Not To Scare You Or Anything.

I like to say that I'm ready to be married.

I like to say that a lot.

And, for the most part, I think a lot of female colleagues I've talked to are in the same boat, which I'm sure is quite startling to the XY club.

I'm ready to be married, in a sense, to find my partner and get to the good stuff: learning, battling, and growing in faith. It's exciting to me, to share a life with another individual, the good, the not so good, and the thoughts and ideals in our mind that we like to keep packed away. I'm ready to trust. I'm ready to believe. Moreover, I'm ready to create a life with someone who will walk beside me. Not in front, nor behind, but beside me, and take it one lovey-dovey* day at a time.

I have it all planned out.

But knowing my Father, and His great sense of humor, will come at me from left field - completely polar to what I was expecting. I like to say I'm not looking. I like to think I'm not looking, but deep down my peripheral vision has the creativity of a seven year old. I'm sure it has something to do with the estrogen.

That's the beauty in plans, though. You make them, yet the probability of those desires coming to be is a complete mystery - just how I have a list of qualities I'm (not actively, of course) looking for: he must love cats, drool over Egg McMuffins, and share in my chai addiction. However, years from now, I'll probably be exchanging vows with a dog lover, fast-food hater, and a calorie-counter king**.

You never know what you're going to get. But that's the most enchanting realization, I suppose. At the end of the day, I do know what I want, but I don't know what's best for me. And that's where the light shines through: my King who knows me inside and out, action from reaction, thought from craving, from want, from need, from hope, from truth - sees me in my undoubtedly overwhelming transparency. And with that solidified notion, I uninhibitedly surrender. And wait.

And I keep telling myself that, "I'll just know when it's time," but as each day goes by I wonder how even that is possible.

How will you just know?

Is it like God slaps you*** and says, "Here, look, it's him" with doves fluttering about in a divine nature? Is it through tireless dating? Is it through our standards being met and the individual exceeding those?

These questions position myself to becoming increasingly aggravated at my own ill-supported-by-any-concrete-evidence ideological fantasy, so I stop.

I think there's a healthy balance between the two: actively searching and waiting. What I do know for certain, though, as Luke covered in Acts, is we, as women, should be keen on finding a man who is seeking God's own heart, and continue to trust in Him wholeheartedly - with or without a significant other. And with that, I think everything else will fall into place.

And you'll just know.

CourtReplies

* My primary love language is affirmation, then touch. Be prepared hubby, be prepared.
** I'm just sayin'.
*** In a genuine, I-love-you-unconditionally kind of way.