Love in What You Leave

The coffee shop was filled with the expected Saturday afternoon buzz.  It was April 30th. My mother's birthday, and it was lovely and temperate. The windows were open, allowing the unfiltered sounds of the city to pour in with the breeze. 

Some caffeine seeking cliental walked in and out, ordering their espressos and iced lattes and some snatched up any available real-estate they could. I had arrived early to insure we had a spot.  The only available one was a small round table, close to the register.  I set my hot tea down after trying (and failing) to sip it without burning my mouth and the table teetered ever so slightly, squeaking loudly in protest to my liquid burden.

He had arrived ten minutes ago, ordered his drink, and joined me.  I braced the table, trying to muffle its protestation.  Immediately he had begun to talk about....I can't even remember.  This was the café in which we first met which is why I had picked it.  As a theatre artist I enjoyed the poetic symmetry it established.  As he talked, I wondered if he noticed or would notice, since he heralded himself a great theatre artist.  Since it wasn't really about him, I doubted he would. 

Stopping himself, he asked himself what he was talking about and why, and then asked what I wanted to talk about.

I pulled a deep breath in, gathering as much strength from the sweet, warm spring air as I could and looked him straight in the eyes.  I let my heart peek out from behind the walls I had built in order to protect it from him. 

I said that we were done "seeing" each other, or whatever term ambiguous term we were using. 

I said that I had loved him.

He opened his mouth to begin what he would do - tell me I was wrong and manipulate my emotions with his words to eventually make this all my fault. Make me look and feel stupid. Small. Weak. Unwanted.

I cut him off, my tone slicing through his words.  I said this was my truth and he could not tell me what it was I felt. 

I said I did love him, but that if this is what love looks like, I want no part of it anymore.  I said he no longer gets to touch me. He no longer gets to use me. He no longer gets to make me feel little and insignificant.

He told me he wanted to be friends.  He told me he cared about me.  He told me that he wouldn't have come here at all if he didn't care about me.

Guilt began to rise from my heart up into the back of my throat like bile.

I swallowed.

I said if he really cared about me, he would have ended it with me when he wanted to see other people rather than cheating on me.  I said if he cared, he wouldn't be trying to make me feel guilty.  I said if he cared he wouldn't have been such an asshole.  And I said that I didn't want to see what friendship looked like if this was how he did relationships.

But I couldn't stop there.  For months I rooted through myself looking for the weeds he planted in me.

I found the one that said being in an unhealthy relationship was better than nothing, and I told it that it was wrong. And pulled.

I found the one built on loneliness, that cultivating the lies that I was alone, isolated, and no one understood me.  The one that told me the best way to fix it was to ignore it. I told it no, and pulled.

I found one with that said I was worthless and unlovable, one that was able to grow deep roots from all the years of memories from other people doing and telling me the same. I told it no, that it was bullshit. And pulled.

I found the one that told me it was all my fault, and that I deserved this.  And I told it to shut the fuck up.

Thing is, this garden which flourished under his care was not originally planted by him.  It had been tilled and tended for years of people saying directly or indirectly that my worth as woman was tied up and summed to a romantic relationship.  What he encouraged to grow were seeds dropped from the words of people assuring me that God's faithfulness to me would be evident in me having a someone.  And each person who would nod their heads in agreement that singleness is a gift but then want no part of it, who wanted to cure my singleness with their grandsons, made me feel like I was worthless and unlovable.  This garden was able to grow because we as a Church spend so much time telling women to be in relationships rather than telling them how God loves them, just as they are.  We don't face the actual pain of their loneliness, their additions, their insecurities, and their failures.  We would rather don't teach our girls and women to love themselves with the love that God has for them, which beckons us to leave our Egypts behind.  I'm not trying to place blame on one person or one group of persons - the responsibility for our neglect is all of our to bear and wrestle with.

It was hard.  I thought many times it would break me. There were moments when I almost went back because having something (even something unhealthy and destructive) seemed better than having to learn to love myself.  But with time, tons of tears, and a wonderful therapist, I was able to leave them behind. 

