Ignorant Historian

“I’ll never forget a poll that appeared in Marie Claire, which found that a slight majority of American women would have a one-night stand with a stranger for money–57%….Yet the same women were more reluctant when asked whether they would accept money to gain ten extra pound permanently–only 41% would gain weight for money.” – Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, p. 163

“People would actually prefer to stay home and watch a lame prerecorded comedy than get together with some real people?  How sad.” – Alice, quoted in Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, p. 119

On how not to cheat on your wife: “All I’m saying is that if you want to be on a diet, you might wanna stop hanging out by the dessert cart.” – Thirteen, “Open and Shut,” House

“All those people who looked down on knitting–and housework, and housewives–were not being feminist at all.  In fact, they were being antifeminist, since they seemed to think that only those things that men did, or had done, were worthwhile.” Debbie Stoller, quoted in Girls Gone Mild, by Wendy Shalit, p. 121

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in the world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Don’t wait till the bubble’s off the wine” – metaphoric support of shorter engagements, Mrs. Mingott in Age of Innocence

“I’ve heard a lot of people blame the Internet for the decline in friendship.  I don’t think that’s entirely fair, but with regard to my friends who have weblogs, I do see the point.  One by one they have dropped out of sight….If all of my friends blogged, I would have no one to talk to outside my family, though they would surely all link to me.” – Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, p. 125

“Every time a couple gets married, 2 single people die.” – Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation, “94 Meetings”

“The goal is not to stand on top of the pile.  The goal is to hold yourself to a personal standard and become someone you would respect if you were someone else.” – Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, p. 136

“But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires…” – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Next Sunday is Mother’s Day.  Just wanted to remind you to consider how you may be an encouragement to those around you who may not be mothers but want to be.

“Oh, who knows, it might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.”
The disguise is very convincing.” – Vanity Fair

“I don’t understand why some kids git a good school and mother and father and some don’t.” – Push by Sapphire, p. 139

“It matters not what you fight but what you fight for.” – Mouseguard, Fall 1152 by David Petersen

“It is easy to give way to thoughts, emotions, and desires that should no longer rule us, and easy to be more defined by our problems than by the grace of Christ.” – How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp, p. 117

“Who said I can’t be single and have to go out and mingle / Baby that’s not me, no, no” – “La La Land” performed by Demi Lovato

“It has nothing to do with the way she looks. It has everything to do with who she is.” – George Clooney on Julia Roberts being named People‘s Most Beautiful

“I shiver, thinking about how easy it is to be totally wrong about people – to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it’s the effect or vice versa.” – Before the Fall by Lauren Oliver, p. 385

“Well, usually I learn more from my sheep htan from books,” he answered. – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, p. 5

“It’s weird how much you can know about someone without knowing everything.  You’d think someday you’d come to the end of it.” – Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, p. 96

“You can’t be mean to someone forever and then feel bad when she dies.” – Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, p. 176

In a depraved world, there’s all kinds of things that could make me sad.  Lately, one that has stood out to me over and over again is the ugliness of divorce.

While I do believe that the Bible allows for divorce in certain cases (a subject for another post), there is something incredibly wrong with our society when divorce is not only common, but often encouraged when either party as warrant to feel wronged or unhappy.

As an unintentionally single woman*, I can’t really speak to how to make a marriage last.  When I get married, I know it won’t be as easy as it seems on this side of the altar (not that I think it’ll be easy).

Lord willing, I’ll have a loving church family to walk beside me and show me how to be a loving, faithful wife.  I know I’ll need it.

But what can someone in my place do now to help keep myself from a failed marriage? Here are some ideas I’ve gathered from more people and books than I could possibly list:

1.  Know that love is a choice. While it’s also a feeling, deciding to marry someone is choosing to love them even if/when the feeling leaves.

2.  Don’t expect him to be perfect.

3.  If you get together while he’s married to someone else, how can you accept his commitment to love you forever?

4.  Know him before he’s pursuing you so that you’ll have a better idea of his true character (not just his wooing-character).

5.  Focus first on seeking repentance and forgiveness for your own sin before pointing out his (Matthew 7:3-5).

6.  Learn to be submissive to the authorities in your life now (parents (if applicable), pastors, bosses, and God).

7.  Develop a servant’s heart, eyes, and hands; desiring, looking for, and acting on opportunities to serve others.

I know this list is far from complete…what do you think I should add?  I’m especially looking from help from those of you who are or have been married!

