I had always heard
those stories of people being “called” to missions, then meeting someone,
falling in love and never actually going.
Or, even worse, going and then returning home…for a man (dun, dun, dun). After being “called” to missions myself
during a conference at 16, I knew I never wanted to be that girl. I hardly dated in
college, wanting to keep myself freed up to be able to go on the mission
field. I even broke up with one guy a
few years later, telling him, “I don’t want the ‘white picket fence’ kind of
life because God has called me to missions.” After going overseas, I was a bit dismayed
when I was placed in a city with one female teammate and only two other
foreigners in the entire city, both in their upper 50’s. How was I going to
meet the godly, single man who was also called to my specific people group in
my tiny corner of China? (seriously)
So I tried online
dating. “At the very least, you’ll be
encouraged by how many matches you get!” another single friend encouraged
me. I signed up for EHarmony, filled out
my profile and waited for my numerous matches to encourage me that if I tried
hard enough, I really could find Mr. Right.
But nope. Just one match. (It just may have been the fact that I checked
the little box, “Am not willing to leave my current location (China) for
someone...”).
After that, I came
up with a Grand Plan. I decided the best
thing for me to do would be to marry a Chinese American. Perfect.
That way we would already have both cultures in common. So I picked the ONE single Chinese American
in our organization and dropped a few hints….nothing.
I finally gave
up the search, which is of course when I met someone who was out of the
question: a guy from Chicago (the city I had dramatically exited with tears, commissioning
and prayer meetings five years previously)—an actor with no
“calling” to live overseas.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. This was not The Plan. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I
was “leaving for a guy,” so I said I was taking a “home leave.” When we soon got engaged (3 days after I flew
back from China), I was actually nervous to tell people. I knew what they’d be thinking…I thought you were “called." You
sure are quick to abandon your “call” as soon as you meet a guy. Don’t you need God more than you need a
husband? Did you mishear God’s will for your life? Why are you selling out?
No one actually said any of these things, but I knew what they'd be thinking because I had thought the same things about others in the past. I felt ashamed of "forsaking my call" for something as "weak" as marriage.
I think part of
the problem was that throughout all my years of singleness I had fortified myself with verses
affirming my marital status. 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 seemed to portray married people as distracted and bogged down by the world and single people as holy and completely sold out to the Lord. Isaiah 54: 5 called the Lord my "husband and maker," which I took literally and thus felt completely guilty about when the Lord wasn't enough of a "husband" and I had to replace him with an earthly husband. When I feared I would never have children, I found comfort in Psalm 17: 13-15 that seemed to say that people with children would have their "portion in this life," while those who didn't have children would be satisfied in the Lord. With these verses, I was impenetrable. I wasn't even open to the prospect of God bringing a man into my life. So when I met the Actor, I was completely blind-sided. I really think it was the only way that I would have let down my guard.
Fast forward ten
years, after lots of grieving over the loss of China (weekly tears for the
first year), running parallel to the joy of an incredible husband and two
devious, yet delightful children, I’ve come to these conclusions:
3. God can and does use any state of
being—single or married—to refine us and make us holy.
4. Being a missionary isn’t the ultimate
expression of your love for Christ.
I’ll
unpack these a bit more in some other posts, but for now I will comment on
#3. 1 Corinthians was
a huge stumbling block for me as I found myself falling in love, but as a married woman, now I think: Am I more distracted than I was when I was single? Yes. Do I need to
worry about meeting my family’s needs?
Yes. Am I more worldly? Possibly. But the ultimate question is this: Do I love God less? No. And more importantly, does He love me
less? Absolutely not.
So far, marriage and missions have been mutually exclusive for me. Grief, loss of identity and loss of purpose are just a few of the emotional pits I have found myself scrambling out of in the past five years of re-entry, but I have slowly found more peace about "leaving my calling." One help was reading in Matthew 22, which includes the parable of the marriage feast and Jesus answering the Sadducees’
incessant questions on marriage in heaven. I don’t think it’s a coincidence
that He seemingly skirts their questions about marriage and instead reminds them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind. It turns out that marriage wasn't the issue at all--the issue was always about God having ALL their hearts. Marriage can certainly muddy the waters of devotion, but nothing can change His love for me. In fact, it gives me a pretty good forum to work out that second command to love my neighbor as myself.
Have you ever felt
that singleness is viewed as more holy than marriage? Have you felt guilty about leaving the field
to get married? How did you reconcile your “call to missions” with your “call
to marriage”?
Linking up with Velvet Ashes.
Photo by: "Sandra and the ring" by Lbartley -
Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Labels: marriage, Missions, re-entry, singleness, Spiritual Lessons
