There are two Christian women who do not know each other whom I both respect who have both fallen in love with unlikely gentlemen. They carry God's presence and God's love like few can boast. I love being around them. They are both getting married to lovely men. Both stories are unconventional. One of these women said to me
"sometimes you must love these men into Christ". These words would of course been seen as a complete heresy. Quite frankly I myself have been radically impacted by this woman's tangible love for Christ that it changed me. So I know without a doubt when she told me those words that she is not someone who is simply following her lust; nor is she driven by an unmet need or someone who will take scrapes of any left over pieces of love from any man who will offer. These are women who are overflowing with love, who find their satisfaction in God and this is precisely why their stories inspired me. In fact I think they may have inspired me into desiring a relationship that is that different or rather they have inspired me to see the folly of my own ways in having little interest in matters of love.
Unlike others who may see single hood as some kind of disease that God dishes out to those less favoured, I have been fairly proud of being single. I might have appeared humble about it, if I could have engraved it on my grave stone one day I would have written it there for all the world to see how single I was, and how great I was at it. I saw it as some kind of crown for the strong. It was my pride quite frankly and perhaps the last residue of a dying Christian feminist who does not even believe in feminism but thinks like one but would never ever admit to it. Having heard of these relationships has even brought that lie to light. It has inspired me to lay down even my most prestigious and rare "never-been-kissed-and-proud-of-it" crown. It took love like that to enable me to see myself clearly in the mirror and see the truth no one will tell me. Perhaps I was so good at disguising it that not only was it hidden from me but it was way too hidden for others to see it.
The reason I watch sport is because I love adrenaline. While they say that adrenaline is bad for you because it is like caffeine, it takes you up and then drops you. The experience of adrenaline charged moments are wonderful and memorable. In fact you can feed off them whenever you think of that moment again. I love watching people who are passionate about what they do, people who would give anything to win. While some people are stable and their relationships are stable and solid, that is good and necessary. One hopes for that, however, one hopes for passion too. As in the film "Shakespeare in Love" my favourite line of the film among many is
"I want a love that overthrows life". When Jesus walked the earth it was not just another ordinary year on the year He was crucified. His words did overthrow life and the response towards Him was either extreme love and worship or extreme hatred that they nailed Him to the cross. This is why I love stories that are out of the ordinary. Unfortunately on the one hand I have been a great fan of love. I would cheer on anyone who embarks on this road and say
"go ahead and do it for us too". I would give all the advice and scream on the sidelines like a fanatical sport fan and then when someone gets married I will walk away happy and I will say
"yes, we won". I distinctly remember two moments of elation where I was most probably even on a higher cloud of euphoria than the people who actually got married. I remember the night Mthi and Lite got married, I was ecstatic and the night Nats and Craig got married I was too happy for someone who is not married. I was crazy happy. Like a fanatical sports fan who goes out to drink beers to celebrate a game they only watched but did not play. No one told me what I was doing all these years! This has all been brought about by these stories of these women I respect who dared to allow themselves to be led by love. I did not even go to these weddings I merely heard their stories and my world was rocked by just the shadows of their stories.
I will no longer brag about my singleness. I will do all I can to lay it down so that I can meet that strong gentleman. My pride has kept me from seeing him. My arrogance has wanted me to not even give him the possibility of a chance. My love for my own time and my own space has caused me not to create space for my dreams to yield for someone else's too. I have worshiped my unfulfilled dreams and this too must die, which must happen before I meet anyone. I want to tell myself to go and get a life! My self-sufficiency has caused me not to let another human being that close. My fears have caused me not to desire to be that vulnerable in case he is not there or he leaves me and that will bruise me as though I were the first human being in the planet that would have ever experienced that. But I do hope for someone who will love me both supernaturally and naturally, who will kiss my hand as though it were an extension of himself, but the part he loves the most about himself.
These stories also show us how deeply impactful each of our lives are. Your decisions are not your own, they have a ripple effect, sometimes it depends on how influential you are. These are the kind of women I aspire to be like in the impact of their lives in their love of God, in their wisdom and pursuit of God. This is not a story about rewriting verses so that you can date non-believers because these are believers. This is about love with a double impact, both natural and spiritual love. It is dynamic love that forces you to see with more than your natural eye but with eyes opened into the spirit in order to see what God is doing. For whatever is not of faith is sin, faith is being mindful of what God is doing or saying and then doing that or else it is not faith but dead religion. Religion is prescriptive without a brain but faith is active it responds to a living God in a particular moment. It is not about doing something wrong and hoping that God will bless your mess. Faith is pure at all times. It is truthful, it knows the voice of the One it follows.
