Ignorant Historian

Have you ever written a letter to your future self?  I’ve done that several times, but I always remember to open them in time, not being as excited about them as I was when I wrote them.  I figured I might as well write this letter here as I’m much more likely to see it!

Dear Ronnica 2015,

Let’s not fool anyone…this is a tad bit ridiculous before an audience.  Reminds me of times when I’ve had to practice a speech before an audience of one.  Let’s try to put that silliness aside.

I have no idea what your life is like, Ronnica 2015.  Perhaps your life is closer to my dream future or my practically planned future, but more likely it’s something/somewhere I never thought I’d be.  After all, my 2005 self would have laughed at where I am today (and my 2000 self even more so).

If you are married or have kids, don’t take that for granted.  Remember well how much you longed for those things when you were me.  While I no doubt have no idea the trials that come with life as a wife and mother, I do know that deep inside of me, that’s what I desire.  Just as I work now to be content where God’s placed me, work to be content where God has placed you.

And if you’re still single, I know you’re handling it.  I have so much still to learn about how to honor God in my single life, and how to balance all the many areas I want to grow in.  Hopefully you’re excelling at that better than I am.  I hope that you have many more days that you are content than nights that you are not.

Don’t be afraid to love.  Hey, I could be writing this for my today self.  I know our tendency to be reserved when it comes to friendships.  It’s okay to put yourself out there…even if you get hurt.  Seek to love others (through word AND deed) as you’d want to be loved yourself.

Though no doubt our interests aren’t quite the same, keep learning.  There is so much to know and so much wisdom to be gained.  Learn from those who go before us and seek wisdom at God’s mercy seat.  Even though you’re 5 years further down the road than I, I know you have so much more room to grow.

Truthfully,

Ronnica 2010

Photo by Muffet

Thanks to Jen for basically writing the last couple of paragraphs of this post. It’s humbling (and ironic) to not even know how to finish my thoughts on this subject.

I’m a woman of control.

Or at least that’s what I want.

My problem (okay, one of them) is that I think I know best.  About everything.  Not only do I think I know what’s best for those around me, I think I know what’s best for me, too.  Always have, just ask my mom.

The thing is, I don’t.  I might be blessed with worldly smarts, but I’m still sorely lacking in true wisdom.  As we’ve been walking through Solomon’s life in my kindergarten Sunday school class, we’ve been talking a lot about wisdom.  I think the best way to learn a concept is to have to try to explain it to a 5-year-old…there are so many concepts I can’t quite get across to them (glory, the Trinity).  If you ask them, I hope they can tell you that we’ve talked about how wisdom is knowing what is right and good.

The older I get (and in theory, the wiser I get), the more I realize that I’m like a 3 on a scale of 100 of possible human wisdom.  At most.

Last week I realized that I’m okay with my singleness as long as I in my earthly “wisdom” can decipher out a way out.  And as far as singleness goes, the way I want out is a man, a plan, and a ring by spring…or at least by next spring.

Hmm, that doesn’t sound like contentment to me.

Just shows me that I still demand control of my own life, my own future.  That I prefer my plans to whatever God has in store for me, as foolish as that is.  I know that God knows what’s best for me (He knows me better than myself!), but somehow I can’t get that to truly stick in my daydreaming head.

It’s times like this that I have to remind myself that I have been fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and that the very hairs on my head are numbered (Matthew 10:30)–gray or not–and that before one day of my life came to pass, God ordained each of them (Psalm 139:16).  How foolish I am to think that I would know more than Him!  How can I know myself better than the one who knit me in my mother’s womb (v. 13)?

Moment by moment, I must make the choice to trust Him in His infinite wisdom.  I give Him the reigns one night, only to rip them back from him minutes, or at most, hours later.  It is only when I trust Him that I can truly find contentment.

God, help me remember that.

