Why Aren’t You Married Yet?

Okay, it’s after the third day of JAMA.  Today was really good.  I learned a lot, but I’m feeling more and more that this was really a college to high school aged person’s event.  The messages are pretty simple and lack any real substance – more like a pep rally.  At times I felt as if I was being entertained more than led in worship.  But there were moments when I truly felt moved.  I guess everyone needs a pep rally every now and again.

One thing that kind of irked me, however, was something that happened during a sort of round table discussion on the big stage with various panelists…  during this specific session were a group of people who are working with missions organizations in Kazakhstan.  The Korean-American moderator asked very relevant and important questions to the married panelists.  But there was this one sister who is working in Kazakhstan who is single.  When it came around to her, he asked… “So, you’re still single, right?” and then something about missing Korean food.  There were two things that kind of bothered me about this.  First, that the questions she was asked were really banal – almost trivial in comparison to the work she is doing.  Second, that small word “still.”  It was subtle but demonstrated a great deal if you think of the context.  I’m really tired of the Korean mentality that you’re really not a “complete” person until you’re married – that your work doesn’t count until you’re ligitimized and respectable by having a spouse.  The word “still” seems to give the assumption that she is waiting to be something more… that obviously she hates being single and would really like to move on to the next stage – the more appealing stage of being married.  This may or may not be the case, but imposing that on her is really presumptuous.  Think of it this way, would it be less rude of me to walk up to a married couple who are having difficulty conceiving and saying, “So, you STILL are childless, huh?”  Even if they weren’t trying to conceive, wouldn’t it be just as rude?

I’m not saying marriage isn’t a good thing.  I hope to be married someday – to the right person – of God’s choosing.  I’m just saying that being single is not a wasted life either.  That my life is not summed up by the image of me in a holding pattern above Wedlock Airport waiting for my turn to land before I run out of fuel.  Being single does not bother me a tenth as much as it bothers me that others are making judgements and assumptions about me because I’m not married.

You want to lose my respect in a second?  Ask me any one of the following stupid questions (I’m also adding possible smart remarks I have not yet had the guts to use yet)…

1.  “You’re 32?  Why aren’t you married yet?”

A: Because according to the bylaws of my cult, I can only get married at ages divisible by 7.

2.  “Why aren’t you dating anyone?  What are you waiting for?”

A: I’m waiting for her to reply to each of the 56 messages I left in her voice mail yesterday.

3.  “You shouldn’t wait too long”

A:  Oh, is that what I’ve been doing?  I was wondering why this marriage thing is taking forever… I’ll stop waiting immediately.

I’ll end with one final story…

Many of you know that I graduated from Georgia Tech a couple of years behind schedule.  This was due to many reasons… I was on the co-op program trying to pay my own way through school… I took many classes outside of my major because I wanted a more rounded education at this technical school… I got really bad grades because my church life consumed about 50% of my time… but really do I have to have a reason?  And there was this one man at my church who would ask me the same thing EVERY week…  “So, when are you going to graduate?” or “are you still not graduated?”

I kept telling him that I just keep missing the weekly ceremony because I overslept.  I don’t think he believed me…

Anyway, he did this for two years.  It didn’t really make me feel any worse or better about graduating late.  It just made me really annoyed whenever he opened his mouth.  I think he was thinking, “Oh, poor Nathan, he needs some motivation (from me) to show him the light that he needs to be concerned about graduating on time.”  He probably thought I was slacking off and wasting my life.  I really just trusted God that He knew what He was doing with my life… that I could handle it – maybe better than most – that I was not your typical four-years-and-out college student.  I didn’t get the best grades.  I didn’t stress a lot about my academics and its impact on my career… and eventually… I graduated.  (After which that man started asking IMMEDIATELY “So, when are you getting married?”)

Now a little background… as many engineers may tell you… the holy grail of jobs to get is a “design” job.  But, in reality, only about 5% of the jobs out there are really, truly design jobs… and usually only the best of the best get them.  Truly, in school, my grades were mediocre at best… no, sub-par at best.  But today, I have a design job working with cutting-edge technology.  I can only attribute this to God’s providence because I really don’t deserve it.  This is another story entirely… for a later time.  But the point is – God provides, and just because the world may think they know what is best for me, only God truly does.  So, good intentions or not… those people who keep giving you advice you didn’t ask for… their words, to me, demonstrate a lack of faith in God’s providence… at best a casual ignorance of His perfect and divine plan.