured but an opportunity to receive an upgrade from the Lord. He doesn’t want
to take something away. He wants to give me something. Here is Graham’s
challenge: in every new season or situation, go to the Lord with this question—What do You want to be for me now that You
couldn’t be before?
So now in this renewed season of singleness, with more on my
plate than I’ve ever had before, with more yearning for partnership than I’ve
ever acknowledged before—here and now—what does Y’shua want to be for me?
In my engagement months I visited the passage in Ephesians 5
about marriage in recurring frequency. I read books by Keller and Piper. I
explored from multiple angles what headship and submission meant. But this
morning these words jumped off the page: This
mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
I’m not married. I’m not even getting married any more, but I am the church. I
am the bride of Christ. And Paul states he isn’t really talking about marriage.
He’s talking about me and my relationship with Y’shua. What that means is this
passage is for me, now, in my singleness. I re-read it with a lens of what
Y’shua wants to be for me and towards me.
He is my Savior.
He rescues, delivers, redeems. I don’t have to save myself or anyone else.
He is my head. He
is the part of me most readily taken hold of. When people come to me in need of
love, comfort, or friendship He is what they will most readily encounter. When
I am attacked, He is what the attacker will lay hold of. He is my protection,
my filter, my source of life.
He loves me. I am
loved with the security of the deliberate choice of His love—unchanging,
unaffected by mood swings and offense and the passing of time.
He sanctifies me,
makes me holy, sets me apart jealously for Himself.
He cleanses me by the
washing of the word. I will be
refreshed, fed, made new.
He presents me in
splendor.
He makes me flawless,
holy, blameless. No accusation
against me will stand.
I am a part of Him.
When He loves me, He loves Himself. Therefore He will love me as He loves
Himself.
He nourishes me. He sustains me, provides for my needs,
rears me up to maturity making me complete.
He cherishes me, brooding over me, sacrificing of
Himself to bring me life.
He shall make me one
flesh with Himself. One day my
soul will be utterly renewed and I shall be a partner with Him in His thoughts,
His emotions, His imaginings.
In short, He wants to be for me what I want in a husband,
and ultimately what a husband could never fully be for me. In my naivety I
thought I learned this six years ago when I asked Him to teach me contentment.
But now this season isn’t just about allowing Him to be my satisfaction in the
presence of a romantic craving. The roots of my dependence must go deeper now,
to crave Him to be my partner, my sounding board, my provider, my support
system, to give over the burdens too great for my shoulders to lift. In The Path of Loneliness, Elisabeth Elliot
writes, “God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t
need now.” In His sovereignty God has declared, I don’t need a husband now. The
Lord is going to be my head, to be the lifter of my head, to transform the
thoughts within my head to be awake to His presence with me.
