Why I'm still single
Everything I'm going to write today really happened to me.
Almost a year ago, I met the friend of a friend and I thought we might have a lot in common. Pretty gal, lovely personality. We went out twice. The first time was to dinner and a weird evening watching a movie here. The second time, we spent the day together on the 4th of July hanging out with her friends. Twice was enough to know we weren't going to be a good match.
Somewhere in there, we were Facebook friends for a minute or two, and my Who got pissed off about it, which I found odd. Well, maybe not so much so, but at the time, we were still trying to figure out why the heck we were in each other's lives in the first place.
So, needless to say, it was a disaster. Fortunately all it cost me was a battery charger. It cost my roomie his friend, so she must've been a lot more mad about it than she let on. I find that odd, too. I didn't even kiss this woman.
Tami Jo's name came up in conversation the other day. Tami is the one example I have of God letting me have what I wanted to clearly show me it's not what HE wanted. A single kiss doomed us. She kissed me and I knew....she wasn't ever going to be the one for me. That also ended in a nightmare.
I don't like bringing her name up, because of a lot of reasons. She's not my Who, and although there were similarities, one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was to compare the two. Sadly, in God's plan, I had to find out for myself the hard way which one was the right one and I let the right one go. More than once.
I tell you that story to tell you this: When she finally got her stuff out of my house last summer, she left a couple of things for the lady that took her in when she moved out of my house. As I was returning the things, she and two of the other church ladies were in the parking lot chatting. One asked me about baking something and asked me why I was not married again. Another decided right there and then that I'd been single long enough and she was gonna do something about it.
She was gonna FIND me someone.
Not a good plan.
So I privately explained to her about my Who. As best I can, anyway. She's taken it to pray for things to work out. I thought they were going to a couple of weeks ago. When they didn't go as I thought they might, and had to tell her, she actually hugged me and cried. She's gonna keep on praying. So am I.
I get lonely. I admit that. I miss having someone in my life, and I absolutely hate the circumstances I'm in. But I'm reminded that I'm where God put me. I'm not supposed to like it and disobeying God has a cost. The most recent explanation I have from Him on the matter is that part of what He's teaching me is that disobedience has consequences and I'm not going to be able to avoid seeing and experiencing what those are. But still, ya get tempted......and when what you're being asked to do doesn't make a lick of sense from the human perspective......
Fast forward to just after Christmas. There's a gal at work that liked me. She probably doesn't anymore, but she did. And I almost asked her out. She's really pretty...petite, great personality, dog lover, and she kinda liked me. She'd flip her hair when she talked to me and stuff. I'm not that naive that I don't know when a woman is interested in me, and I almost asked her over to the house for New Year's Eve.
God, in His providence, threw a roadblock up to prevent that, but it was the closest I've come in a long, long time to getting off the path I'm supposed to be on. And on New Year's Eve, the pussycat got smooshed in the recliner. I took it as a warning.
It's good to FEAR God.
After the holiday, I noticed she doesn't work in our building anymore. I've seen her exactly twice since then. The first time, I told her when she asked, that it looked like things might lead me and an old girlfriend to reconcile. I kinda thought things might be on that path at the time. Didn't quite go that way, though. She sounded really sad and I could see the disappointment on her face when I told her that. Pretty much torpedoed any chance there with that statement, which is probably for the best. No reason to ruin someone else's life because of being disobedient to God. The second time I saw her, she just kept walking.
So this happened last week...we're walking out of Kohl's and this woman comes out right after us, trots to catch up with me and Miss June and starts chatting with me about spring. I looked down. I have enough trouble. I noticed she was wearing flip-flops with purple nail polish and all I can think about is my Who. I mention she was ready for spring with the flips and she pulls at the sweatshirt she was wearing to tell me she was only wearing it because she almost froze the day before. She wanted me to know she doesn't usually run around in sweats.
I said I'm not naive to when a woman is interested in me, but apparently that's not always the case. I just thought she was a chatty person. People chat me up all the time. This really happened to me:
At the same Kohl's a few weeks ago and I notice a car in the parking lot with a vanity plate that says DEBYAKS. Go to Home Depot and a gal drags me over to her unopened register to check me out (and ring up my purchases too). She starts chatting me up and I learn in the first 30 seconds that she lives alone. OK. Her name, and this is no word of a lie, was Deborah.
But not for me.
I ordered some eyeglasses last week. In the 30 minutes it took to order them, the lady helping me gave me the Cliff's notes version of her life story. That was in 30 minutes. What she found out about me was that I used to be in the military and I work at Hill Field.
Again, not for me.
At the doctor's office last night, and the nurse gets chatty. I must have one of those faces.
Way too young for me.
