Letting Myself Be Human, Part 2

While I'm on the subject of being real.....of feeling things....I might as well get this out too....

There are some days where I'm completely fine that I'm single. Thoroughly content and happy with my life right then. And, truly, most days...no matter where I stand on the singleness thing...I am genuinely grateful for each and every season of my life to date....and grateful that God hasn't brought a man...the right man....into my life yet because I can see the wisdom and fruit of my having time to grow up on my own and to work out lots of the crap in my life before someone else has to be intimately affected by it.

But, today, I'm sad. Today, I long to be in a relationship. To be married. To have someone to walk through life with. To share the good and the bad with. To laugh with. To love. To be loved by. To be known and safe and intimate and protected and thought of and cared for in a way different than with anyone else. And to be able to provide that for someone else.....

And, even as I rejoice from the depths of my being with a friend who just started a new relationship with a really fantastic, godly man, I find that her happiness just magnifies the longing I have to be in a relationship myself.....and then the guilt sets in....how dare I think of myself when she's so happy....?

So....I'm trying to balance the tension of being honest about my own longings, of being grateful that God's in control of the entire situation and hasn't let me make any of a million stupid mistakes/mismatches that I could have and of being thrilled for my beautiful friend and the new relationship she's in.

Longterm, I have such peace that I'll be with the man the Lord has for me. But, in the immediate, I sometimes start to fear that we'll never meet...or that I won't ever share life with anyone. That I'll be "the" single girl around all my married-with-children friends. Or that, if I verbalize my longing to be married ....that I'll be seen as (a) weak, (b) desperate, (c) annoying or (d) pitied by everyone else....

I want to be content with the Lord....but this is also a real longing that I believe He's put in my heart (Psalm 37). So.....again, it's finding the balance in the tension thing....to not get impatient but to still acknowledge my longing.

Bleh.

I really hope the right guy comes soon.....