Singleness & Sexuality: What to do when it Burns?

No one ever talks openly and honestly about the physical side of loneliness.

I used to think I was called to singleness because I didn’t burn. I didn’t struggle much with self-control. I thought it was a sign. I assumed God was calling me to a lifestyle of ministry where my singleness would be a gift. I loved Paul’s passage in 1 Corinthians 7. But that was before my walls of self-protection came down. That was before being engaged to Aaron. Before kissing a man.

Then there is now: my hormones respond at the slightest implication—reading a Christian blog about someone getting married, engagement photos on Facebook, observing the affection of a husband towards his wife, the tenderness of a kiss on the movie screen. Suddenly my body is warm and alive and searching. My physical cells pull my thoughts and emotions into the vortex until my loneliness is heightened and raging on all sides. I find myself breathing deep, clamping my mind shut, waiting for the hormones to subside, rehearsing the reasons why waiting is wise. And suddenly I begin to understand the epidemic of teen pregnancies and pornography and affairs.

Before I thought—you fools—don’t you see the brokenness this causes, the disease, the fractured homes and hearts, the fatherless family units, the financial hardship. The fruit. It’s rotten to the core. And you bit into it? Idiocy.

Which is still true. But I hadn’t yet felt this wild, awakened dragon inside of me. I hadn’t understood how hungry he could be. I hadn’t tasted the tantalizing flavor along the perfect shiny skin of that fruit. I hadn’t let Aaron hold me. Now I can empathize. And I live with gratitude that the grace of God has been strong, is still strong. I came so close to a disastrous marriage—and as deeply as this division has wounded my heart, I can’t imagine the endless depth of it if there had been a sexual connection to peel apart as well. The last thing I want to do is go to bed with the wrong kind of man, or to do it outside the safety of a marriage where I am covered by God and a man who will provide for me and not use me as a means to an end.

And yet, I do want to go to bed with that man. Now. When he is not here. When I do not yet know his face, his name, or can even say with confidence he for sure exists at all. And so my body burns, and I turn to the Lord and say, what do I do?

Solomon, suddenly is yet wiser—I adjure O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the fields, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

Hell yes. If only we could understand before we understand and have to live with the aftereffects. It begs questions. Did the Lord use this first relationship to ready me for my husband? Was this the Lord saying wake up; it’s time. That’s what I assumed was true when I was saying yes and letting a man put a ring on my finger, when I gave him my first ever kiss. So is the right man coming—soon? Or did I awaken love out of its time? Am I somehow at fault? Am I reaping the consequences of my fallen nature? Or at least the fallen nature of a sinful world?

And I’m just a woman. From what I’ve gathered about being a man, this struggle is magnified times infinity, always there, always pulsing beneath the surface, whether married or not. So to all you men who have walked this road with integrity for a long list of years—my deepest respect to you. Mistakes and all. I’m sure in your head you think you’re not doing as well as it looks on the outside, but I still say well done. And that I’m not doing as well in my head as it looks on the outside either. Who would know this petite, virgin, worship-leading, golden girl of a small town community who works in a church office and has taught sexual purity retreats to young girls would secretly really love to make out? And I’m not ashamed to want that, or to open a forum to be honest about it. Walking in righteousness is pitched as such a straightforward, pristine, beneficiary trek. But few warn us of the wrestling it takes to get there, the muddied complicated questions you encounter along the way. Worth it, yes. Straightforward, not so much. Easy--definitely not.

Frankly, it blistering burns.

Christ's Lament

I have been captured this Lenten season by the scene in Gethsemane. Christ’s lament the night before he went to the cross. His raw humanity, his grief, his longing for there to be another way.

My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.

He fell on the ground and prayed. There must’ve been dirt under his fingernails where he grabbed at the earth in desperation, clenching his fists in anticipation of the pain. His sweat thickened into blood.

Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.

Within this prayer I hear the lament:

Please, father, you can do anything. So why are you asking me to do this? Why must I have to suffer this way? Don’t you love me? Take this away. Don’t ask this of me.

Even Jesus—even God (who was also man)—was allowed to grieve. He was allowed to bring his fear, his doubt, his dread to his father. He was allowed to be honest. To cry. To be appalled at the prospect of becoming sin, of being separated from his Father, of bearing all the demonic force of hell in full assault on his body, soul, and spirit. And this grief was not a sin. If it were, our salvation would be null and void.

I am compelled to draw near to the suffering Christ, one who begged his father to find another way. I see in him one who can sympathize with my weakness, with my grief, with my apprehension to surrender and trust.

Simultaneously I want to draw back from the Father who asks his son to go through this horrific pain. It begs questions—Would God ask me to go through such pain? Is this what following and obeying and surrendering look like? I desperately want to understand the Father’s relationship with his Son because I see my own journey wrapped up in this theology. Would such a father who sacrificed his son to save the world ask me to sacrifice myself for the sake of others? What about my heart? What about Jesus' when he went to the cross?

And yet Jesus was not a victim of the cross. He went willingly. He went as a King, intentionally claiming his throne. He went as a Son, trusting His Father’s intentions.

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

So what did Jesus understand so implicitly about his Father that have gave him the courage to surrender and trust in the face of such agony? This is what I need to know. Who are you, Father, to be good and love your children and yet lead them through such suffering? Who are you, Christ, who surrendered in the face of such agony? And who am I, caught between them with my doubts and fears and grieving hesitation?

Abba, if I see what Christ saw in you, will I too be able to move forward through suffering and trust you? And is it possible for my blinded eyes to see you rightly enough for that to be true?