I just want to find a good man!

[Ancilla]

So my life must not be right because God hasn't brought me my man. That is what you are saying.

That is what she's saying, but she's wrong. I think it's a temptation for every Christian to, when we see other Christians with things they don't like about their lives, say that it's a spiritual problem. I don't know if you've ever struggle with chronic illness, but I have, and I was told by lots of Christians that I just wasn't praying hard enough. My best friend's mom had a life threatening illness once and someone from our church told her that she must have an unconfessed sin or something. I'm not joking. Such people are known as "Job's comforters." Right? because they told Job his illness was a sign of sin when in fact it was (indirectly) because of his righteousness. To be quite blunt, people love to blame the victim and Christians have their own way of doing it. Now, maybe she said that because she was told that's what really happens. BUT, when I was her age if I had told you that (I mean if I was her age and you were the age you are now) it be for this reason: I am told that when you give God the place He wants in your life, then He gives you the right person to marry. If I were to have met a girl 10 years older than me who followed all the right advice and was still unmarried, I would have to confront the possibility that that could happen to me. So, it would only be natural for me to tell myself that you are in your situation because of a mistake you made that I will not make and therefore I will not end up in your situation. I work with children who have autism. One parent said that someone told her the only reason why her child is the way he is is because she treats him that way (she treats him as if he has autism, that is). And I'm just like "Well, people love to blame the victim. It's a defence mechanism."

Anyway, I have to go.

 

[Ancilla]

Ok, incorporatestreet I don't mean to sound like I was accusing you of anything bad. I have no doubt you had only the best intentions in what you said.

But Midge, boy do I ever know where you're coming from!!!! I mean, in that book I recommended to you, I totally thought it would start with a chapter on first you have to be satisfied with being God's alone and the standard lecture on not dating for the wrong reasons, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it didn't. I mean, yeah that's in there, but not at the start. I mean, not that all that isn't good advice, but if you've heard about that half as much as I have, you're really sick of it. I mean, don't get me wrong, good advice is good advice, but if you spend twenty some dollars on a book and take the time to read it, you want it to have new information. Or, you don't want it to have the same advice that you've been following but haven't been getting anywhere with. Or, to put it another way, if someone's finishing high school and they want to know what to do with their life and they read a book that says "First go to college, then get a job." Then after college you're looking for a job and you read a book on such topic but all it says is "First finish college." And you're like "Yes, check, I've done that, how now do i get a job?" This is what I think you're saying Midge, that you've already learned to put God first and become mature and whatnot and now you're wondering how to meet Mr. Right. Well, I'm thinking if God's not telling you there's other things He wants you to do before you meet the right guy, then I'm guess you probably don't have other things to do before you meet the right guy. Just a thought.

 

[Pheonix]

Before God brought Eve to Adam, he searched through all of creation trying to find an appropriate mate. When he was finished searching and still hadn't found an appropriate mate, then God created Eve just for him. Just thought I'd throw that into the conversation. Take from it what you will.

 

[delta2124]

you just have to trust in god,there is a plan for you and us all right person will come along for us all someday.........

 

[gtown200]

god has a special person for everyone of one of us i know i hard to be byyourself but that how we learn to trust him and he know what best for us even when we think he taking forever he just want it right

 

[TJ1780]

I'm glad that I'm not the only single woman at this age

 

[Ancilla]

you just have to trust in god,there is a plan for you and us all right person will come along for us all someday.........

How do you know that? Where is that in the Bible??? I mean, yes, God did say that He has a plan for each of us, but where does it say in the Bible that involves being married. Ok, sorry, yes, in the Old Testament it is assumed that everyone will get married, and Jewish people still believe that today. I said why that is in another thread. I won't repeat myself. In the New Testament, however, it's made pretty clear that not everyone will get married. Jesus talks about people being made eunuchs, and I've heard theologians say that can be taken to figuratively too. Now, I can't be a eunuch because I'm female, but surely Jesus knew that if there was roughly a 1:1 gender ratio, for every eunuch there would be a woman who would never get married. Of course... given the childbirth mortality rate, maybe more women would get married than men. Incidentally, I seem to recall that we learned in psychology that there is a universal general trend where women are more likely to get married and men are more likely to get married more than once. However, back to the here and now. My mother reminded me quite often when I was an older teenager that there is a terrible gender imbalance in Christianity. Like, for example, when I was at the Urbana missions conference at UIUC in 2003 (which is almost exclusively made up of college students) out of the... 19,000 or so people there, 60% where women. Now, if that was (and i hope it isn't) representive of Christians our age in North America, all those men get married, that still leaves... a thrid, if my math is correct, women who will not get married. Anyway I gotta go.

