My pastor closed a recent sermon in his series on faith with the following snippet:

A lumberjack is clearing a forest and notices a bird building her nest in the top of the tree he is about to cut down.  So he takes his ax and hits the tree trunk until the bird is flustered, flies off and starts building her nest in another tree.  Knowing the entire forest will be cleared, he follows the bird and does the same thing again. He pushes the bird out of tree after tree, until the she flies from the forest and builds her nest in the rocks.

Our pastor closed the story by noting, “What looks like cruelty to the bird is actually mercy on the lumberjack’s part, because he won’t let the bird settle where he knows it is dangerous.”  Wowza.

When I know He’s pushing me out of the places I want to build my nest, my usual response is not gratitude for His mercy.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  This makes no sense, Lord.  Do I really need to move apartments again?  Does my boss actually need to be this miserable?  Why can’t this guy work out?  I know my gut is telling me this isn’t quite right, but at least he’s a Christian and taller than me (a rare find in my dating life, btw).  Isn’t that enough?  Can’t we just skip to the part where I’m happily married?  I’m kinda over this singleness thing.  In fact, I’m beyond over it.  Just don’t make me single forever, pllllllllllllllease.  And if you’re going to, can you at least quash these painful longings in my heart?  K.  Thanks. 

Maybe you can identify, or maybe you think I’m officially crazy (probably true). Regardless, tucked inside such “logic,” are a number of false assumptions, such as:

• Longings are useless if not fulfilled how/when I think they should be.
• The point of this journey is to get married to a tall, Christian guy, at which point all my desires will obviously be met all the time.  (Every married woman reading this is now laughing and/or crying at such nonsense.)
• If it doesn’t make sense to me, I must be on the wrong track.
• This is about me.

I know, embarrassingly obviously not-true stuff.  Fortunately, this week I got owned by Romans 5:3-5:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

I had to be forcefully reminded that singleness per se is not the main issue here.  Maybe the bigger issue is learning to trust a sovereign, faithful God, no matter what.  To take Him at His word and live on faith, not sight.  Maybe He’s developing our spiritual muscles and right now that might mean learning to wait, learning to trust, learning to pray, not building nests here.  Yes, developing spiritual muscle might also eventually occur in the context of a marriage, and I hope it does, but right now – I’ve got more than enough to learn!

Praying with and for you gals,

Amy

Sometimes when I tell people about this group, I get the sense they think I spend every Monday lunch break asking God to please bring me a husband … oh, and one for a few of my friends, too. Of course, I’ve always had some underlying hope along those lines, but I knew going into this rhythm of fasting and prayer that I didn’t have control of the agenda. To enter into a spiritual discipline like this is to bring our hearts and hand Him the keys.

Thus, in the three-plus years I’ve been fasting and praying with all of you, my focus has shifted away from me and my disappointments and much more toward others. And not just those who long for marriage, but men. In the last year, I’ve prayed particularly that men would reach their potential and become who they were created to be (whatever that does or does not mean for their relational lives). One encouragement in this has been an old fast.pray meditation on Ezekiel 37, about how God had Ezekiel prophesy over a valley of dry bones He transformed into people. That post has been a persistent reminder that God can create something from what seems like nothing. Or as Baptist preacher Russell Moore recently put it, God could make the next Billy Graham out of someone who’s currently drunk or passed out.

Dr. Moore’s article particularly moved me, because the men heaviest on my heart recently are those who pay for sex or otherwise participate in the sexual exploitation of others. In fact, I’m organizing a Valentine’s Day prayer event, called Pray for the Johns Day. The idea is to not only pray that johns would repent and turn from their ways, but that they could embark on whatever good works God has appointed for them to do.

Asking God for such a big thing is scary. What if He doesn’t act? But isn’t turning people from sin and transforming broken lives into sources of good why Jesus came to earth? So I’m praying boldly. And the more I do, the more I’m reminded that Jesus often tied His ability to heal to people’s faith. What if one reason God sometimes seems distant and impotent is that we’re so sure He’ll answer “no” that we don’t even ask? Or because, when we do ask, we expect inaction?

