Giving Up Isaac; For the Girls, Part 4: Singleness

“God said to him, ‘Abraham!’”
“’Here I am,’ he replied”
“Then God said, “Take your son, your only
son, Isaac, whom you love… and sacrifice him as a burnt offering…”

-Genesis 22:1-2

Last August I walked down a pine needle strewn path while my heart slowly broke. The summer sun filtered through the trees warming my skin and yet I had never felt so cold. How could God, the God I knew and loved, ask something so hard, so heartbreaking that it would be the end of my life as I knew it? Yes, he’d often asked things of me I didn’t want to give, but this time he was asking for something so integral to who I was, giving it up would forever alter the path of my life.

It was the dying of a dream, so real, so close to my heart, that giving in to him felt like ripping a part of my soul out. I begged him not to ask it of me. That he leave my heart intact because the pain was more than I could bear.

God is nothing but a relentless God, however, so the tears flowed and the pain lanced through me as he asked me once again to relinquish my plans of getting married and having a family. I’d held this dream since the time I was small. There was nothing I’d wanted more. When people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up I’d give them various answers, but inside, I always knew what I really wanted to be, a wife and a mother. Nothing else appealed to me, so much so, I almost didn’t go to college. When I finally did go, I only went for two years because I was sure during those years God would send my spouse along. When he didn’t show in college I kept the flame of hope alive year after year because there was nothing in this world I wanted more. I never planned ahead too much because I was always waiting for him to appear so I could map my life to his. 

Then, on a summer day in August, he asked me give it all up. To think about being thirty-four and single (don’t ask me why that age, I have no idea). The thought sent me into tears. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted a husband and children. Why was that so horrible?

Two weeks went by where he’d ask me to give up my dream and I’d walk the pine strewn path fighting him and tears. One night, while at work, I asked a woman for her birthday. When I saw she was thirty-four and either dating or married, I almost broke down in tears. Every time I considered being thirty-something and single I cried. I was okay being single for the moment, but the thought of always being single was more than I could handle.

During one of our walks God brought up Abraham and Isaac. God was asking me for the hardest thing I’d ever given and yet he’d asked something so terrible, so horrific, of Abraham that my pain paled in comparison. 

Despite the terrible request Abraham obeyed. He packed up Isaac, two servants, waved good-bye to Sarah and headed for the mountain all without saying a word to anyone. Nowhere in the text does it even hint Abraham argued with God. 

Abraham obeyed but I find it hard to believe he didn’t beg God, his heart, to change his mind all the way to Moriah; however, God didn’t relent and so Abraham walked Isaac to the top of the mountain, bound him, and prepared to kill his beloved son. As Abraham took the knife to slay his son God stopped him and saved Isaac. God had asked for the one thing Abraham loved above all else because he wanted to know if Abrahams faithfulness and obedience to God was greater than his love for his son. 

Isaac was Abraham’s dream. Long after Abraham had given up on having a son, God worked a miracle so Sarah could bear a son. From this son God promised a nation would be born more numerous than the stars. Abraham was elated. Here at last was the fulfillment of his lifelong dream and God’s promise. The future was bright with possibilities. Then, on that fateful night, years later, God asked for the dream back. He asked for everything Abraham ever wanted. He asked for Isaac. (I wrote a recount of his journey, in my words, here)

Could I give up my Isaac? The one dream I’d held onto longer than anything else? Just as there wasn’t anything wrong with Abraham’s love for his son there was nothing wrong with my dream. There was nothing sinful in wanting to get married and have kids, but my refusal to give into God was.

Over and over God asked if I was willing to give up my own personal Isaac. Over and over he reminded of Abraham’s obedience. And over and over he asked me to submit. 

Two weeks went by with us silently battling it out. I desperately wanted to obey and live out God’s will in my life. I knew his way was better than mine, but I also desperately wanted my dream. I didn’t want to be old and alone (not saying thirty-four was old, I was thinking more like sixty and alone). It was everything to me and I wanted it so very, very badly. It felt as though God was regulating me to the bench to watch the rest of the world play when all I wanted to do was join the game. 

