Weird things.

I'm sitting in my disastrous room, with teeth whitening strips on

...realizing that life is weird. Like, I get that it never fails to stun us with an awkward moment or happening (like the fact that my shirt just says "ho" in this picture), moments we simply cannot prepare for, that we are usually shocked by its sudden twists and turns and fakeouts. But seriously, life is weird right now. 

          Googling cake decor?

                Framed pictures of me in my home with other people besides my brothers?

                  GIFTS ALL THE TIME

                          what

             this is no longer my definition of lingerie?

                           future home and future husband?

                         bridesmaid gifts?

                nothing to do with anything.

Friends, I have half my room packed up, and the other half strewn on the floor as my way of enjoying singleness for this last month. I have my students' last recital in less than two weeks. I have unspeakable memories from doctors visits haunting my dreams. Thought about birth control seriously for the first time in my life. People I don't even know give me gifts. I think about trivial things like if I should have bangs for this wedding. I go to premarital counseling. I have less than a month with an easy last name. Thinking about things like combining bank accounts and insurances and phone bills. I pray a lot that I will be good at this whole wife thing. I smile that the word "wife" and "Whitney" start with the same letter, because I love alliteration. I ask "how much does it cost?" at least once a day. I have an extra home to visit this Christmas, and I'm trying to figure out which room my grandparents' country plates will be displayed. How much of my stuff do I take to my new apartment? ALL of my purses? My old journals? College textbooks? 

A year ago I thought I'd graduate single and conquer this world on my own.

And now, here I am, using whitening strips.

With a month left of singleness (barring my fiance doesn't drive into a ditch and die because he can't see anything as he currently drives back to Ames because I stuffed his car with all my shower gifts), I feel as if I should have an array of emotions that fluctuate hourly from now until my wedding. But my heart is eerily quiet. My ring on my left hand is staring at me blankly, and I'm sure I have an emotion disorder because I usually freak out at things that don't matter and have little emotions about the things that do. 

I am burdened, however, for the single people out there, you know who you are, who hate every married-person-post yet secretly and simultaneously want your own. Oh friends, I love you, and I have been there. When I didn't know what God was doing and why it seemed He was waiting til the very end to give me what He'd given all my friends. My heart goes out to those who still somehow think that some man or woman will really make their problems go away. To those bored and waiting for their lives to start once they say "I do." To those who really think that one human being will understand their every emotion, be available to talk at any moment of need, and give them a calm that their restless hearts can't seem to find anywhere else. Oh, my friends, that is Jesus, not a husband. 

I apologize for this Christian society that will define your future by whether or not you get married, rather than how far you have advanced the Kingdom of the living God, oh my heart breaks. To those whose parents could care less if you found your calling in a tribe in Africa because you're still single. I apologize for your un-single friends who pressure you into dates and leave you out, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Communities should not be divided into "singles" and "marrieds." 

How easy it is to look forward to this earthly wedding when a divine Marriage is on the horizon with the Lover of my soul. Friends, HE is it. I know you've heard this before and your hearts are retorting, "easy for you to say!" but that's where we are creating a greater barrier between singles and marrieds, and we must erase that line. I have been where you are. Thinking I'd finally find some stability and love and contentment once I was married. Oh, how our Father weeps at this thought. As we worship our make-believe husbands we haven't yet met and that He's probably not bringing into our lives for obvious reasons. As He daily pours our His unconditional love upon us, lavishly and beautifully and uniquely, and we go to bed still wondering if He loves us enough to give us a spouse someday. We spit in His kind face.

I have been where you are, and I have heard all the lines that didn't really change my heart until I experienced what it was for Him to be more than enough for me. Oh friends, He is our prize, He will be the only thing left at the end of our lives. These shadows of blessings on earth come and go (I am not promised ONE day with Jon), but He is our constant; we MUST remember His first blessing that poured out on Calvary that covered our sins of discontentedness and impatience. He is our Wonderful Counselor, He is with us. He is always moving. He is awe-full and uncontainable and piercing and billowing and peaceful at the same time. The states of our souls, single or not, are directly related to how well we know this Creator. My friends, know Him. Make Him known.

That's my advice to you. He is who I'm clinging to in this weird stage of upheaval and uncertainty (I dont yet have a job in Ames lolz), and He always comes through. In the strangest and overwhelmingly beautiful ways that shame the endings of the greatest novels. That's all I have. For singles and marrieds and people like me who are in between. That is all I know. I don't know too much marriage advice and I sucked at being single most of the time but I know that when He doesn't seem to be answering our questions, it is because He is the answer. He is the purpose, the prize, the reward, the hope, the strength, the peace. He is it.