Photo by Drunken Monkey

“If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else.  Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.”  - Ann Patchett, Bel Canto, p. 56

“Good arguments will not convince anyone who is not open to being convinced.” – Frank Turek, Correct, Not Politically Correct, p. 8

“I suppose it’s terribly sexist of me assuming that all of the terrorists were male. It’s a modern world, after all. One should suppose a girl can grow up to be a terrorist just as easily as a boy.” – Messner, character in Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, p. 147

“Many have become immune to Christianity by contracting a mild and unbiblical form of it.” – Randy Alcorn, If God is Good, p. 35

“Americans have a bad habit of thinking like Americans.” – Roxanne Coss, character in Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, p. 222

“Anyone who observed us would conclude the purpose of all academic discussion was to provide the grounds for becoming further entrenched in our original positions.” – Richard Russo, Straight Man, p. 201

“You’re young, you’re Black, and you’re on trial. What else do [the jurors] need to know?” – Kathy O’Brien, character in Monster by Walter Dean Myers

“In our reckless pursuit of self-gratification we impose upon ourselves gnawing emptiness rather than the joy and contentment that comes in loving God and others.” Randy Alcorn, If God is Good, p. 64

“If the Bible tells us what life is and how to live it, then biblical literacy isn’t an option. I need it. We all do.” – Rachel Starr Thompson, “What We Don’t Know”

“Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.” - Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card, p. 148

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without sign posts.” – The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, p. 61

“You don’t fall in love with people that make you want to crap your pants.”  Paris, Gilmore Girls, ”Lorelai’s First Cotillion”

“Alyosha said to himself: ‘I can’t give 2 roubles instead of “all,” and only go to mass instead of “following Him.” ‘ ” – The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoevsky, p. 32

“Just understand that you may think this is not a very good place, but it’s not a bad place, either.  It’s just another place for you to be right now.” – Women of the Silkby Gail Tsukiyama, p. 41

Don’t look now, but I think I want to be single.

I feel like I talk my singleness to death on this here ole blog, but it’s something that I deal with on a daily basis, so I guess it’s something you, dear reader, have to hear about.  The tenor of these blog posts on my marital status tends to be: “I wish I was dating/married/a mother, but I want to be content where I am.”  Rest assured, this post won’t be anything of the sort.

Just last week I was contemplating my life.  Not the how-do-I-live-moment-to-moment or even the do-I-have-a-purpose type of contemplation, but the I-want-to-live-this-day-over-and-over-again kind of contemplation.  I like singleness: the flexibility, the alone time, the choosing what I want to eat and when, the extra time I get to dedicate to my favorite pastimes.

If I marry and/or have kids, these things will necessarily change.

I’m not saying that my motives are all right in this (I’m working on that one), but there’s some good in it.  First of all, I’m spending more time dwelling on the life God has given me than on the life that I want.  Secondly, one of the major motivations for remaining single is that I have more time/energy/resources to minister to others in and out of the church.  I could still do this if I was married, but a greater part of those resources would have to be spent on my family.

Of course, most of this is feeling-based, and as we all know, feelings change (over and over again).  While I was to the point of tears only a few weeks ago with an extreme desire for a husband and children, now I’m reveling it up in my current life.  If I were to remain single the rest of my life, I’d want my feelings to stay as they are, but I doubt that’s going to happen.  Actually, I know that’s not going to happen, because I’m still not immune to crushes.

Watch out, I think I might be seeing some green grass growing in between my toes.

Photo by  *sean

I only have a few quotes for you today, but I didn’t want to tell you to be sure to stop back by Monday.  It’s kinda a big deal.

“Whereever you are, yo ushould always be contented, but especially at home, because there you must spend the most of your time.” – Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, p. 294

“It was one of the biggest scandals of Life, to learn that the cruelest thing someone could say to you was that you were a terrible kisser.” – Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, p. 426

“When God saves his people, bringing us from death to life, he opens our eyes to love and appreciate the supreme treasure that is Jesus Christ.” – The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies, p. 31

“Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had ben cherishing since last night–of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal–I pronounced judgment to this effect:–That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life: that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.” – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, p. 169

“She gave him a smile in which hope and knowledge were going at it, bare-knuckled, equally and eternally matched.”  – Empire Falls by Richard Russo, p. 161

“…but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honor, when those principles point one way and when her affections, and the interest which grow out of them, point the other?” – Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, p. 176-177