Could I give up the one dream that I had held onto through everything? Could I be content living my life apart living for his love, his will, and his plan? Was I willing to trust his will was better than my own; that his plan for my life was greater than my own dreams, hopes, and desires? 

A part of me wanted to obey, was even excited to obey because I knew his plan for my life was greater than anything I could’ve ever dreamed up, but another part resisted giving up the one thing I’d always wanted. 

I had come to a crossroads, I could give up my dream and follow God’s unknowable plan for my life or I could cling to my plans rejecting the path God wanted for me. As I wrestled with God I realized I didn’t want my plans anywhere near as much as I longed for the adventure God had set before me. I knew where my plans where headed, inescapable longing for a dream that may never materialize and desire for something more than the love of a good man. I had no idea where God’s plan would lead me but I knew one thing with clarity, with his plan all my dreams would be filled. They may not be the ones I hold now, but the desires of my heart, the ones God placed there, would be filled beyond my wildest imagination.

I’m not saying the earthly dreams I hold now or even those I hold in the future will be filled, what I am saying is the nearer I walk with God the more his desires will become my desires. “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4. If I am truly living for God in every aspect of my life than my heart will naturally begin to long for the things that please God. My focus will no longer be on the things of this world but on the things above. His ways will become my ways and his desires my desires.

It’s been almost a year since I walked that pine needle strewn path and it’s been one amazing year. Has God brought a guy into my life? Not even close. Instead, he’s brought himself into my life and I’m amazed by the work he has wrought within my heart.

Do I have days where I still long to be wanted by a guy; to be married and raising kids? Oh yes I do! But the craving has diminished. If God should bring these blessings into my life I would be excited, but my fear of being single is slowly fading.

There are days where I still struggle with giving up my dream of marriage. Days where I feel the longing for marriage and a family keenly. Despite these days, however, I rest in the knowledge of knowing, should God choose not to bless me in such a way, I will be fine all because I know he has a plan and purpose for me.

Recently, I read Get Lost by Dannah Gresh. In it she encourages young women to give 10 days to God. 10 days without guys, whether you’re married, dating, or single. 10 days where it’s just you and God growing in relationship.

I jumped at the challenge because I wanted to give more of myself to God. My soul was thirsty and I wanted to soak in his presence. I loved the words Gresh shared and I could feel God at work in my heart. I spent close to an hour every morning praying and reading my bible and Get Lost. On day three of the challenge, instead of the original 10 days, God asked me for six months. Six months where I would give up boys (even if one did come along). Six months where it would just be God and I getting to know each other better and letting our relationship grow. The thought of living six months wholly inside his presence thrilled me. I was so excited about the growth he would work in me I barely had to think about giving it over to him. My soul was thirsty and it drank in the thought of six glorious months in his presence. Then day eight came.

On day eight God asked for a year. A year of him and me exclusively. A year, where if a guy should miraculously show up in my life, I would have to give him up.  Six months I was fine with, but I year I wasn’t so sure about. I was mere weeks away from being 27 and what if “the one” should show up during that year? I wasn’t getting any younger and I could just feel my child-bearing years swiftly falling away. Could I really give up the one chance I might have at a relationship? The doubts and worries crowded my mind, but the work God began in my life last August softened my heart towards his will. 

I was reminded my life is not my own. I wasn’t sent here to live out my wills and desires. I was created to live out my life for the work of my Savior and if the whole of my life was meant for him what was one year of it? Every year, every moment of my life, should be lived in such a way that I am living and breathing his will. When I compared a year of my life, a year that should be his anyway, to the whole my life it was relatively easy to give him what he asked.

It’s been four months since I gave in to his leading and it’s amazing how much my relationship with him has grown in this short amount of time. I cannot begin to tell you the excitement I carry inside when I think about what a year alone in his presence will do in my heart and life.

Now the prayer I wake up with every morning is that I sink so fully into his heartbeat I lose all that I am in him, that I lose myself so fully in him I never find my way out.