*Phrase comes from Connally Gilliam’s book Revelations of a Single Woman

Photo by Donna62

“You don’t want to give God the credit because you don’t think he exists.  But if you’re going to blame him for all the crap, kid, you got to give him credit for what grows from the fertilized soil.” – Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card, p. 342

“It’s essential that you spend time reading and studying the Bible.  Trouble is, that advice sounds a lot like ‘Eat less and get more exercise.’ In one ear and out the other.  The difference is that fitness is good for life; God’s word is life.” – Get Married by Candice Watters, p. 73

“Will meeting God be like that?  Will I be disappointed with the real thing, because I prefer the substitute I made do with?” – Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card, p. 341

“Consequence management.  That’s how we view sex – it’s why there’s so much emphasis on avoiding pregnancy and preventing STDs.  But condoms can’t protect your heart.” – Get Married by Candice Watters, p. 129

“Our friendship was delicate, like a bubble, and I was afraid it would pop if I asked the wrong question.  Where is this going? definitely felt like the wrong question.” – How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford, p. 101

“Sometimes I feel doomed [because I'm single] to be less godly, less sanctified and vulnerable to the auto mechanic.” – Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? by Carolyn McCulley

“Men report that the number one reason they are choosing to marry later, if at all, is that sex without commitment is so widely available.” – Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, p. 15

“I’m willing to be obedient, as long as you order me to do what I was going to do anyway.” – Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card, p. 345

“When plan B gets all the attention, it becomes plan A.”  - Get Married by Candice Watters, p. 139

“Any God worth believing in could make up a better plan than the mess the world was in now.” – Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card, p. 39

“She had the knowledge that she was small, but lacked the courage to be otherwise.” – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

“The time today’s singles have available for spiritual service is the same time the leisure and etnertainment industry demands from them.” – Get Married by Candice Watters, p. 34

“You and I do not have to be lost in the middle of our own stories.” – How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp

“Why aren’t you married?”
….”But because I often lack a good, pithy answer to one of life’s mysteries, it feels like a tabloid reporter’s inquiry to unocver waht’s really wrong with me.” – Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? by Carolyn McCulley, p. 19

“A recent survey said more people under age 30 believe in flying saucers than believe they will receive a dime of Social Insecurity.” – Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, p. 156

“…we naturally conclude that human beings are inexpressibly complex creatures in whom great good and great evil often cohabit, sometimes in separate and well-insulated rooms and sometimes in an intimacy so deep and twisted and twined that we never get to see the one moral quality without the other.” – Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: a Breviary of Sin by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., p. 81

“Well, if not gold, there must be something else that interest you.”
“Learning.”
“Learning what? You already know so much.”
“I have everything to learn!” – Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, p. 232

“The wealthy person who is ruled by his stuff is no more free than the debt-ridden consumer we have picked on thorughout the book.” – Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, p. 220

“I suppose some women really do prefer career to family. But I wasn’t one of them.” – Get Married by Candice Watters, p. 14

“There should not be the sacrifice of oneself for another, because we were all created equally.” – Green by D. Malone, p. ix

“The dangers of premarital sex had been burned into my soul. And indeed, before the contraceptive pill, it was a risky enterprise for girls. But all that had clearly changed.” – The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong, p. 10

“Guilt, I was told, usually sprang from misplaced pride, it might simply be chagrin that you were not as wonderful as you hoped.” – The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong, p. 51

I’ll admit it: I want to be married.  Probably not a huge revelation here on the blog, but it’s  a hard one to make in real life.  For whatever reason, it seems wrong to make that admission, like it’s a shameful secret.

That said, my reasons for wanting to read Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help it Happen by Candice Watters are pretty obvious.  I was familiar somewhat with Candice (and her husband Steve) from Focus on the Family’s Boundless Webzine and Blog.  If I wasn’t, I seriously doubt I would have picked this up.  I hate the “just try harder” sentiment found in a lot of books written for Christian single women…it’s just discouraging.  I get that I have a part to play in my own singleness.  I could be thinner, more outgoing, more godly.  I know all that…yet I also know that women like me are getting marriage proposals every day, and here I sit without a date (please don’t read a pity party into this, I’m just trying to be honest).

Thankfully, I didn’t get much of that from this book.  She’s pretty blunt about a lot of things which doesn’t come off as encouraging, but when the sting of unrighteous indignation wears off, I get her point.  There ARE things I can do to increase the likelihood that I’ll get married.  A big focus in my life right now is being as marriable as possible: working on being content in GOD ALONE, getting body and finances in shape as well as trying to break out of my (very small) social comfort zone.  These things happen to be the exact same things that will make be a better single woman, which is no coincidence.

As I was typing the title just now, I accidently wrote “What Women Can Do to MAKE it Happen.”  No, that’s not what Candice is suggesting at all.  She’s not presenting a magically formula or old-wives’-tale-like tasks to do (Sometimes I feel like I have to do the spiritual equivalent of hopping on one leg while balancing an apple on my nose to get married).  But she does purport that there are things women can do to not only prepare themselves for marriage, but to make it more likely to happen.

I’m still working through what Candice had to say.  I by no means have it figured out (and probably wouldn’t even if Mr. Right was knocking on my door right now…which he’s not).  I’m glad that I’m reading Carolyn McCulley’s Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? at the same time, because Carolyn’s bent towards resting in God and Candice’s towards helping marriage happen are a good balance.

