Dr. Seuss and the Single Senior

Plaid-itudes

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a family trip a few years ago when I was in high school, my parents and I walked into a Pizza Hut to get a late-night dinner.  As our server was seating us, I noticed a particularly cute girl sitting on the other side of the restaurant.

Naturally, I threw on my best suave smile and tried to incorporate a little bit of swagger into my step.  In my head, there was hardly any difference between how I looked walking through that Pizza Hut and James Bond.  Surely any woman who glanced my way would swoon and fall hopelessly in love with me.

Before you laugh at my ridiculousness too much, you should know that I did get the girl’s undivided attention…just not in the way I wanted.

As I was lost in my own little world, reality struck me like a stack of booster seats.  Literally.  I ran into a stack of booster seats.  Suddenly the reason for my singleness became blatantly obvious to not only myself, but to the entire restaurant.

Unfortunately for me, there is absolutely no recovery for a guy who tumbles over 15 booster seats in the middle of a restaurant, and I spent the rest of the meal doing my best to appear small and insignificant.

If you know me now, then you realize that not much has changed.  I’m still single and I’m still awkward.  If you hear the crash of chairs in the cafeteria, odds are good I’m reenacting the booster seat incident of 2009.  If there is air, I’m bound to trip on it, and if there is a girl, I’m bound to stumble over words.

While being clumsy is just a fact of life that I can’t change, being single is something that haunts me.  Although I can easily laugh it off or make light of it with humor, when I find myself alone in my room, it can be very easy to slip into depression over the fact that I’m a senior in college without even any prospects on the horizon.  College is one of the best places in the world to find a spouse, and yet I remain single.

If you have been a student here for any longer than a week, the odds are good that you have heard the infamous (and dubious) statistic that 62% of all Bryan College students find their spouse at Bryan.

Indeed, I am even a product of that “statistic” as I am a Legacy Student whose parents met and got married during their junior year of college here.

Whether or not the percentage is true, I don’t know, but I do know that I hate having that statistic hang over my head, taunting me.

I feel like Tantalus from the Greek myth who was cursed for eternity to be neck deep in water but unable to drink, and just out of reach of fruit, but unable to eat.  The odds may be in my favor, but they constantly elude me.

The fact that the statistic exists but I have had no success with it breeds in me a deep loneliness.  Questions every lonely person has asked themselves constantly come to the forefront of my mind.  “What if there is nobody out there for me?”  “What if something is wrong with me?”  “Does anyone even care?”

You don’t have to be a senior to feel the frustration of being a third wheel or to know the pain of open dorm with nobody to spend it with.  As a junior and senior you begin watching your friends get engaged and married; suddenly and without warning, you and a handful of others are left in an entirely different stage of life than your married friends.  While I feel no spite towards my married and engaged friends, the truth is that loneliness just hurts.

Charlotte Brontë once wrote in a letter to a friend of hers, “The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”

If it wasn’t for the loneliness I could handle being single, but loneliness is such a pervasive feeling that seeps into every aspect of one’s life.  It is a buzzkill at parties and a constant reminder that I am missing something that everyone else seems to have.

I’ve discussed with some people over the years how similar being single is to the Dr. Seuss book, “Are You My Mother?”  You probably think I’m ridiculous for saying that, but hear me out.

In the book, a little bird wanders around looking for a mother he has never seen but knows must exist.  So often I feel like I wander around thinking, “Are you my future spouse?  No?  Well, ok then, are you?”  I search and I search, but no one I turn to is the one I’m looking for.

As a senior, I struggle with the fear that this could be my last year to find someone.  I know that statement is a load of rubbish, but Satan somehow manages to plant the thought in my mind over and over again.

To those reading, please understand that I don’t say any of this for pity or to complain about my state.  I truly am a very happy person; I just struggle with loneliness in the same way that someone else might struggle with insecurity, jealousy, pride, etc.

I write this because I know that I’m not the only one on campus who feels this way.  Many other college students walk through each day asking the question, “Are you my future spouse?”  I write this because I want to share with those who also struggle with loneliness some of the things the Lord has taught me.

It has always been frustrating to me that the Bible rarely ever addresses singles.  In Genesis 2:18 we hear God say, “‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’” (NIV), but only one time is advice given directly to singles.

In 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, Paul says, “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.  But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

Well gee, Paul…thanks for that.

In my personal opinion, this might be the least helpful advice Paul ever gives us.  Sure, it’s good to remain unmarried if you can, but not all of us are as content in our singleness as Paul was.  As for the second bit there, that’s great, but in order to get married, wouldn’t I need someone to marry?  After all, it does take two to tango.

Forgive my frustrated feelings about these, but until recently, Genesis 2 and 1 Corinthians 7 were the only passages I was aware of that directly spoke to singles, and they seemed rather contradictory and unhelpful.

Just in the past couple weeks, however, God has really been speaking to me about this topic and showing me how much He truly cares about me in my current state; in fact, Psalm 68:6 says, “God makes a home for the lonely.” (NASB)

It can be easy to forget that Jesus himself understood loneliness in every sense of the word.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (NIV)

I cannot imagine the temptation and loneliness Jesus faced during the course of His years on earth.  At 33 years old, Jesus remained single despite the fact that he was surrounded by women all the time, many of whom were promiscuous.  If a man understood loneliness it was Jesus, but not only does he understand our loneliness, the verse in Hebrews says he “empathizes” with it.  What a great comfort it is to know that the God of the universe understands how I feel and empathizes with me.

Now it is one thing for God to empathize with our struggles, but He takes it a step further in Psalm 37:4 and gives us instructions:  “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

It’s easy to pass over the first part of this verse and get excited about Him giving us “the desires of our hearts,” but when we do that we miss the instructions God gave us.

What does God want us to do?  To “take delight” in Him.  Once we have delighted in Him, then He will give us the desire of our hearts.

God wants us to delight in Him first because when we find our joy in Him, our desires change as well.  The question to ask ourselves then is: Is God our greatest source of delight, or does something else hold that position?

If something else holds our delight, then our desires will not align with God’s, but when we place our delight in Him, we find that the desires of our heart are His desires for us.

Loneliness is born when the source of our delight is found in something other than God.

Dr. Seuss’s “Are You My Mother,” ends when the little bird goes up to a power shovel and asks it the same question it has asked everyone else, “Are you my mother?”  The power shovel snorts and its noise and size scares the baby bird that finds itself trapped in the bucket of the massive machine.

“I want my mother!” the bird shouts, but there is nothing it can do as the shovel lifts it high into the sky.  Just when it seems there is no hope, the shovel gently drops the helpless little bird back in its nest and the mother returns.

This story plays out in my own life so pointedly when I place myself in place of the little bird.  I wander around searching for my future spouse, but instead find God, a being so much greater than I am.

Before I know it, God is taking me away from everything that I am comfortable with and away from my never-ending search for love.  In fear and anger, I cry out “I want my future spouse!” as I am forcedly taken further and further away from where I think I need to be.

Just when I think all hope is lost, God gently sets me back into the nest of His love and quietly tells me to be patient and wait.

How often to do we fight kicking and screaming against God because our delight is not in Him?  Wouldn’t it just be easier to have stayed in the nest of His love in the first place instead of wandering out on our own looking for something we never would find?

While I am certainly not perfect at it, God has been teaching me to rest in Him and give Him my loneliness.  It is a struggle, but I am working towards what Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Where is your delight?