For the past two years, I didn’t want to get married. Not again. Surely God wouldn’t force marriage upon me because I have the right to choose who I want to spend the rest of my life with and I wanted to live it alone. Plus I refused to suffer through another wedding.
My wedding day wasn’t the happiest day of my life. I didn’t enjoy being the center of attention and every fiber of my being recoiled at the thought. I hated being on display for everyone to see and I would have rather eaten my dinner in peace. Additionally, the wedding dress was the absolute worst. The heavy gown weighed me down. I couldn't even pee on the toilet by myself. My cousin had to hold the excessive bundle of fabric for me because my arms weren’t long enough. They really should give brides a warning about that when they are buying a piece of clothing which makes it impossible to go to the bathroom. I never wanted to go through it again.
But just to be safe, I asked God to keep every man as far away from me as possible. I wanted nothing to do with them. I didn’t want a man and I was at peace without one. When I went to a self-defense class and a guy pretended to attack me in order to teach me how to protect myself, I vowed never to return. It was a terrible idea and I didn’t know what compelled me to go in the first place. When I went to the gym to exercise, I used earbuds and avoided eye contact with everyone so they left me alone. For two years I managed to avoid men which wasn’t difficult. I had a three-hour commute to work each day, went to the gym, ate meals at home, slept nine hours a night, and went to church on Sundays. I didn’t need a man’s love and I was determined to stay single forever.
What is love anyway? To me, it is a choice rather than a feeling. It means choosing to be kind, patient, gentle, understanding, and humble. I like watching television with my mom, I want to go shopping with her sometimes, I call her when I’m driving home from work, I appreciate everything she does, and I like playing games with her but what does it feel like to love? I had no idea.
Then I met a man who loves God more than anything in this world. The only man I didn’t avoid because in my mind there was no chance he would ever like me. We became friends because I needed to learn Spanish and he told me he wanted to practice English. Soon after, I recognized my reasons for evading marriage may have been flawed. First, I didn’t want a guy to distract me from spending time with God, but this man did the exact opposite. Second, I didn’t want to get married because I was happy being single but I didn’t know I would be just as happy with someone else. Last, I thought I didn’t have enough energy to be in a relationship because being around people is exhausting most of the time. However, he is the one human being who actually gives me energy and helps me realize how much God loves me.
The Bible was written by forty different authors over the span of 1,500 years who all agree with one another because they believed the same truth. Jesus actually lived, died in the most barbaric way, and came back to life, allowing 500 witnesses to see him on twelve different occasions. Jesus loves us so much that he willingly died for us and God sacrificed his own son to show His love for the imperfect people of the world.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve this love because I am nobody. Today there are 7 billion people on the earth and I am no one. I struggle to accept this kind of unconditional love because I don’t understand it. God sees everything I do and think about, He doesn’t make me feel bad about my mistakes, He always forgives me, truly knows me, and loves me anyway. God is love.
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