A Quiet Witness

These five words I have never spoken: I know God loves me. When I've heard others say those words, I’ve always thought, I wonder how that would feel? To have felt it, and thereby know it?

I always imagined it felt magical.

I’ve been taught the words God loves you all my life. Unlike other truths, this one never made the move from my head to my heart, with the likely barrier being shame.

Shame of always feeling just a bit off, a bit different. 

The feeling of being too wild (Get down from there—you’ll ruin your hair!); too questioning (Women just have other roles. You’ll love being a mother.); too unladylike (Cross your legs, and goodness, why are your feet so dirty?); too attracted to the ladies (You have been spending a lot of time with her lately . . . ); too not attracted to the boys (What was wrong with him? You’re being too picky.) 

Too much (or too little) of many things. Behind all of it was a standard I felt, but never met.

Even now, as a woman walking into a new congregation at church, well-meaning people and assuming questions continue the pattern: Welcome, they say. What brought you and your husband here?

Then they learn my status: single, no children, never married. I can see the questions arise in their eyes as they try to diagnose my singleness: Is she too picky? Too unattractive? Too influenced by the world? Too attached to her career? She must be too much of something. Too little of other things. 

Some are brave enough to ask it directly. Why are you still single? So I give my standard response, with a grin: I have yet to meet a man I want to spend eternity with. 

Though what I wish I would say is this: Yes, I want the joy I see in your life, but the family I want does not look like yours.

Yet, to many eyes, this is the lens I’m seen through: what is missing in my life, instead of what is present. So people try to fill those holes and close the gap between me and the standard, setting me up with anyone they know to be single, or giving well-meaning (but unsolicited) advice on life or dating.

Those are some people.