It’s 8:30 on Monday night, and I am home after enjoying dinner at my folks’ house with my sister’s family. My sister is out of town, and so Mom and Dad graciously had her husband and sons and exchange student along with myself over to indulge in her chicken and noodles specialty, which one of my nephews has requested repeatedly over the last three weeks.  Naturally, I stuffed myself and a little after dinner left their house with my stomach swollen and my sentience stalled.

After I got home, I cracked open the next of Donald Miller’s books I’ve wanted to tackle, “Through Painted Deserts” for a little bit.  After two chapters of laying and reading, I realized I was near passing out, and I also recollected that I hoped to do something constructive with this evening before it trotted on by.  I am at a place where I know I want to be constructive and productive and not waste much time any more when I have it, but to do these things is a stretch for me.  I am used to being passive, to watching, to just observing and reflecting, and then filing those experiences and thoughts into some black hole deep in my brain somewhere.  So I thought I would write something.  They say if you want to become a writer, or a better writer, you need to write.

I opened a text app and tried to come up with something to write about.  I have wanted to write a history of my love life, if anything as an exercise to help me understand the evolution of how I have become who I have, and I had a few items pass through my mind to write on.  One was writing about my first crush.  Another was writing about my first huge huge crush, which was really the first heart-wrenching love I remember most from my past.  I thought about both of those experiences, and realized it just wasn’t in me to write about them.  At least, not tonight.  Those stories are too big, too pregnant with ramifications for me to adequately dig into them this evening, when I am sated with chicken and gravy and potatoes and biscuits.

My friend Robert called me a little while into my topic speculations, and we talked for a few minutes about a mutual friend who is swimming in a New Age sea, and we talked for a little while after that about being single and love and women and how challenging it is to try and find a love while also trying to live out your life as a believer as opposed to living a life following your own whims. Robert has chosen, after years of trying to fill his wounded heart with the pursuit of romances, to try and live a life where he’ll let God screen women for him, and eventually lead him into a healthy relationship as Robert chooses to walk with Him. I told Robert I totally understand his struggles, and that he’s not alone in his walk.  When we chose to try and let Christ drive in our lives, we do leave the road more travelled in relation to love and romance, and to most other people, we may look a little odd.  But that is what faith in God is about, and what hope is for.  Because we love Him and He asks us to walk with Him in every area of our lives, we say “Okay, God- yeah, I would love to be tight with someone right now, but I know that unless I let You bring her along, I will make a mess of whatever I try to make go.  And I will quit focusing on You.”  Waiting is usually not the easiest, or the most enjoyable, of human experiences, but He asks us to do it, but because in the waiting, He is working in us.

I am glad to have a friend like Robert who talks with me about these things, living life as a single, wanting to walk with God, and feeling frustrated from time to time about the solitude of being alone. Life is challenging, and certainly even when we do have someone intimate in our lives, laying next to us in bed night after night, or walking through the checkbook with us every weekend allotting our assets, we will still have our seasons of being together and being alone.

After getting off of the phone, I guess I found a few things to write about after all.  Writing is challenging to me.  I love writing when the ideas flow, and words fit together like pieces in a puzzle, and bundled together they paint lovely pictures.  More often than not, though, I  struggle with the question of what to write about- or whether what I write about has any life in it, or any weight of its own.  I guess this is why the writer must keep writing- to let the words and thoughts that want to fly from his mind on any given day have a chance to escape and soar.

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Okay, Lord. You made me.  You know what I want.  And You know what I need.

Night.