 

[Ancilla]

Hmm, wow! Well I'm sorry not to be harsh but seriously I think you need a reality check. I think it would be much better to be 28 and still single waiting for God to send that perfect man along for you.. than already married and unhappy because you realise he may not have been the right person for you... eh?

True. The inarguable greatest thing about being single is that it means that you're not in a bad marriage, which is 100 times worse. HOWEVER, when I wrote my religious studies paper on Christian publications for singles, that fact that just kept coming up again and again and you're left thinking "Do they seriously think that's supposed to make me feel better?" Because after awhile you're left thinking "Are you saying being miserable single or being miserable married are my only options in life?" Or, it's kind of like how in the Silver Chair, Jill is complaining about being cold and that... character, who's name I can't remember, who's their guide, is telling her just to think about how much colder it will be when they get further north.

But really, the assumption here is that if you were married right now, that would not be God's will and therefore you would not be happy (I don't think anyone's implying that you're going to rush into a marriage just because you don't want to be single. I that people do do that, but I don't think you're that dumb) because unhappiness in a marriage that is not God's will is inevitable. But, if I were to say "How do you [meaning most of the people who's replied to this thread] know it's not God's will for Xspinningisfun to be married right now?" The overwhelming response would likely be "if that was His will, God would have already put the right guy in front of her and caused them to fall in love." But that's basically implying that the status quo is God's will and that's quite the can of worms. I mean, maybe if I was better at following God and listening to His voice I'd be married right now. But if that is the case, it's no big deal. I'll keep praying, keep following God, keep meeting guys, and I'll find someone else to marry.

But you see, so many Christians in our society have this view that every Christian (or at least every Christian whom God wants to be married) has one perfect person out there and that's the only person that one can marry and still please God, AND that you can't meet that person without trying to meet that person, much like in the Chronicles of Narnia how you can only get to Narnia without trying. While I feel like a lot of people on this forum hold those views, I feel like I've asked the question over and over again how they can be justified Biblically. But no one's offered a reply. See, the whole soul mate thing is more Platonic than Scriptural, but it's nonetheless popular. Why is that???

 

[Ancilla]

See, the whole soul mate thing is more Platonic than Scriptural, but it's nonetheless popular. Why is that???

To answer my own question is because two thousand years later we're still having trouble separating Scriptural truth with ancient Greek philosophy. I mean, have you ever noticed that the word "romance" has the word "Roman" in it? Think that's a coincidence?

Or another example. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. If you go to the Hallmark, you'll see Leprechauns. Why? Well, I heard that before St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, those tiny leprechauns were giant leprechauns. Just as nasty, but really big. So, when you live in fear of those kinds of evil spirits, Christianity is such a Godsend, in both senses of the word. However, instead of the people not believing in leprechauns if they perceived them to be imaginary or casting them out if they perceived them to be real, they somehow got shrunk down, and are still associated with Ireland all these years later. I mean, Christianity in Ireland has been pretty strong since St. Patrick (relativity speaking, of course) they still hung onto those little things from their pre-Christian days. Please take all that with a grain of salt. I heard that I didn't read that.

 

[Holywish]

Greetings in Jesus
hw r u? I am Saqib Malik 29 years old a strong man and working in Pakistan for christians as a socialist and a political worker.All over the world people know that in Pakistan there are many problems for christians. Christians are here almost dead on social and political level. So I with my team devoted ourselves for the development of christians and I with my team make a group named The Holywish Foundation so I invited every one to be part of our this sacred cause plz pray for us and join us.

Thanking a lot.plz contact us
Saqib Malik
Coordinator
The Holy wish Foundation.
Phone no. +923446671816
E-Mail. [email protected]

 

[Ancilla]

Greetings in Jesus
hw r u? I am Saqib Malik 29 years old a strong man and working in Pakistan for christians as a socialist and a political worker.All over the world people know that in Pakistan there are many problems for christians. Christians are here almost dead on social and political level. So I with my team devoted ourselves for the development of christians and I with my team make a group named The Holywish Foundation so I invited every one to be part of our this sacred cause plz pray for us and join us.

When I saw your flag I thought "Wow, a Christian from Pakistan, there aren't many of us there. I wonder what he has to say about this topic." Well, I appreciate that things are not good for Christians in Pakistan, but I'm wondering why you found this thread to be the most appropriate to recruit for your organization?

 

[Ancilla]

I'm glad that I'm not the only single woman at this age

Well, have you noticed that nearly everyone on this thread who is telling her to just be patient and wait on God, or even to check her priorities or whatever, are like, 19?

