"It's Time to Ask Yourself What You Believe" or "How Little Cameron Jones Saved Me from Myself"

"Greg, I wish you could find love and be happy."  (female friend of mine from the MSSC Music Department, circa 1998)

"Greg, how is it that you're happy all by yourself?"  (female friend and co-worker at BTC, circa...........well.......Tuesday)

"The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your father now. It's time to ask yourself what you believe."  (Walter Donovan, from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade")

I'm 41 years old.  Never married.  Single.  Straight.  Solitary.  Happy?  Happy.

I suppose this post has been a long time coming.  It addresses two of the great questions of my life.  How is it that I'm still singe?  And how is it that I'm okay with that?

First of all, I wasn't always happy with that.  And even today, if the right woman came along, I'd gladly fall head over heals.  (But she'd actually have to be the right woman.)  Once upon a time, I used to be lonely in my alone-ness.  In my mid twenties, I had become quite frustrated and, truth be told, depressed at my single-ness.  I saw myself as a nice guy, smart guy, funny guy, family guy, and all around great catch.  Somehow, though, womankind seemed to have a different view of me.  Or, the ones who shared that opinion saw me in nothing more than a platonic light.  And I didn't fault any individual woman for feeling that way.  But it did seem like all of womankind had agreed to pigeonhole me into friend status.  And that did hurt.  And it didn't just start in my marriageable years.  I had been the "friend" since junior high.  So I was accustomed to the roll.  But it wore on me over the years.  And by my mid twenties, I was very lonely.

I do remember tears.  I do remember calling out to God, "Why not me?"  "Have You forgotten about me?"  I do remember lonely nights staring through tear bleary eyes at the stars, wondering if love would ever happen for me.  I prayed for a wife.  I prayed for love.  I prayed to have all those things that my friends and peers had already found, that I felt like I should have, too.  Somehow, I also qualified all those prayers and pleas, sometimes begrudgingly, with the phrase, "If it's Your will."  Looking back, I am so very thankful that He honored those prayers, and has given me His will, even if it wasn't my own.

It's rare to be able to pinpoint a specific moment in time when things go from a hazy blur to crystal clear.  Was it an epiphany?  Maybe.  Or just a light going on, that I should have seen all along.  I remember a moment when I was at my loneliest, my lowest.  I was good friends with Justin and Beth Jones.  I knew Beth from MSSC, and went to church with the Jones family at Calvary Baptist Church in Neosho, MO.  A lot of Sundays, I'd have lunch with the Jones family after church.  They always made me feel very welcome, as a part of their family.  I needed that.  On one such Sunday, I had gone to their house after church.  Beth had stayed home from church that morning with their baby boy, Cameron, who had a bad rash on his stomach, and generally felt horrible.  For some reason, on this Sunday, I was very depressed and especially lonely.  I don't remember just why.  But that was my worst day.  I was sitting in the living room while Beth and Justin finished getting lunch ready and on the table.  I had tears brimming in my eyes.  I felt like I'd never find anyone, and that left me feeling completely empty.  Completely unloved.  Beth came into the living room, and picked up little Cameron who couldn't have been more than a year old at the time, and went to show me that rash on his belly.  Little Cameron was so very, very miserable.

My whole life's perspective changed in that moment.  If you want to know the single point in time when God showed me how loved I was, and how unforgotten and un-abandoned I was, and how He'd always take care of me, then that was the moment.  There I was wallowing in self pity and loneliness, feeling unloved, when little Cameron Jones reached out his little arms, reaching just for me, and pulled me back from the brink.  Beth went back to the kitchen, and I held little Cameron, who loved me, and I cried.  There I was in the home of three friends, who loved me.  I had just come from a worship service honoring my Savior, Jesus Christ, who loved me, in a room full of brothers and sisters in Christ, who loved me.  I came from an amazing family, who loved me.  I had a group of wonderful friends, who loved me.  The next day, I would go to classes at MSSC, among friends, students and faculty alike, who loved me.  That moment, God showed me how loved I was, and how loved I am. 

Shortly thereafter, I began to ponder the quote above, "It's time to ask yourself what you believe."  What did I believe about God's love for me, God's plan for me, God's care over me?  I'd always said that I believed that God's love was sufficient for me.  But did I really believe it?  Did I believe it enough to trust that His love was all I needed to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be useful?  Did I?  Or didn't I?  Was it?  Or wasn't it?  Was it all just words?  Or was it really real to me?  And if it was real, then I needed to start living it.

I made a choice.  I chose to believe in His providence, in His wisdom, and in His plan.  If God had a wife in store for me, then that would be amazing.  And I would revel in that blessing.  And if God had a plan for me to be single, then that would be amazing.  And I would revel in that blessing. 

Not that it's been easy along the way.  The first quote at the top of this post came from a good friend of mine from college.  "Greg, I wish you could find love and be happy." She had just gotten married a few months prior to that comment.  So, perhaps her perspective can be forgiven.  But the comment hurt me deeply.  For you married people, tread softly on your single friends' emotions.  The cultural expectation, especially among American Christians, it that we should marry.  Marriage is seen as the key to happiness, to fulfillment, to happy ever after.  It isn't.  And.........get ready for this........the very words of our Savior Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul encourage us NOT to marry.  Really.  So when you add that burden of cultural expectation to the already heavy pack upon your single friend's back, you do him or her a tremendous disservice.  After a day or so of feeling lonely again, unloved again, unhappy again, I thought again about my friend's comment.  And I really looked at myself in the context of her comment.  "Greg, I wish you could find love and be happy."  And I asked myself, "Who's more loved than I am?"  The answer I came back with was an honest and sincere, nobody.  And I asked myself, "Who's happier than I am?"  And, again, the answer I came back with was, nobody.  And I meant those answers deeply.  So I live them.

For me, most of the unhappiness and loneliness I felt in those days was not because I was lonely or unhappy.  It was because I didn't have what it seemed expected that I should have.  It was cultural pressures that made me lonely.  I actually always liked being alone, and I still do.  There's a peace and a calmness that I love and need in solitude.  But, in those days, I felt forgotten, because I didn't have a mate.  I was looking only at what I didn't have, and not at all at what I did, and still do, have. 

My advice to single people is this, God will provide.  If it's something you genuinely need, then God will NOT withhold it:

Matthew 7:9-11

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁹ “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? ¹⁰ Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! ¹¹ So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him."

The question to ask yourself is whether what you desire is something you need, or something you feel like you're entitled to because so many around you already have it.  And you want it too.  There is a difference.  Also, is it something that you desire for comfort, when you should be taking comfort in Him?  If it's something you need, if He's created you with a design for you to have it, but you don't, then be patient.  He'll provide it when the time is right.  Seriously.  And if that doesn't ring true to you, then perhaps "It's time to ask yourself what you believe."