If you look at my bathroom mirror just right, you can see the residue of a post–it note that resided there for a few weeks not too long ago. Sort of like that "wash me" someone scrawls on your windshield you can still see when the sun shines on it just right even after you've obeyed its injunction.
I took the residue–leaving sticky down recently when out–of–state friends were coming to stay with me. It was just easier to take it down than try to explain the process that prompted me to get out a sticky note, put it in a conspicuous place, and write on it one word: hope.
Hope has been elusive for me lately. Slippery. Like trying to hold water with my bare hands. It just keeps trickling out of reach. I know it's here somewhere, I just can't pin it down.
So I jotted it down, in some sort of symbolic way of trapping it on a three–inch–square piece of paper—and as a reminder as I'd stand there each morning and evening brushing my teeth and applying and taking off makeup to be on the lookout. For hope.
You see, I've just let go of false hope. The notion that a husband is a sure bet, a guarantee, a right.
I had a conversation not too long ago that brought me both comfort and despair. I was chatting with a newly married 30something about trends in Christian circles and singledom when she said, "We need to face the fact that due to current gender ratios in the church, some single Christian women will have the choice of either marrying a non–Christian or not getting married at all. We in the church need to discuss what's the lesser of these two options, what the ramifications are, and how we can support them in their choice."
It was oddly comforting to have someone spell out a current reality—potentially affecting me—so plainly. Yes, this is the question (whether I'll be one of those faced only with these two less–than–ideal options) deep in my gut that I often try to ignore. Yes, this is the assumption about the future my generation can no longer make. Yes, this is the unfair reality I wrestle with God over on my own and my friends' behalf.
Armed with knowledge of demographics, trends, ratios, and anecdotal evidence from singles I've met across the country, my hope for my future no longer contains the assumption that I'll get married. And yes, I know God is bigger than demographics, trends, ratios, and anecdotal evidence—but when I turn to my Bible for his word on the matter, I see no promise of a spouse. For hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) yes, but not that that future will necessarily contain a husband and kids.
Don't get me wrong, I still hope for marriage. Just not in the anticipatory way of something you know will come to pass—like the hope of a coming vacation or the hope of heaven. Those things are certain and solid. There's an end to the anticipation. The hope eventually gives birth to something new and good.
But hope for something that may or may not come to pass is tricky. How much stock do you put in it? How much do you feed this hope? After so many years, do you simply give up hoping? Because even the Bible acknowledges that "a hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12). Holding onto hope year after year after year means being aware of longing. "Responding to hope brings a deepened sense of thirst and ache," Jan Meyers writes in her wonderful book The Allure of Hope. But shutting off all hope is a really depressing way to live. And as Christians, we're offered so much more.
Sure, I know full well that ultimately hope is Jesus, the salvation he offers, and heaven. That's the big picture and it's wonderful and foundational. But what I wrestle with is what hope looks like here and now, as a relational single woman with no guarantees that my future will contain the closest of relationships. That anchor person you can circle back to in the middle of a boring party, at the end of a lousy day, at the conclusion of a lifetime of sharing the journey.