Certainly God sometimes allows us to ask for something year after year, maybe partly to produce patience and endurance. But He is also a God who delights to give good gifts and transform the broken into a blessing. And He is the God of both of the slave trader-turned-pastor and hymn writer and the murderer-turned-antigang outreach worker.

When I reread those stories, I get excited about what God can do through these Monday prayers of ours. As much as they’re about the specific pain of singleness and the longing for marriage, they’re also a request that God would bring His kingdom more fully in men and women, and especially in our relationships.

So wherever you’re at in this fasting-and-prayer journey, I would encourage you to pray boldly and expectantly. While I find a lot of good in asking God to show me what I should ask for, and how I should pray for certain people who are on my heart, the resulting requests I find myself making are sometimes very big. And somehow, because I’m planning to pray for the johns on Feb. 14, this is about as excited about a Valentine’s Day as I’ve been in a very long time.

Be Encouraged,  Anna

Growing up, I had absolutely no vision for singleness–not singleness as a season or life stage, let alone calling.  Floating around in the far recesses of my mind was the real-if-unarticulated suspicion, “Well, what’s the point of living if you aren’t married?”

Obviously, I was wrong.  Life has slowly taught me this.  But part of what has helped has been my getting a bigger picture.  Getting the big picture fills my heart with joy—like standing atop Humpback Rocks in the Blue Ridge Mountains (in VA) and gazing on the wide valley and the blue-gray layers of surrounding foothills.  Something in me exhales, smiles and gains heart for the journey.

So, recently, when I picked up an article, “Created for More” by my friend, Josh Glaser, I was struck by his big picture language for what I’ve begun to see and trust only after  writing my book on singleness.  He wrote things like this:

• “Scripture begins with a wedding (Adam and Eve) and ends with a wedding (Christ and the church).” It’s the fact of the promised eternal and unashamed union between God and his people that gives meaning and a model to earthly unions.  Think, for example, how a husband’s desire for his wife might teach us something about God’s eternal desire for us.  Or how a marriage’s commitment to mutual self-giving might reflect the self-giving love within the Trinity.  Or what about the delight a couple can have in making a baby—could it be that God wants us to know about his pleasure in creating us?  And the joy to be had in co-creating with Him?
• Likewise, singleness lived well in God’s  presence—for a season, stage or lifetime—carries a bigger message with it.  Whether “wanting to marry, committed to life-long celibacy for the sake of serving Christ, or somewhere in the process of working out [our] sexual brokenness,” we get to testify through lives filled with God’s love, friendships, community, extended family when possible, and meaningful work, that sex and marriage are “not the ultimate gift, but only a foreshadowing of it.”  And single women who long for marital love play this important prophetic role of waiting.  Our celibate waiting “mirrors the waiting that belongs to all [people] as we wait for the culmination of the age,” the marriage between Christ and the church, the union between the new heavens and the new earth.

This bigger picture helps me so much.  Since my book came out six years ago, two of my nephews have died in shocking (unrelated) accidents, the reverberations running deep in my family’s soul.  Sandwiched between these deaths, I broke off my almost-engagement and slammed into anxiety.  In short, the last four+ years have rocked my  landscape, and I’ve had to focus anew, pray from a deeper place within me, and ask God to help me see as he sees.

Slowly, as my sight has been aligning with this bigger picture, I find myself exhaling and smiling more, my heart bigger for the journey.  My hope in the big, eternal picture deepens and, because of that hope, so does my willingness to still ask for a journey mate.

This week, as you pray, ask God to help you see yourself, your life, and the big picture as He sees it.  I suspect that if you do, you might find yourself breathing a little easier, smiling a bit more, and perhaps finding your heart and hope more full than ever.

Blessings in the Journey, Connally

Shortly before Christmas I learned that 94 year-old Louis Zamperini would be coming to my church at the end of January on a speaking engagement.  In order to prepare for his visit, I picked up the bestselling 2010 book Unbroken, which chronicles Louis’ remarkable life as a rebellious adolescent, an Olympic track runner at the 1936 Berlin games, and a WWII bombardier who not only survived 47 days on a life-raft in the Pacific after his B-24 crashed on a mission, but also horrific abuses in a Japanese POW camp until the war’s end.  Upon his return to the U.S., Louis descended into the stupor of PTSD and alcoholism until, miraculous as the rest of his story, he found the love and grace of Jesus.