My challenge to anyone reading this is to set aside designated time for God. Not just the single ladies either, but those married or dating as well. I pray that God works within each of your hearts to set apart time for him, whether that time be a week, 10 days, a month, or a year. Maybe you’ll start with a week and find God is asking for more. Whatever it may be I pray you have heart willing and ready to be molded by him. That you become ever more like him every moment of every day.

The Key; For the Girls, Part 1

In every life there are defining moments. Moments, when looked back upon, you can say there, there is when everything changed. These moments either thrill us or devastate us, but one thing is certain, they forever alter the patterns of our lives. I’ve had moments like these within my own life. Like the night I became a child of God, the year my parents chose to have more children, the day I headed off to college, or the summer I chose to work at a camp eight hours away from everything I knew. Each event crept up on me. None were made with deliberate effort in advance, and yet, in each of the moments I can see God’s hand at work, shaping me for a future I couldn’t see. Amongst these moments sits one (apart from the night I accepted Christ as my Savior) that has changed and molded my life in more ways than I can possibly explain or even understand.

               

 I was twelve that summer. I remember it as one of the best summers of my childhood. My friend and her family had just moved back to Minnesota from Virginia and they were staying at her grandparents for the summer. My brother and I spent almost every day that summer hanging out with her and her younger brother. We swam, rode bikes, watched Star Wars more times than I could count (I’ve never seen the Death Star blow up as many times as I did that summer. The boys loved to watch it blow up in slow motion over and over again), ate so many warheads that our tongues went numb and raw, collected pop bottle caps in hopes that we’d win something (of course we never did), and even did school (we were homeschooled) and I didn’t even mind! We built houses out of cardboard boxes, looked for household items in the JCPenney catalog, and cut out scrapbook paper for the wallpaper. I think we even planned out vegetable and flower gardens. It was a glorious, sun baked, laughter filled, friendship cementing, memory making summer. It was the type of summer where, looking back, you wish you could live it all again. 

                It was in the midst of these moments that something extraordinary happened—although at the time it seemed completely ordinary. There was no way I could have known that one simple decision would have a rippling effect that would slowly change and shape my life over the next fifteen years. 

                I have always a passion, boarding on obsession, for reading and it was no different that summer. My friend and I probably spent half that summer either at the library or reading what we'd checked out. The one series I remember most vividly was the Christy Miller books by Robin Jones Gunn. We instantly fell in love with them and spent years afterwards reading and rereading the books. I remember long phone conversations where we would sit forever just talking about them. To this day they hold a special place in my heart.

                The series followed the life of a girl named Christy through her high school and college years. At the beginning of the series Christy’s relationship with the Lord isn’t the greatest but her relationship with him slowly grows through each book. By the end of the series she has transformed into a young woman who loves the Lord and desires to follow his will no matter where it might lead her.

                In book twelve Christy is in Europe on a mission trip with some of her friends. Halfway through her friend Tracy shares a poem with her that she had written years ago for the guy she liked. 

Within my heart a garden grows,

Wild with violets and fragrant rose.

Bright daffodils line the narrow path,

My footsteps silent as I pass.

Sweet tulips nod their heads in rest;

I kneel in prayer to seek God’s best.

For ‘round my garden a fence stands firm

 To guard my heart so I can learn

Who should enter and who should wait

on the other side of my locked gate.

I clasp the key around my neck and wonder if the time is yet.

If I unlock the gate today,

Would you come in? Or run away?

                The poem sits heavy on Christy’s heart and over the next couple of chapters she begins to think about what it means in relation to her relationship with God and guys. In one of the very last chapters of the book she prays this prayer: 

“Lord Jesus I want you to hold the key. I want You to decide what should happen
in my heart’s garden. I want You to let in or send out anything or anybody You want. Especially with guys. I don’t want to ever unlock that gate again. I want You to open it only when the right man comes along. Take the key, Lord. Take all my keys. I’ll wait for You.”

