Wedding Bells

Today marked the day that my friends Curtis and Brice were united in holy matrimony. Another one bites the dust, as my friend Jason said afterwards. It was a great ceremony with a lot of my friends from church there and enjoying themselves. Part of me wanted to text Curtis this morning to tell him there was still time to back out of it. I decided though that I didn't want to ruin his special day. With that being said, today marks the beginning of the end of the rest of his life. For some odd reason, I would really like to see a wedding where one of the people decides to not show up on the big day. Perhaps that's immaturity speaking, I don't know.

On the other hand, a lot of people just expect that young people will eventually get married. Why is that the case? On top of that, there has been a recent backlash in society as a whole but especially in Christian circles against 'extended adolescence' particularly in regards to males. Some of this is justified but a lot of it's not. Mark Driscoll goes so far as to say it's a crisis. A crisis? Really? The fact that people are getting married later and later is a crisis? Let's not be melodramatic or anything Mr. Driscoll. Another friend of mine posted a link to a blog that said something along the same lines of how young men needed to marry and have a family. I couldn't disagree more with that statement. I commented on his post that it was a good thing that Jesus and Paul didn't live according to the normality of their day, otherwise we wouldn't have the entire new testament. He gave some response about how they were productive and that was really the point. If that was the point than why didn't the author just say young men need to be productive? Personally, I see nothing wrong with just staying single. Many of the saints throughout Christian history were single and they did amazing things for God. Paul even says he wishes that everyone could stay single in his letters. He also says it's not God speaking but Paul when he says that but I would dare say Paul is a pretty smart guy to listen to as himself if he wrote over half the new testament letters and instructed the new churches on how to be churches when he was among them.

Maybe I'll get married someday, but maybe I won't; and I'm perfectly fine with the idea of being single the rest of my life. At the wedding I sat next to my friend Jason and his family and his daughter Izzy put her head on my lap to snuggle. My other friend Mark commented something along the lines of, "And you can say 'no' to that?" referring to me saying no to having kids. Of course I can say no to that! I've said no for as long as I can remember. Things change of course sometimes but I have had absolutely no problem with saying no to having kids thus far and don't see that as being problematic for me in the future. I have plenty of kids to worry about as a teacher that I don't need to add more to the mix. I love my friends' kids to pieces, but part of that is that I get to hand the kids back to my friends when I'm finished with them. I can't imagine if I was responsible for them 24 hours a day. I can barely keep track of myself much less a little person who relies on me for everything.

While I was in South Africa I fell for a woman who I stayed with for a week down there. It was shortly after the time where I had decided I was open to the idea of a relationship again; which hadn't been the case in about 6 years really. Looking back, I think the real reason I was actually open to the idea of a relationship again was just solely out of being lonely from traveling alone. Now that I'm back surrounded by friends I don't really have that desire for another person again. Obviously, certain girls still catch my fancy but it's not like I just have to go after them in order to pursue happiness. I'm perfectly happy on my own. Anyways, this girl commented how being single really gives us the opportunity to serve God more whole-heartedly. Why don't more of us take advantage of this fact? How many single people do I know who pine away wishing they were with someone while the whole time they have more free time that can be used to serve others? Take advantage of your singleness, people! I realize that the majority of people who read this are already married but if you are still single take full advantage of your singleness and serve the Lord with the extra free time you have right now. When you're married your thoughts turn to how you can please your wife so take advantage of this singleness period instead of wishing you were married.

More importantly, single or married, we should strive for contentedness. Both singles and married couples struggle with this from what I can see. Part of the problem with wealth is that it gives us so many options that we are paralyzed about what to do next. Barry Schwartz wrote a book titled "The Paradox of Choice" that deals with this phenomenon. Not only does wealth give us too many options, but being surrounded by people who have more than ourselves makes us want to strive for more and more wealth instead of being happy where you are. Sometimes people need to legitimately make more income but a lot of times it's simply to acquire more and more stuff that you don't really need that you then need to take care of and maintain. When money loses its grip on our lives, we are freer to serve God and others more whole-heartedly. May we all learn to live with contentment in God, whether we are single or married.