“Yes.” (Gabrielle)
My brother Jonathan wrote a blog post a while back talking about how so often we pray for something, but just assume God won’t do anything about it. We don’t expect that God will say yes. Perhaps I should say that I don’t expect Him to say yes.
I am single. You might have noticed. I have wanted to get married in a way that hurts like a knife ever since I was about thirteen. I’m not sure why I started so young. It’s not like I could have gotten married when I was thirteen. But right at the time of life when my sisters had started hurting for friends I skipped over friend and started hurting for a husband. My deep want took the shape of this nasty cycle of ups and downs. I would go a while were I felt okay with where I was in life and I would be able to be content and almost happy with being single. But then I would go down again and feel like I didn’t want to live this life of mine for much longer if I would be alone. I was never suicidal; I’m not disciplined enough for that. I just felt sad all the time.
As I’ve grown and grown up the ups have gotten longer and the downs easier. I was glad for this, obviously, but I kept wishing and praying that the cycle would just stop forever. I would pray that God would take it away, but I didn’t really expect Him to. I would read in all the single books were it said that basically you just have to get used to feeling rotten all the time and I would tell myself to suck it up and get used to it. Maybe someday God would be gracious and take the feeling away, but most likely not. It’s just how life was going to be and I needed to get used to it.
I didn’t notice when I stopped feeling terrible. It’s been a fairly recent change, but I can’t pinpoint when everything changed. One day I reached for the sadness, the longing, the hopelessness and it just wasn’t there. I felt around inside where it had been and there was no trace of it at all. This vicious cycle I’ve lived with and prayed about for about eight years now is just gone. I still want to get married, of course, but the crushing sorrow that I am not yet and the expectation that I never will be are gone.
Now, I can point to some changes in my life that might have had something to do with this change, but that would be beside the point. I think God reached down from Heaven and took this burden off my back when I wasn’t looking. And I think He did it because He loves me and knew I didn’t want it anymore. That’s what this tale is about. I’ve prayed and cried and asked God to do just what He did, but I still never saw it coming. I probably just don’t believe He’s as good as He says He is. And when I think about it I can’t figure out why not. He is just as good as He says He is and better than I could ever imagine. And sometimes, usually when we don’t see it coming, He says yes in a glorious way.