You know what would be nice? If I could write more often.
I love how I'm saying that at the beginning of a school year, when things are getting crazier and more frantic.
This semester I have two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and one online class. Today is Thursday night, so I have survived two days of a new semester already. I have speech class and then kinesiology, and the online class is government.
My kinesiology teacher is sweet, and I like her. Except for the fact that she hustled us outside in the drenching Texas humidity and made us run/walk a mile and a half.
We didn't like that.
However, I'm now on my way to becoming friends with half the class, due to the mutual complaining.
So far the online class isn't going all that well because when I checked online Tuesday, I found there were multiple assignments due by Friday. And I wasn't able to get the textbook until this morning. And then when I cracked the book open and stared at it with bleary, tired eyes, I discovered it was the wrong book. It was the right course, with a similar title and the correct author, publisher, and year number, but it wasn't the right book. After a full week of working, frantic rushing, being emotionally stretched, and the NEWness of everything, along with the run that proved I'm not quite as in shape as I like to think I am, I'm slightly ready to kill something.
Tomorrow morning I have to go back to campus and exchange the book for a, you know, correct one. And then work on assignments all day before the 5 p.m. deadline. Obviously I'm pretty thrilled about that.
Anyways. Why am I saying all of this? Hell if I know, really. Don't ask me. I just sit down in front of a screen and let my fingers do all the work. I can barely think right now.
As physically, mentally, and emotionally difficult as some of this week has been, the thing that's messing with me the most is having spent the whole summer surrounded by the same people at church and at work, and suddenly diving back into an environment where I DON'T know everybody once again.
Let me explain. This summer has been different in many ways than before (yeah, because LAST summer in Nicaragua wasn't quite different enough). This was the first summer in which I've felt and thought more like an adult. I started to be viewed as an adult, and discovered that I've matured more than I realized and that there's still a long ways to go. This summer, I worked the whole time at a job that is wonderful and hectic and maddening. I learned more about God, and myself, and our relationship.
And then this: I learned that God intends for me to be a wife.
Really, this shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. (It did.) Women often become wives, and men often become husbands. Happens all the time. That's God's plan for a lot of people.
I'd thought about marriage before, but never so intensely as the past few months. Before then, marriage seemed so grown-up and far away. Now it looms like the clouds, hovering over me in every minute of every day, hiding behind every thought. I think about marriage all the time now. I anticipate it eagerly, and I long for God to write my love story. It's insane.
It's even scarier when I ask God, "Why am I learning so much about marriage NOW? Couldn't you have waited to tell me all this stuff for a few more years? Couldn't you have given me a few years to NOT care about it?"
The answer is a booming "No."
I've mentioned before, back in March/April that I've talked about marriage to countless adults. Yep, that hasn't changed. In fact, it's a little ridiculous how many marriage discussions I initiate. But that in itself isn't how I know God wants me to get married. There are many people who talk about marriage and yet are called to a single life. Honestly, for a while I was kind of hoping I was one of them. Do you know how easy life would be? Do you know how much I would love to just go about my days, not constantly thinking about a future husband? Do you know how simple the world would become?
It would be great. I could live freely and go anywhere I pleased, when I pleased. There would be no ties. I could serve God all over the world without worrying about helping anyone else pack. I could be independent. I could be free. I could focus on God, just God.
And I could become incredibly self-absorbed.
Face it, guys. I'm a selfish person. I've been struggling with it my whole life. It's one of my worst traits: I am a selfish person, and I often have a hard time putting others first. And I have a hard time putting God first.
I'm not saying all single people are selfish. All I'm saying is that I am. And once I realized this, the reasoning God gave me for being a wife was this: I am selfish, but I won't be able to get away with it in marriage because marriage is all about selflessness.
God decided to furthermore drive the point home by speaking to me through other people in these marriage discussions. And I keep hearing the same clarification: "I don't feel you're called to a single life."