Christy’s decision resonated within my own heart and I found myself praying the same prayer. I don’t remember the exact words I used, but I remember handing the key over to God freely giving up my rights to the key and the door to my heart. I didn’t know it at the time but that simple prayer changed my life forever. There are days when I wonder if I would have so willingly given up the key had I truly understood what I was giving up and what it meant for my future. However, looking back, I am immensely glad my teenage-self made that promise. It may have altered my life forever and led me down paths I would never have chosen for myself, but it has also deepened my relationship with God and set me on an amazing journey I would never have traveled if I hadn’t given up the key.

                I’d given up the key but I still fully expected to grow up and get married quickly. I had always believed I didn’t need to date until I was at least eighteen because the relationship couldn’t go anywhere until then. However, I’d also believed I would date at eighteen or shortly thereafter. I hadn’t planned on going to college or living by myself. No, my dream was to grow up (18 or 19 being grown-up), meet the man God had for me, get married, and we’d start our lives together. Only thing was, in the midst of my dreaming I apparently never stopped to ask what God’s plan was. 

                Eighteen quickly passed and then nineteen with no prospects in sight. I left for college and expected to meet someone. Twenty came and went as did twenty-one. Twenty-two quickly followed with twenty-three close behind. Still there was no one and I began to wonder what God was doing. 

Years passed and never once did God even hint he was going to open the gate. At some point I began to imagine the walls surrounding my heart resembled the walls of the garden from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Overgrown with ivy and hidden from the world. The gate, previously easily found, now seemed to be firmly concealed by solid inches of green foliage. 

I’m not going to say I understand what God was doing or that I fully accepted it at times. In fact there have been days and nights over the years where I have ranted and raved at God and there have been many, many, many tears shed over his decision, but each time God has calmly held out the key and asked if I would like it back. However, despite the days when I bemoan my single state, I’ve never wanted possession of the key. I want to know that when the gate finally opens it was because God chose to open it not me.

                Despite my reluctance in God’s plan from time to time I’ve always had the reassurance that should he ever open the gate it would because a guy cared enough to search for my heart in God and all the pain and questioning in the world could never measure up to this knowledge.

                Twenty-six years of life have passed without a single hint of God moving to open the gate. I’ve never been in love. I’ve never even had a crush on a boy. Oh sure, I’ve thought boys where cute and I wouldn’t mind if they decided to look my way, but I was never hurt when they didn’t. There are days when I’ve wondered if I’m normal. If my lack of feelings means there’s something wrong with me, but I’ve finally come to the understanding that I am perfectly normal, only God has locked up my heart and when the time is right he’ll know. I know it sounds funny, but somehow I know I’m just waiting for his permission to finally fall in love.

                I don’t always like sharing my story because people cast me funny looks when I tell them and look at me as though I’m a little crazy. It’s easier to just let it be and let people think I’m really picky or prefer to be single, but God has placed a burden on my heart to share my story. Over the past two years he has been demonstrating how he is lover of my soul and the relentless pursuer of my heart. He wants me to understand all I need is him and place him first within my life. There is nothing that I should long for more than him.

                Two years ago I read Captivated by Grace by Dr. David Jeremiah followed by Captivating by John and Stacy Eldredge. What God showed me there was absolutely, life-stopping, astounding. From those pages I began to see a God who desired me above all else. A God who’d spent every moment of my life pursuing me, looking for my attention. I’d always wanted a man to notice me, to love me, and to pursue me. As a woman this something God has engrained into my heart and I’d spent my life searching for it when all along God was whispering What about me? I want you. Notice me.

My female heart longed for someone who would go to the ends of the world for me. Someone who would fight dragons in my name, bring me flowers, call me up just to say he’s thinking about me, and brag to everyone he knew that I was his girl. I have yet to find an earthly man who will do these things for me, but I have found someone else who will. Instead of bringing me flowers he makes them sprout just for me. He never has to call me up because he never leaves my side. Angels rejoice because he calls me his. And he really did go to the ends of the world and fight dragons for me. His love is incomparable and I am covered in it.

And that is what this series is about. It’s about the God who wants you more than life itself and will fight death just for you. His love is immeasurable and overflowing. Make no mistake he’s not passively waiting for you; he’s actively at work pursuing you just waiting for the day you wake up and notice.