Reading Unbroken spurred on thoughts I’d already been considering about hope.  While few of us have experienced suffering like that of Louis, it doesn’t make the challenging circumstances in our lives any less significant.  Whether it’s singleness past a point we’d have expected, financial difficulty, broken family relationships, depression, infertility, etc., how do we trust that God wants our best?  How do we hope in the face of adversity?  How I wish I had all the answers!  But here are some things I’ve been thinking about:

1)    Accept the pain and struggle – We are often told that simply “thinking positive” and soldiering on are the ways through struggle.  I’m sure we would all acknowledge the helpfulness of these tools (they have certainly helped me), and yet I believe they must walk hand-in-hand with the practice of accepting our circumstances.  The fight to “be positive” can feel inauthentic (and exhausting) when everything around us is falling apart.  The times in my life I’ve chosen to “let in” what I’m afraid of (never getting married, a troubled friendship, eternal loneliness, not making ends meet) it becomes less scary.  Becoming friends with the monster in the closet disarms the monster.

2)    Hope in rather than hope for – Almost always when we think of hope, we think of hoping for something, someone, or for circumstances to change.  But if we look at scripture, Jesus asks us to hope in Him, turning our attention from the thing we crave to His identity as an ever-present, loving comforter.  This isn’t to say the things we hope for aren’t good, only that it is God who sustains us in the waiting.

3)    Stay in the here and now – To be “sustained in the waiting” reminds us that, while hope naturally points to the future, the present is where we live.  It is good to look to the future but just as important to stay anchored in the now.  While we acknowledge our longings, we are transformed as we allow God to refine and shape us into more unique and beautiful works of art.  God is not a God of shortcuts.  All we have to do is look at Scripture to be reminded of how long it took for redemption to take place through Jesus.  I’m certain we would all say it was worth the wait!

The balance between hope and current reality is tenuous, but Jesus will provide the balance required if we ask it of him.  It is my prayer that as you walk into the week ahead, He will accompany you on your unique journey of hope.

Blessings,

Kirsten

Sometimes it’s hard to admit we are weak and need community — but learning to let others “get under” our burdens can be the path to life and strength.

One of the hardest weekends in my season of singleness was about three years ago.  I can’t remember what I did Friday night, but I spent Saturday morning as usual:  I straightened up my townhouse and then ran errands.  For some reason, this particular Saturday I felt incredibly lonely.  Maybe it was scurrying around town alone (again!) to take care of the basics of life.  Or maybe my house just felt particularly empty.  Who knows?  But that afternoon, as I lay on my bed to read a book, I ended up sobbing my eyes out, longing be married, to have a partner.  In between sobs I checked email on my blackberry about two dozen times, hoping for that magical note from someone signaling an end to this season — you know, someone saying they had a blind date to fix me up with, or some guy from the past emailing me out of the blue … anything that would give me a little hope.  A Saturday afternoon rescue.

Sunday at church I found a seat — alone — in the back.  A guy I had chatted with a few months before, but who had blown me off when I included him in my evite list to a Christmas party, sat two rows ahead of me.  A wave of rejection and awkwardness swept over me.  There was no way I wanted to bump into him at the “meet and greet” time after the service.  Couple that with the usual loneliness of Sundays (ironically, I often felt the most alone at church), and I had to fight hard to keep the tears at bay.  By now the service had started; I thought, “I don’t want to cry in front of everyone.”  I saw some girlfriends walking in late, and I knew I needed my friends.  So I grabbed all my stuff and ran over to sit with them.

After the service I broke down again, but this time in the company of friends.  What a difference!  So often it’s tempting to keep our walls up, our tears private, and our upper lip as stiff as possible.  But that’s not what God intends.  He means for us to share one another’s pain, to bear one another’s burdens.  He calls us to pray for one another, to find healing in the context of community.  He knows we need others to pull us to the Cross.

So my challenge on this snowy Sunday is for all of us to be willing to be weak and to admit that we need one another — to choose to share our lives, and our pain, rather than try to go it alone.  We need to be willing to be open and vulnerable with trusted friends, even though at times it’s easier to put on the mask of strength.  This can be as simple as being honest about our struggles and asking for prayer, or asking a family to save a seat for you on Sunday mornings so you don’t have to sit alone.  God made us for community, and if you don’t have one, pray for God to provide and look around — he means for us to share our lives.