I used to think like that when I was that age. But then, when I was in my early 20s, I read this Christian article on coping with loneliness. There was a quote from a middle aged woman who said "All I ever wanted was to get married, but the right person never came along." I thought, "That can happen? I thought God provided someone for everyone once they were mature enough to get married." Well, when we think about what God always does, He ALWAYS comes into someone's life when invited. He ALWAYS offers forgiveness when we repent. He always saves us those of us who confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead. But, when we look in the Bible for promises for worldly things such as a happy marriage, healthy children, comfortable standard of living, lifelong health, peace, love and happiness etc, we don't see those things. Or rather, we WANT to see those things. We want to read such things into... three verses I have in my mind, I'll get the exact references for them later. But really, we can't see that in the words of Jesus and Paul. Both of them made it quite clear that being a disciple of Christ does not mean getting everything we want or being relieved from hardship.

Anyway, I have to go eat dinner.

 

[Ancilla]

Holywish, not only is this the wrong thread and forum to be recruiting for your organization, this is the wrong website. Please read this from the rules:

6. No unauthorized advertising or soliciting.
Please come to our chat rooms and forums for fellowship, not to try to advertise anything (not even in private messages to our chat room visitors). By "anything" we mean anything -- web sites, chat rooms, churches, groups, doctrine, etc.
Also, please understand that many users have joined our chat rooms to try to solicit donations for their own charity (or some other Christian charity). There are so many charities people claim (e.g., orphanages in India, food for Africa, etc.) and we have no way to verify these things. And besides, people don't join our chat rooms to be solicited, so please refrain.


Again, please doni't think that I don't sympathize with Christians in Pakistan, I only want you to be respectful to the poster and to follow the rules.

 

[greenNnice]

I am going to recommend a book to Ancilla and anyone else out there, who are all looking for love. Like one person said, looking for love is ok, but without God's hand in it that is not going to be good love. God's love is what we want. And, as much as some of us want love, it just might not be in the card's, and, helping love to come along is a lot like wanting to get married cuz YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IS TICKING. Sorry, to put caps, well, no, I'm not. I put them so you can understand that God's power OVERpowers all. Look no further than Sarah, barren at 90, and, told by God, YOU, my child, will have a kid. Moses laughed, surely, the whole Israel nation laughed. But WHO had the last laugh? God. And, Sarah, because she had faith in God, never doubting Him.

Oh, the book, it's called , 'Passion and Purity' by Elizabeth Elliot, it's romance and dating, if you want to all it that,...God style
And I do NOT say this to put anyone on a guilt trip. What's done is done and, IF you have a personal relationship with Jesus any mistakes made, if you have faith in Him, will powered over with a greater strength and power, than you can image.

Later, all, God's Love on you I bless, amen

 

[Baptistrw]

I am going to recommend a book to Ancilla and anyone else out there, who are all looking for love. Like one person said, looking for love is ok, but without God's hand in it that is not going to be good love. God's love is what we want. And, as much as some of us want love, it just might not be in the card's, and, helping love to come along is a lot like wanting to get married cuz YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IS TICKING. Sorry, to put caps, well, no, I'm not. I put them so you can understand that God's power OVERpowers all. Look no further than Sarah, barren at 90, and, told by God, YOU, my child, will have a kid. Moses laughed, surely, the whole Israel nation laughed. But WHO had the last laugh? God. And, Sarah, because she had faith in God, never doubting Him.

Oh, the book, it's called , 'Passion and Purity' by Elizabeth Elliot, it's romance and dating, if you want to all it that,...God style
And I do NOT say this to put anyone on a guilt trip. What's done is done and, IF you have a personal relationship with Jesus any mistakes made, if you have faith in Him, will powered over with a greater strength and power, than you can image.

Later, all, God's Love on you I bless, amen

That's a really good book!

 

[Ancilla]

I am going to recommend a book to Ancilla and anyone else out there, who are all looking for love. Like one person said, looking for love is ok, but without God's hand in it that is not going to be good love. God's love is what we want. And, as much as some of us want love, it just might not be in the card's, and, helping love to come along is a lot like wanting to get married cuz YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IS TICKING. Sorry, to put caps, well, no, I'm not. I put them so you can understand that God's power OVERpowers all. Look no further than Sarah, barren at 90, and, told by God, YOU, my child, will have a kid. Moses laughed, surely, the whole Israel nation laughed. But WHO had the last laugh? God. And, Sarah, because she had faith in God, never doubting Him.

Oh, the book, it's called , 'Passion and Purity' by Elizabeth Elliot, it's romance and dating, if you want to all it that,...God style
And I do NOT say this to put anyone on a guilt trip. What's done is done and, IF you have a personal relationship with Jesus any mistakes made, if you have faith in Him, will powered over with a greater strength and power, than you can image.