And any time they grow back, I pull them up again and leave them, some easier than others.  You see, I leave these things, this relationship and even harmful friendships, because no matter how deep these lies get planted in me have grown, deeper still was God's love for me.  And I am only able to leave not because of my own strength or because I innately understand my value but rather because of God's steadfast love for me.  A love that wants me to leave Egypt, to leave behind the things that weigh me down and the lies that keep me enslaved.  A love that wants me to find healing and wholeness in ways that may hurt but that are truth-filled and healthy.

Beloved sisters who are reading this and struggling, you are worth being loved.  It is not your fault. You are not alone. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to pretend to be perfect.  You are loved, and I pray that you trust in God enough to start loving yourself by leaving the garbage behind.

Singleness as a Metaphor for God

It never crossed my mind to keep a running tally throughout my life on how often marriage has been used as a metaphor for our relationship with God.  I'm sure if I did I would either have an astronomical number, or would have lost count.  Most likely the latter.


From wedding ceremonies to bible studies to sermons and even coffee time conversations, talk of marriage a metaphor is on most people's tongues.  Marriage has typically been lifted up as the ideal through the theological undergirding of marriage being the best way in which we can understand and see the expression of the Divine.  Marriage is ONE of the metaphors used in the Hebrew Scriptures to express God's relationship with the people who identify as the sons and daughters of Israel, and is ONE way the New Testament expresses Christ's relationship with the Church.

And I get it, I do.  The idea of two persons connected as vulnerably as two married persons are supposed to be - financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially - can be beautiful, and as a metaphor can be helpful in working towards being financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially vulnerable to God.  But relying on a marriage metaphor alone is woefully insufficient. I say this not because of ways in which marriages unweave themselves but because of the mystery of God is such that our language is not enough.  The mystery of God is properly unimaginable, and by utilizing the depths of our human experiences and languages we end up re-iterating how mortal we are and how divine God is.


But how are we to utilize singleness as metaphor to a relationship?  By realizing that a single person is not without relationships.

Though I am unmarried, I am still a friend, a mentor, a mentee, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter.  With or without a ring on it, I am still a neighbor and a co-worker.  I might even be dating or have a lover of some form.  Being without a partner does not mean I am alone.  And because I am a part of all these relationships I have wider exposure to the different types of love possible.  Yet some would argue that most of these relationships are not binding in the same degree that a marriage relationship can be.  For example: friendship.  Friendships are enjoyable and hard.  They take work and time and effort.  I enjoy building them (or trying to) but even if we put in years towards a friendship, my friends can leave (with considerably less consequences than if it was a marriage).And yet sometimes, they chose to stay.  They stay with me even through my panic attacks and my depression.  They stay with me when I finally let them know just how not strong I am. They stay, and I am reminded I am loved.  And because they stay, sometimes I stay.

And the action of staying - of God chosing to stay -  that for me is a powerful metaphor to understanding God's love for us.  When the LORD God was leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, God could have left them and picked another nation. Yet, God stayed with them.


When humankind was lost in our sinful disobedience, God could have left us and yet God came and dwelt among us.  God stayed with us.  And when Jesus was praying on the night of his arrest, as his friends fell asleep, as he wrestled with pain and frustration and fear, he could have taken the cup from himself.  And yet, Jesus stayed to bear my sins on the cross.  God doesn't have to stay with us and yet God does.  Even in our darkest and most pain-filled moments God is with us - Emmanuel.


[I want to emphasis that this metaphor of staying is meant to understand GOD and it does not mean that if we are in a harmful relationship that we are to stay.  Whether it be a friendship, a family relationship, or with a lover, you are not called to stay when you are not safe and are not being loved.  As theologically intriguing as staying is, leaving is also theologically charged as well and important.]


If we as a church body want to truly work towards deeper understanding of what God is up to in the world, then we need to not limit ourselves through our metaphors, regardless of how limiting our languages are to begin with.  For singleness is beautiful and sacred, and it would be nothing but beneficial to the Church and especially to single women within the Church if we began treating singleness as such.