Anne

At church this morning, our pastor continued a sermon series on the folks mentioned in Hebrews 11.  This week we focused on Abel and verse 4; the one short verse says quite a lot about the role of Abel’s faith in life and death.  Our pastor reminded us that it is only by faith that we and Abel are first, made righteous before God, second, able to offer acceptable worship to God, and third, leave faithful legacies beyond our time on earth.

Thinking about faith in terms of my singleness made me ask myself if I’m really walking this singleness path by faith.  Am I believing in faith that God is able to provide for my needs (Phil. 4:19)?  Am I trusting that He withholds no good thing from those who fear Him (Psalm 84:11)?  Am I confident He knows the plans He has for me (Jer. 29:11)?  Am I resting in the reality that His love is unfailing and His timing is perfect (Psalm 32:10)?

I had to admit that so often the answer is no.  Instead of faith, my instant reaction is do something (anything!) to fix the “problem.”  So no one has asked me out in a while, or a good first date doesn’t turn into a second date?  Time for a closet overhaul!  Time to go speed dating with the girls!  Time to reactivate that match.com subscription!  Time to join that rec volleyball league!  Time to facebook friend that guy from that party!

This is not to say these actions would always be wrong, but when they flow from a place of, “Well, God…since you haven’t shown up here, guess I’m going to have to make this happen myself.” — well, I think it’s a sign of something deeper.  The ironic thing is that my singleness isn’t the problem to God; my lack of faith is.  While I’m actively trying to eradicate my singleness, He’s looking at my heart.

So as we fast and pray tomorrow, let’s remember that this journey is not one of “fix it now!” but about walking by faith in a God who, at great cost to Himself, loves sinners like us.  His goals for us are not our imagined ideal circumstances or moral self-improvement. Rather, He’s in the business of transforming broken, self-reliant, self-centered people into whole, live-by-faith, eyes-on-God people.  His unfailing love calls us to stop striving and rest in faith in Him, and that is a glorious place to spend our Monday lunch hour!

By His grace,

Amy

So, here’s the question:  after one too many dateless Christmas parties or little old ladies at church not asking you if there’s anyone in your life because they don’t want to risk the awkward pause, have any of you signed up for match or e-harmony or some other computerized Yenta service?  I jumped back on post-Christmas just because hope springs—well, if not eternal in this arena—at least in fits and starts.

After seeing the variety of matches I received, however (honestly, I don’t know how the criteria I put in generates the matches that come my way), I began to ask God the proverbial, “Do you know what it’s like on the internet dance floor?”  And as I sat with that question for a while—talking to God and then talking and praying with some trusted friends (a great couple I know)—instead of the sense of the Lord saying, “Connally, I know, it’s unbelievable.  Girl, can you believe it?!  What the heck is going on?” a quiet stillness began to settle inside of me.  Slowly, I grew aware of this sense, as if God were speaking, “Connally, can you trust that I’m there—in the internet cloud and in the places where people post their pictures on their i-pads.  I’m real and at work everywhere.”

With that in mind, I began to reflect on the different men and groups of men I know:  random internet-dating guys who post tiny pictures of themselves skiing or faceless guys who have no picture.  I thought of the band of young guys at my church—a posse of sorts—all going up to take communion.  I pictured the assorted single guys whom I’ve known for a while:  we cross paths at parties, lectures, or a restaurant every now and then.

As I reflected I realized once again:  sometimes it might feel like a jungle out there, and of course we need to be savvy about who the lions are prowling around, but Jesus is still the King, even of the jungle.  He can give us the wisdom we need to navigate the posse of guys (if they are there), the sometimes mystifying e-matches, the tentative conversations and first dates (and 2^nd and 3^rd for that matter), and even the blank landscapes.  He is King and he is good and always at work—on the ground, or in the cloud, as it is in heaven.