Passion and Purity is a fabulous book. I also like Let me be a Woman, which she wrote (I'm pretty sure) before Passion and Purity. The latter was really just a collection of letters that she wrote for her daughter, Valerie, who was engaged at the time. It's really good advice on for those about to be married, and despite the title, I'd even recommend it for men. But back to Passion and Purity. In one of the many great Christian books I've read on relationships, it says "The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing." When I was 17 that's exactly what I had, and that's when I read Passion and Purity. Oh look at that, that's the title of chapter 5 of I Kissed Dating Goodbye (Joshua Harris, who wrote that book is a big Elizabeth Elliot fan who in turn wrote an endorsement on his book). You know what I remember from one of those books? She talks about how in Bible College one of her profs trained would always ask "What is the hardest thing in life to achieve?" they would all respond "BALANCE!" Any Christian can sympathize Valley of the Shadow of Death in Pilgrim's Progress, where Christian (the allegory's protagonist) is walking down an incredibly narrow path and on his left is the swamp that will drown him and on his right is the bottomless pit. They're opposites, but they are equally fatal. In the area of dating or courting or whatever you want to call it, we swing between the extremes of lawlessness and legalism, neither one being healthy. The problems with lawlessness are obvious, but every time I see an oven mitt labeled "Dairy" in the Kosher aisle of the grocery store, it's gets me thinking hard about leagalism. As Christians we universally agree that God really doesn't care if you use the the same oven mitt to handle a dish containing meat and dish containing dairy, but we still struggle legalism. Anyway, I'm totally off-topic. What I'm getting that is this: while I highly recommend Passion and Purity, it is by no means the only good book on relationships. The more good Christian books you read on that topic, the more balanced a view you'll have. When my sister (who's a lot wiser than me) read Boundaries in Dating by Drs. Cloud & Townsend [which I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend] she pointed out how dramatically different it was from Harris (or Elliot for that matter) but no less Biblical. See, I've said it once and I'll say it again. Because the Bible is not specific about how to go about finding the right person to marry (well, I guess it's specific for Old Testament but that's because they had arranged marriages), all we have to go by is the wisdom of other Christians and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Because no one Christian can have all the answers on anything, it's best to get a variety of views and pray that God will give you the wisdom to take from that which He wants you to have. So, what I'm saying is, although Passion and Purity is a great book, it's not the single how-to authority to relationships in the same way that the Bible is a single how-to authority on salvation.

 

[Ancilla]

And, as much as some of us want love, it just might not be in the card's, and, helping love to come along is a lot like wanting to get married cuz YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IS TICKING. Sorry, to put caps, well, no, I'm not. I put them so you can understand that God's power OVERpowers all. Look no further than Sarah, barren at 90, and, told by God, YOU, my child, will have a kid. Moses laughed, surely, the whole Israel nation laughed. But WHO had the last laugh? God. And, Sarah, because she had faith in God, never doubting Him.

Ok, just to make sure we're all on the same page about the biological clock: if a woman doesn't have kids before she's 35, she might never. Getting pregnant after 35 is very much possible*, but not as likely. Women are born with a finite number of eggs and once they're gone they're really gone forever. Men, on the other hand, produce sperm pretty much the rest of their lives, so they don't have to worry. My sister is 32 and has a few friends who have struggled with infertility. It's a very, very painful thing. She knows one couple who want a baby so badly she says she's almost tempted to have a baby for them. I know about Sarah (and Elizabeth), but you don't see every infertile Christian woman having babies. There was one woman at my church who really wanted to have a baby but couldn't, and when she looked into adoping a baby she couldn't do that either because she and her husband had a combined age of more than 80 and that disqualified them. I remember thinking, "Well, I very much want kids, I hope that doesn't happen to me." But if it can happen to her it can easily happen to me. Anyway, I have a lot more to write, but I have to go to bed.

*my cousin got married (for the first time) when she was about 37. I was thrilled the following year when I found out she was pregnant, because at that age there's no guarantee.

 

[Ancilla]

Ok, here's the thing: you know how university professors are always like "I don't care what position you take, as long as you can support it"? That's how I feel. And here are the two views I'm always hearing about but I never hear supported, let alone Biblically supported.

1.If you put any effort into meeting eligible candidates to marry, you are somehow disobeying God. Really? Can you justify this position Biblically?

2.If you are eager to get married, you are somehow being impatient or wanting to get married for the wrong reasons. I mean 28 year old woman wants to get married. Here we go with the old "biological clock" right? Again, that might be your view but can you support it????

 

[Ancilla]

Last thing, I promise. Check this out:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2005/novdec/12.18.html

 

[Ancilla]

Midge did you get that book yet? Two years ago I had this same conversation with a friend of mine. So I lent her that book. She did indeed end up with a date worth keeping, and now she has a wedding date worth keeping. She's getting married in 173 days!