Like I said, I was pretty disappointed at first. (Meaning my first thoughts were, of course, about me and how much more pain there's going to be in the future.) But honestly? Now I'm excited. Incredibly excited. Joyful, actually. There have been days where I've woken up and tried to pretend God hasn't made this part of my future very clear. There have been other days where I've woken up with the excitement of seeing what God has in mind. And there have been the more recent days where I've woken up with an overwhelming, gut-wrenching desire and joy for the day when I no longer wake up alone.
I have joy for the man that God wants me to serve, and I have joy for the days to come.
It's just... the days in between now and then that I can't figure out.
I was discussing something similar with a married friend, Shayla, on Monday. She looked at me and said very frankly, "It would be one thing if you had a boyfriend and God told you to marry him. It's completely different to be single and called to be married. It must be painful."
And it is. One of the main reasons why going back to school and being surrounded by new people is so overwhelming, is because this is the first time I've gone back to school and been surrounded by new people with the full knowledge that I'm going to be a wife. And that makes me view guys very, very differently.
Not only that, but I'm starting to realize that they're viewing me pretty differently as well now that we're all approaching appropriate ages for marriage. Approaching the maturity level for it, however, may or may not be another story.
The first class I had, a gargantuan member of the male kind sat down next to me, struck up a conversation, and introduced himself. He's twenty, and nice, and talkative, and also makes me self-conscious of how awkward I am around guys now that I'm a future wife. He's also not the man I want to marry, but now that I'm working on being a little more selfless and kinder, I'll be a friend and that's about it.
Guys--those who still acted like boys and those who were actually men--swarm the campus. It's stifling. With my church studying the book of Ruth together, I keep hearing "it's a man's world" and while I know the context it actually means in Ruth, I keep viewing it in a different way. Yeah, it's a man's world to me all of the sudden. The world's full of 'em. I can't walk down a hallway or to a building without meeting the eye of several of them, and quite frankly, it's starting to get ridiculous. I can't get rid of these people who keep eying me.
It wasn't just at school. Tuesday after classes, my stomach was rumbling with hunger and I had about 45 minutes to wait before the chiropractor's office opened for the afternoon. (I wait around after classes because it would be stupid to drive a half hour home and then a half hour back when the chiropractor's office and the school are maybe a five minute drive away.) So I drive to a cafe. The cashier/host guy at the counter takes my order and hands me a buzzer for when my food is ready. He decides to take FOREVER, asking me repeatedly what buzzer number I have, and neglecting to give me my receipt so that I'm obliged to stand around and wait. Finally he finishes up and hands me a cup of ice so I can get my drink. "My name is Jordan, if you need any help," he says in a deep, manly voice, and smiles. I smile back and leave.
I find a table, and sit. The buzzer soon goes off, and I head back to the counter to get my plate. I give the buzzer back to Deep Manly Voice and cradle my plate. All I can think about is how hungry I am.
I guess he thought all I could think about was how stupid I was for forgetting his name and for God's sake, I must've been too shy to ask. So he repeats it. In the same deep, manly tone. "Again, my name is Jordan if you need any help."
Did it look like I needed help? Um. I smile again, awkwardly, and flee.
Anyways. All this suffices to say that I'm absolutely paranoid now. And the men, or the boys who think they are, keep talking, and eying.
Don't get me wrong. I like being friends with guys, a lot. And I want to be friends with guys I don't know. But now I view them so differently. Or no, maybe that's not quite the right wording. Maybe my view of them changed when I realized that one of them will be my husband, and how much he will stand out from the rest when God shapes him into the man He envisions.
For now, I just want to make friends. How will my husband--whether I'm already friends with him or have yet to make friends with him--ever stand out if I don't know the good and bad of numerous people, if all I see is what they want me to see?
And how will I ever make a selfless wife if I don't learn to care about the men AND women in the world that I'm not obligated to?
Happy new school year, everyone.