So, wherever you are relative to the men in your life right now, as we kick back off this new year, know that our king is at work in you, in me, in our girlfriends, and in the guys whose calls we’ll take, the guys whose names we’ll delete from our in-boxes, the guys whose attention we hope for, the guys who confuse us (and who, in fairness, we confuse), and the guys we do not see.   As Paul emphasizes so well in Colossians, Jesus Christ–who made this whole earth–is holding all things together, including, those guys with tiny skiing pictures or no picture at all.  Including, even, you and me and our unfolding futures–now and into eternity.

Spending lots of time with family sometimes adds to my desire to either run (far far away) or to completely transform myself asap.  Families, even the healthiest happiest ones, all have issues and bad patterns and their own kind of baggage.  If you, like some of us, are emerging from a holiday haze induced by some personal and family brokenness, here are some points of encouragement:

Christmas doesn’t end at the manger.  Christ came and lived and died and rose again.  That reality infuses even the most difficult relationships, family or otherwise, with hope for the future.  It also puts 2012 in its proper perspective: I don’t need to run and I don’t need to transform myself.  I am His workmanship, and He’s still working on me.

Family, though good, is the not the goal.  In this context, it’s often easy to want to be rescued from family issues by someone (anyone!) of the husband persuasion.  But that gets things mixed up: spouses don’t fix family problems, and they always have their own.  Our truest calling is not to human marriage but to Christ himself.

My friend E put it beautifully in a recent email:

I think of what He has called us to… to glorify Him in all that we do and enjoy Him forever. If this is our primary purpose, how are we enjoying Him right now in this time and place? Are the thoughts that find our minds the most frequently ones that bring us greater joy of who he is? Are the activities and conversations where we spend a hearty portion of our time and energy leading us closer to counting all things joy and giving us better vision that He is working all things for the good of those who love Him?

And, in interest of honest candor, I can’t answer those affirmatively. Worry, exhaustion, pain, and self-pity creep in ever so softly… and its only Grace that kicks them back where they belong… in the proverbial gutter. And strangely, this call we have to Him has very little to do with singleness… but everything to do with the lesser gods I truly believe this prince of darkness tries to convince us will bring meaning to our pain and brokenness, essentially clouding our vision to the Kingdom we are truly in. That said, I have seen and heard each of you choose joy and live as such in bold, fearless ways. And so, perhaps I remind myself to not grow weary in this choosing. 

And as we fast and pray tomorrow, I will pray that your 2012 starts with much hope, and that we stay rooted in Christ and His finished work on our behalf.

In His grace,

Amy

This afternoon I got together with Caitlin, Amy and Sue, all of whom have been involved with this fast.pray movement.  One of us was late, one of us had forgotten about it, all of us were fitting in this cup of coffee between other pressing, Christmastime events!  With too much on my plate, I tried to pass off the writing to Amy, who deftly drew her boundaries and passed it back.  ”What am I going to write about?” I mused.  ”Anne did such a great job with her ‘Christmas Ache’ piece; what else is there let to say?  I’ve got nothing,” I sighed.  ”Why, just this morning,” I continued, “I realized it was taking work simply to take my true heart into the presence of Jesus.  I can lay in bed contemplating concepts like ‘these two different men I’m talking to these days,’ or ‘that conversation which didn’t quite feel right at last night’s party’ or ‘my hesitancy about Christmas given the loss of my nephew this past year.’  But actually praying?  Way too hard with a mind jumping to unanswered e-mails, unbought presents, and loose ends yearning for ties before I head out of town.”

As the four of us talked, it became clear we were and are all in the same place.  Slowing down and coming present to our own hearts, let alone the heart of Jesus has just felt for each of us….well, almost impossible.

So, as we head into the height of this season, I (really, we) want to encourage you to join us in our effort to slow down and come present to our own hearts and the heart of our Lord.  Sitting in the Silver Diner (the hipster coffee shop across the street was too crowded for us to get a 4 top), we came up with these ideas of how we might do it:

Commit to chunks of time throughout the Christmas holiday to be with the Lord.  Whether Christmas is a much treasured time of the year spent with beloved family or a “to be endured” holiday where most of the time is spent comparing your insides to everyone else’s outsides, the truth is:  we all need Jesus’ presence.  So, even if the tide of parties and shopping is carrying you out of your routine, dig in your heels and say, “Lord, I’d like you to help me be with you this season” and then, as Sue said, “I just decide to open the Bible and start reading.”