Sometimes, I don't get it. It seems like the more I pray, the more the exact opposite of what I'm praying for happens, but the one thing I know is that it's not stormy in my life right now. I could have lived without getting bit by the cat....could have lived without getting gout in my big toe again. But they're bumps in the road. Comparatively speaking, those aren't storms. Those are rain showers.
I got to, and not out of disobedience, take a look at some things, as a review, so to speak of where I'm at and what the yes and no's of my life are today. The YES I believe still is, but not right now. The no's are anybody that's not the YES. The answer to my query of God about this came in the form of a story (which may or may not be true) about a gallon of milk.
There are Christian urban legends, too.
But it's very similar to the story of how I got an outlet in the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom one day about two months ago and the thought came to me that if my Who were to ever come home, she needed a place to plug in a straight iron and her curling iron, that wasn't the outlet built into the ugly bathroom light.
A couple of days later, I'm in the small bedroom and notice that there's a desk lamp above the built in desk that I swear, I'd never seen before. I thought I could remove the light, add an outlet, and run wires to the bathroom and put an outlet in when the time came.
Then after the Ash Wednesday service, a lady at church asked me about the outlets in her bathroom. Seems they're wired off the switch in her bathroom and when the light is off, so are the outlets. There isn't that much random in the world, so I got busy with the outlet in the bathroom.
Someplace in there, she asked me about a straightening brush that does the same thing as a straightening iron. There isn't that much coincidence in the world.
So, that's why I'm single. And as my roommate pointed out so eloquently to me, and also why I'm not available either.
I spent 27 years in the military. I've seen a lot. But I've never seen anything like the circumstances i find myself in. The only thing I can tell all y'all is that I pray frequently about it. God knows how I feel about it. But the only peace I find in life is when I just accept things the way they are today, with the knowledge that they won't be that way forever.
In there, I've learned to love my Who unconditionally, which spills over to other people too. I've learned to OBEY God. I'm learning to trust Him and trust His timing. I'm being forced to learn to wait. I've learned that I can pick choices but not the accompanying consequences, which goes hand in glove with learning not to make hasty decisions. If I could walk back that morning, my little turtle dove, I would.......believe me. I've also learned that my life really isn't my own...and that this is nothing that God didn't know I would do. His will is gonna be done in my life. So I just quit fighting Him about it.
Remember, kids....it's right to trust God. And good to FEAR Him, too.
And that's why I'm still single.
Almost a year ago, I met the friend of a friend and I thought we might have a lot in common. Pretty gal, lovely personality. We went out twice. The first time was to dinner and a weird evening watching a movie here. The second time, we spent the day together on the 4th of July hanging out with her friends. Twice was enough to know we weren't going to be a good match.
Somewhere in there, we were Facebook friends for a minute or two, and my Who got pissed off about it, which I found odd. Well, maybe not so much so, but at the time, we were still trying to figure out why the heck we were in each other's lives in the first place.
So, needless to say, it was a disaster. Fortunately all it cost me was a battery charger. It cost my roomie his friend, so she must've been a lot more mad about it than she let on. I find that odd, too. I didn't even kiss this woman.
Tami Jo's name came up in conversation the other day. Tami is the one example I have of God letting me have what I wanted to clearly show me it's not what HE wanted. A single kiss doomed us. She kissed me and I knew....she wasn't ever going to be the one for me. That also ended in a nightmare.
I don't like bringing her name up, because of a lot of reasons. She's not my Who, and although there were similarities, one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was to compare the two. Sadly, in God's plan, I had to find out for myself the hard way which one was the right one and I let the right one go. More than once.
I tell you that story to tell you this: When she finally got her stuff out of my house last summer, she left a couple of things for the lady that took her in when she moved out of my house. As I was returning the things, she and two of the other church ladies were in the parking lot chatting. One asked me about baking something and asked me why I was not married again. Another decided right there and then that I'd been single long enough and she was gonna do something about it.
She was gonna FIND me someone.
Not a good plan.
So I privately explained to her about my Who. As best I can, anyway. She's taken it to pray for things to work out. I thought they were going to a couple of weeks ago. When they didn't go as I thought they might, and had to tell her, she actually hugged me and cried. She's gonna keep on praying. So am I.
I get lonely. I admit that. I miss having someone in my life, and I absolutely hate the circumstances I'm in. But I'm reminded that I'm where God put me. I'm not supposed to like it and disobeying God has a cost. The most recent explanation I have from Him on the matter is that part of what He's teaching me is that disobedience has consequences and I'm not going to be able to avoid seeing and experiencing what those are. But still, ya get tempted......and when what you're being asked to do doesn't make a lick of sense from the human perspective......
