Before I offend too many people with my jokes...
I hate to keep mentioning this because so many people here already know this about me, but here goes.
When I was 25, my then-husband left me for a 19-year-old redhead that we both worked with. I came home one day from work and half the house was gone. He had moved out without any warning or hint, and a not long after that, I received papers in the mail with the headline, "You Are Being Sued For Divorce."
I have a bit of an idea of how hard it is to find a good Christian spouse, so I completely empathize with anyone who is looking and I have several crazy stories to tell about the dating world that I have often shared here in Singles.
I've also followed all the good Christian advice you will find people giving over and over again for 20 years, and God has yet to cross my path with a husband, but maybe it's His will, and I've been working on accepting that.
As a single, you just can't win. People will tell you to throw your life into serving the Lord, and that you'll meet someone along the way, but then when you try to tell them that you've done that and are still strugglinrag, they'll tell you that you shouldn't even talk about it, lest you boast about your good deeds and therefore lose your reward in heaven.
I participated in the things I did not because I was trying to find something to boast about, and not just because I was trying to meet a good Christian man. I threw myself into every ministry I could find--Children's Church, Tween Church, choir, cleaning, classes, prayer groups, Bible studies, outreaches, ministries that involved talking to veterans, and a ministry that found me talking to guys in their 30's who were serving life sentences for crimes such as shooting their parents as a teenager--because I was lost, broken, unspeakably lonely, and desperate to get "closer to God" as all the good Christian advice tells you to do.
I never found a husband (maybe still someday? I don't know--that's up to God.)
But what I did find is that God CAN change your focus, and change your heart, but it is often in ways you never would have thought of (or entered into willingly), and takes a whole lot longer than you ever expected.
But that is just me.
Humor is one way that I mask the pain of feeling the things I don't want to admit, lest I be stoned with more good Christian advice, such as the pain of feeling as if God has overlooked me, but yet handed spouses out to everyone else around me.
We are all on individual walks with our Lord--may He bless you with the comfort of His presence during yours.
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