But as Amy added, when our brains are spinning with too many tasks to do, let alone a flood of emotions, sometimes opening that Bible alone is not enough.  Even journaling doesn’t always do the trick (“My thoughts keep coming so quickly–my hand would fall off before I got it all processed.”).  So, try to do practical things like taking 10 deep breaths (it really helps); getting exercise; lighting a candle or two; playing some Jesus-centric Christmas music; journaling with your left hand (it helps access the right brain and slows the mind and process way down for right-handers), or meditating on just one verse or phrase or word.  Today my advent reading included Psalm 23, and I asked the Lord to please show up with his rod & staff, whatever that means in practical real life.  ”Let me feel your nudge, your redirect, your pull on my heart.”  And I just sat in silence for a while, meditating on what it might be to be a sheep whose shepherd is really there.  Finally, I came to the place where I realized:  He gives me a ton more attention than I give him.  ”Lord,” I said, “I realize that you are a lot kinder to me than I am to you–but I’d like to grow.”  It was strange–simply saying those real words to our real God caused something in me to exhale.

Whatever it takes for you to be still and know in your heart that God is God, would you consider committing to that practice for the next week?  Towards the end of our cups of coffee, we were talking about how men’s relational/sexual energy is often spent in all kinds of wacky ways (porn, endless texts, gmail chats, etc.) and how this oftentimes demotivates their move towards us.  But we began to wonder if we, in not being good stewards of our own hearts (too much busyness, analysis, drama, etc.) maybe do a version of the same thing–ignoring and thereby shrinking the heart space available to Jesus, other people (including single men, too?), and ourselves.

We want hearts that are alive, for women and men alike.  And that’s what we’ll be praying for tomorrow.  Please pray with us that we’d all be able to slow down and come present to our own hearts and to the Lord of the Universe, the One whose heart–in the form of a baby and then later through his Holy Spirit–has come present to us.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  We’ll reconnect in 2012~

Connally

For the past 20+ years or so, Christmas has been bittersweet for me, some years more bitter than others.  The downward slide got started when my parents divorced, then picked up steam as I spent year after year without kids or a husband, and usually without even a boyfriend to speak of.  It has traditionally been the time of year that has marked the sadness of sameness for me.  I have kept waiting for change. 

Well, last year I got change as I brought my new husband home for Christmas.  And let me be clear, I was very thankful to have him, and he did bring a new comfort to the holidays. But, trying to fit into my growing blended family and missing all that felt familiar from my childhood Christmases made me hit an all-time Christmas low.  Christmas night I crawled into bed crying, longing (again!) for that sweet Christmas bliss with warm fuzzy feelings, complete with a family that is healthy and whole — you know, what’s advertised a million times in 30-second commercials starting in early November.

I was reminded again through my tears that what I really long for is heaven, and I won’t find it here on earth.  There’s no great fix to the pain of life in a fallen world — even though somewhere deep inside I thought marriage would do it!  None of us has all that we want, or totally wants all that we have.  We are made for so much more, and we know it, and so we ache.

What can we do with the ache, especially during this Christmas season that can seem to rub our lack right smack dab in our faces?  As I was pondering what has helped me over the years, and continues to help me now, here’s what I came up with:

1)  Do something for someone else.  My dad seemed to have this lesson wrapped up.  He was always taking a shift ringing the Salvation Army bell, buying gifts for an Angel Tree child, or serving Christmas breakfast to homeless people.  He found joy in turning his attention away from himself and onto someone who was hurting.

Isaiah 58 is a great antidote for pain and lost-ness, particularly verses 10 and 11:

If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

2)  Embrace the joy of the season.   Don’t wait for a husband, boyfriend or intact family to come along; get a Christmas tree, have a party, go to the Christmas Eve service, decorate your home — enjoy the benefits of the season now, whatever stage of life you are in.

3)  Make time to spend with God.  Your to-do list may be a mile long, but carve out time to be alone with the Lord.  He longs to refresh and comfort you.  Let him. Christmas is about God being present with us; take the time to embrace his presence.

May all of us find our comfort and joy in Him this season,

Anne