Old Maid, Do-Si-Do, and
the Bottomless Cup of Love
By the time I was twenty-five my mother had given up on
the hope that I would marry. She bought me pots and pans and Pfaltzgraf and
flatware because, she reasoned, even single women need to live. And, Lord
willing, I wouldn’t live with her and Daddy forever.
Dad wasn’t too concerned. After all, he hadn’t married
Mom till he was in his early 40’s. And if God didn’t want me to wed, then I
could follow in Cousin Angie’s footsteps and be a missionary in Africa.
The idea of a single life filled me with dread. Please,
please, PLEASE God, don’t be equipping me to remain unmarried. I developed
crushes. Friends tried setting me up with their relatives. I went out dancing
with friends. To bars. After all, I was a nice Christian lady at a bar. Why
couldn’t there be nice Christian guys there too? Maybe there were. I never met
one.
A few months shy of my 27th birthday I decided I was
tired of looking for potential mates. Although not at the point of picking up
books on how to enjoy the gift of singleness, I figured it might be time to
focus on my relationship with God. So, along with several wonderful single
girlfriends I went to a spiritual winter retreat for young adults from a dozen
churches across our state. Did I mention I’d determined not to check out every
eligible young man also in attendance?
I meant it. So when I took note of a devastatingly
handsome man with dark eyes and a dimpled chin sitting across the room, it
wasn’t his good looks that got my attention. Arms crossed, looking bored, he
was the only one sitting out the square dance mixer. In gracious and generous
Christian-girl fashion I thought ‘Jerk,’ and went back to dancing my little
size 9’s off and trying to remember my allemande left from my do-si-do right.
Later that night, after devotions, a group of us played
cards. A game I didn’t know, called euchre. I’m a dab hand at Old Maid but this
one had me flummoxed, and a group of generous friends tag-teamed trying to
teach me to play. It was hilarious. Really hilarious.
Later that night a group of us went into town for coffee.
The dark-eyed square-dance-boycotter came too. He sat across from me and told
me he got a kick out of watching me laugh over euchre. He flirted just enough
to make me feel interesting but not so much as to make himself look insincere
or lecherous.
We went our separate ways after that weekend and didn’t
meet up till early summer. It took him till late summer to ask me out and in
the meantime one of my major crushes from the previous few years, a Christian
marathon runner and photographer I’d met at work, finally returned my interest
and began asking me out. After I lectured God about his timing I realized maybe
He knew what He was doing. I had to make a decision between two attractive men
(my daydream back in the days before I realized it would be painful) and I
chose the right one.
Wouldn’t my story make a fine romance movie? Sort of an
‘At Long Last Love’ type of life? But now, three sons, four grandsons and
countless prayers and tears and rejoicings later, I realize that my entire life
has been filled with love.
From birth, before my birth, my parents loved me, and
continued until their last breath on earth. Aunts and uncles and cousins by the
dozens meant extended love and the kind of safety net children long for but
don’t always enjoy. Then there is my family in Christ. Brothers and sisters
more than the sands on the shore, and wherever there are God’s children there
is my family, and we love each other. We don’t always play well together, but
the love is there.
My friends—oh, my friends! When I bemoan my limited
practical skills and meager dose of common sense I remember my glorious
friendships with some of the most godly, delightful, gracious,
fault-overlooking women as can be found. I would rather have my friends than an
artist’s eye, a singer’s silver tongue, or an athlete’s supple limbs.
On all this abundance of love God set a gem of a husband.
He is as attractive, open, and affirming as when I first met him, and he still
refuses to dance. Those three sons love me in spite of a plethora of faults and
mistakes and my little grandsons still give me smooches in public.
Do I know I have been gifted far and above anything I
could think or ask, much less deserve? You bet. But what if God had not seen
fit to give me a husband, children, grandbabies? What if my parents had been
cold, negligent, absent, and I didn’t have some sort of strange ability to find
wonderful friends? Would I be any less blessed? No. Not a bit.
God loves me. God has loved me before I knew what love
was. If I had never known human love, God’s love would be beyond the heights
and depths and breadths of what I think I need. Jesus prayed for me the night
before His death and prays for me today and the Spirit intercedes for me with
sighs too deep for words and the Father’s love is vast beyond all measure. What
wondrous love is this?!
Family, friends, husband and children have all hemmed me
in love, and the love that comes from God is greater than these.
Check out Anita’s contribution to Prism Book Group’s new Love Is series…
Hounded
“Love is patient…” 1 Corinthians: 13:4
Elise Amberson’s husbands always die before she can get the
marriage momentum going. At least this last one left her with lots of money.
Now she can hang out with her dogs, avoid men, and try to keep off God’s radar.
But her dogs are behaving oddly, a pesky pastor can’t keep
his hands off her soul, and God is backing her into a corner.
It’s all more than a rich, beautiful young woman should have
to bear. But when someone begins targeting Elise, she’ll have to figure out why
before she becomes the late Widow Amberson.
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