“She emphasized what few wanted to accept, that some people did win Trivial Pursuit: The Deity Looks Edition and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it, except come to terms with the fact you’d only played Trivial Pursuit: John Doe Genes and come away with three pie pieces.” – Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, p. 90

“If you’re white they don’t let you grow up to adulthood if you haven’t mastered the art of pretending to say one thing while actually intending to do another.” - Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card, p. 153

“But if there are no gods, why are we so hungry to believe in them?” – Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card, p. 177

“I don’t want to be married just to be married.  I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, that I can’t be silent with.” – Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, p. 8

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.” – Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, p. 53

“To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.  A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can.” – Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, p. 1o4

“Covetousness is desiring something so much that you lose your contentment in God.” – Future Grace by John Piper, p. 221

” ‘The United States of America has not the option as to whether it will or it will not play a great part in the world.’ Roosevelt would argue.  ‘It must play a great part.  All that it can decide is whether it will play that part well or badly.’ ” – FDR quoted in The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 333

“But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” – 1 Timothy 6:8

FYI: This post isn’t written specifically to anyone. It’s just something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and wanted to get out there.

For the most part, I enjoy being single. Of course there’s an ache inside for a husband and kids, but I truly seek to be content exactly where I am. But there are a couple of things that I find particularly annoying about being single. The first one is having to go to parties and events alone. I really have to push myself to go to things if I don’t know that I have a close friend that will be there.

The other thing that I find annoying is when people tell me,

“I know he’s out there.”

or

“Keep waiting; he’ll come.”

or

“I just know that God has someone special lined up for you.”

or even

“If you just stop wanting to get married and just live life, he’ll pop right in your life.”

Really, I’ve tried that last one (as have many of my friends), and it’s not a magical formula.

I’m not saying that I won’t get married. I’m still young; I get that. Even if I wasn’t, God could bring someone into my life. I’m totally willing and doing whatever it is in my power to prepare myself for marriage and not hinder any potential relationship.

It’s just that I don’t know that I’ll get married. I also don’t know that I won’t. And unless God has told you something about me that He hasn’t even told me, you don’t know that either.

So please don’t tell me or any other single women you know/meet that you know that we’ll get married. I know you mean well when you say it, but it’s really not helpful. When I hear things like that, it tempts me to take my mind off God (Colossians 3:1-3) to give myself a pity party.

Here’s something a married friend said that carries the same sentiment that WAS helpful:

“I also know that you are awaiting the man (if he is there) that the Lord has in mind for you, but I can only suggest that you continue to rest and enjoy the freedom and time you have by yourself.”

That’s exactly what I needed to hear then, and that’s exactly what I need to hear now.

———————————————————————————-

I’m thankful for the freedom I have to choose what I want to do and eat and how I live my life. Truly I am.

Dear Unnamed,

I don’t know what to say to you. I know you’d probably prefer a funny letter, but my thoughts are so complicated when it comes to you. You’ve had my heart on and off again for a good part of my adult life, and I hate that. I’m kinda like Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You, “But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”

The problem is that my heart says “yes” while my brain says “no.” More recently, my brain has been winning. Whether this is temporary or a true sign of moving on, I don’t know. Sometimes when I see you I’m okay with just being friends, while at other times, the understanding look in your eyes and the gentle touch of your fingers on my shoulder just do me in. The crazy thing is I never know how I’m going to react until our eyes meet again.

I want to say that I’m moving on for good. I don’t really think you and I have a future yet I know that if you were to change your mind I might change mine. In this way I’m like Fanny in Mansfield Park when she answers Edmond that yes, her heart has changed, many times. Or maybe I’m like Elfride in A Pair of Blue Eyes who has changed her mind so many times, that she decides to simply let the horse dictate whether she should runaway with her lover or not. Sometimes I wish we still had horses. If I tried doing that with my car, I’d likely end up killed.

So why I can’t honestly say good-bye and “See you never!” to my feelings for you, I do think that I can honestly say that I’m seeking God in who He would have me marry (if He would have me marry) rather than try to force something with you where it doesn’t work. So, here’s a “good-bye” and a “wish you well,” because I truly do. I hope that God will lead the just right lady into your life.

Without a horse,

Ronnica