Fast forward to just after Christmas. There's a gal at work that liked me. She probably doesn't anymore, but she did. And I almost asked her out. She's really pretty...petite, great personality, dog lover, and she kinda liked me. She'd flip her hair when she talked to me and stuff. I'm not that naive that I don't know when a woman is interested in me, and I almost asked her over to the house for New Year's Eve.
God, in His providence, threw a roadblock up to prevent that, but it was the closest I've come in a long, long time to getting off the path I'm supposed to be on. And on New Year's Eve, the pussycat got smooshed in the recliner. I took it as a warning.
It's good to FEAR God.
After the holiday, I noticed she doesn't work in our building anymore. I've seen her exactly twice since then. The first time, I told her when she asked, that it looked like things might lead me and an old girlfriend to reconcile. I kinda thought things might be on that path at the time. Didn't quite go that way, though. She sounded really sad and I could see the disappointment on her face when I told her that. Pretty much torpedoed any chance there with that statement, which is probably for the best. No reason to ruin someone else's life because of being disobedient to God. The second time I saw her, she just kept walking.
So this happened last week...we're walking out of Kohl's and this woman comes out right after us, trots to catch up with me and Miss June and starts chatting with me about spring. I looked down. I have enough trouble. I noticed she was wearing flip-flops with purple nail polish and all I can think about is my Who. I mention she was ready for spring with the flips and she pulls at the sweatshirt she was wearing to tell me she was only wearing it because she almost froze the day before. She wanted me to know she doesn't usually run around in sweats.
I said I'm not naive to when a woman is interested in me, but apparently that's not always the case. I just thought she was a chatty person. People chat me up all the time. This really happened to me:
At the same Kohl's a few weeks ago and I notice a car in the parking lot with a vanity plate that says DEBYAKS. Go to Home Depot and a gal drags me over to her unopened register to check me out (and ring up my purchases too). She starts chatting me up and I learn in the first 30 seconds that she lives alone. OK. Her name, and this is no word of a lie, was Deborah.
But not for me.
I ordered some eyeglasses last week. In the 30 minutes it took to order them, the lady helping me gave me the Cliff's notes version of her life story. That was in 30 minutes. What she found out about me was that I used to be in the military and I work at Hill Field.
Again, not for me.
At the doctor's office last night, and the nurse gets chatty. I must have one of those faces.
Way too young for me.
Sometimes, I don't get it. It seems like the more I pray, the more the exact opposite of what I'm praying for happens, but the one thing I know is that it's not stormy in my life right now. I could have lived without getting bit by the cat....could have lived without getting gout in my big toe again. But they're bumps in the road. Comparatively speaking, those aren't storms. Those are rain showers.
I got to, and not out of disobedience, take a look at some things, as a review, so to speak of where I'm at and what the yes and no's of my life are today. The YES I believe still is, but not right now. The no's are anybody that's not the YES. The answer to my query of God about this came in the form of a story (which may or may not be true) about a gallon of milk.
There are Christian urban legends, too.
But it's very similar to the story of how I got an outlet in the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom one day about two months ago and the thought came to me that if my Who were to ever come home, she needed a place to plug in a straight iron and her curling iron, that wasn't the outlet built into the ugly bathroom light.
A couple of days later, I'm in the small bedroom and notice that there's a desk lamp above the built in desk that I swear, I'd never seen before. I thought I could remove the light, add an outlet, and run wires to the bathroom and put an outlet in when the time came.
Then after the Ash Wednesday service, a lady at church asked me about the outlets in her bathroom. Seems they're wired off the switch in her bathroom and when the light is off, so are the outlets. There isn't that much random in the world, so I got busy with the outlet in the bathroom.
Someplace in there, she asked me about a straightening brush that does the same thing as a straightening iron. There isn't that much coincidence in the world.
So, that's why I'm single. And as my roommate pointed out so eloquently to me, and also why I'm not available either.
I spent 27 years in the military. I've seen a lot. But I've never seen anything like the circumstances i find myself in. The only thing I can tell all y'all is that I pray frequently about it. God knows how I feel about it. But the only peace I find in life is when I just accept things the way they are today, with the knowledge that they won't be that way forever.
In there, I've learned to love my Who unconditionally, which spills over to other people too. I've learned to OBEY God. I'm learning to trust Him and trust His timing. I'm being forced to learn to wait. I've learned that I can pick choices but not the accompanying consequences, which goes hand in glove with learning not to make hasty decisions. If I could walk back that morning, my little turtle dove, I would.......believe me. I've also learned that my life really isn't my own...and that this is nothing that God didn't know I would do. His will is gonna be done in my life. So I just quit fighting Him about it.
Remember, kids....it's right to trust God. And good to FEAR Him, too.
And that's why I'm still single.
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