I would recommend this to someone who is unintentionally single…but put it down if you get frusterated.  If you’re teachable (as I’m not always), you’ll recognize a thing or two that you can learn.  I certainly still have a lot to think, pray, and talk through.

I first heard about this book from Carrie at Reading to Know.  I think I read more books recommended by her than any other person, as I trust where she’s coming from.  I would suggest also checking  out Carrie’s review of Get Married as well as Candice’s other book, Start Your Family.

My estimate of how/when I'll pay off my student loan. (Mine obv has specifics)

I spent a few hours this past weekend working out a new budget now that my future roommate and I have come to an agreement on the rent I’ll be paying her (it may have involved bartering and a virtual hand shake).  While I was at it, I decided to map out my plan to save more and pay off my last remaining debt, my student loan.

I’ve been reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, and it definitely puts me in the mood to pinch pennies (which I kinda already was in).  Sure, I already know most of it (I am a financial counselor, though that’s not my primary responsibility), but seeing it again–and in the layman’s terms that I think in–has been good for me.

The hardest part of my budget for me is how much I budget for food/groceries.  As a single gal, it’s way too easy to opt to grab something at a drive-thru, especially when I’m on the road anyway after a long day.  It’s easy to justify when it’s just a few bucks more and is less work.  But doing this time and time again…well, that’s not been too great.  Certainly not for my budget OR my body (a topic I’ll be getting to soon).

I’m such a visual and numbers person, that I decided to make a spreadsheet of it, including a crude calculation of both interest accrued and interest paid.  Even made a graph of it for cool visual appeal.

While I don’t pretend to know the future, it helps me to have a plan.  It’s easier for me to see how small decisions I make now (excessively eating out or indiscriminately shopping for clothes) impact my long-term goals.  I even included a list of complications (both good and bad) that I can’t predict at this time, but could affect my plan.  You’ll be happy to know, I think, that I included (and I quote):

Wedding, haha

and

Marriage =)

That’s how you know it was made by a girl…how many men put smiley faces on their spreadsheets?

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

“Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the ‘evil’ around you.” – How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp, p. 9

“I ask myself at night, ‘Did you do everything today that you could to be the best?’ It’s very hard to answer ‘yes.’ ” – Apolo Ohno

“Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers.” – East of Eden by John Steinbeck, p. 350

“Anyone who thinks he’s too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito.” – Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, p. 246

” ‘I should have thought that a pack of British boys… would have been able to put up a better show than that.’ ” – Lord of the Flies by William Golding

“On the other hand, women who didn’t marry became old maids, spinsters who slept in the attic, sat in a corner peeling potatoes all day, and were a burden on their families, like our neighbor Old Man Pucket’s sister, Louella.” – Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, p. 39

“When people kill themselves, they think they’re ending the pain but all they’re doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.” – Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, p. 113

“I’d donate a kidney to Jamie without a moment’s hesitation, but I was intensely annoyed if he asked me to make a special stop at the drugstore to pick up shaving cream.” – The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, p. 41

“Some people exude their futures, good or bad.” – East of Eden by John Steinbeck, p. 277

“Money brings its own problems, of course – but money also brings options.  Money can buy childare, a separate bathroom, a vacation, the freedom from arguments over bills – all sorts of things that help stabilize a marriage.” – Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, p. 148-149

“I had no problem with whatever she used to draw her closer to God…” – Wounded by Claudia Mair Burney, p. 158

“The number of households in America without children reached an all-time high in 2008.” – Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, p. 149

“A man’s mind can’t stay in time the way his body does.” – East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I’m a dreamer.  I mean, I know some of you who are longtime readers of the Ignorant Historian know that I’m such a famous dreamer that I’ve been featured in The Washington Post.  Or perhaps that’s not quite how it went down.  Things get fuzzy in my old age.

As often as I have crazy adventure dreams at night (and that is every night these days), I’m even more of a daydreamer.  I’m constantly imagining things in my head: what I’ll do once I’ve reached my emergency savings goal, what I’d do if I was famous, and every step of completely-unrealized relationships from “Wanna go to dinner?” to “I do” (including how I’d tell you about him).  Actually, that last one is a recurring theme in my life.

The problem is, these daydreams are entirely unhelpful.  While these aren’t bad dreams (okay, except the famous one) they aren’t the kinds of dreams that God has for me.  I know that, but this quote still hit home:

“Though we may not be aware of it, we are often at odds with our wise and loving Lord.  The change he is working on is not the change we dream about.” – How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp, p. 33

If I could change one thing in my life, it would be to trade in my singleness.  But I don’t think that’s high on God’s to-do list in my life.  I’m hoping that He wants me married, too, but He’s much more concerned with my righteousness.  He wants to root out out the sinful actions in my life and the sinful desires that lead me there.

May God help me make His desire, my desire.

Photo by Denis Collette