.

.

There are a number of blogs charting the waiting of very committed Miss Single Christians for the perfect Mr Right Christian.  A waiting of commitment that God will bring Mr Right to Miss Single when God deems Miss Single AND Mr Right are both ready.

There are also number of Mrs Married bloggers who question the theology behind Mr Married being the spiritual head of the family home.  The boss.  The decision-maker in matters of God and family.

I find it very sad.

Mr Right does not exist.  I have been married for 35 years.  I was never Mr Right for my Miss Single 36 years ago and Miss Single was never my Miss Right either.  A long-term and exclusive relationship s a journey like any other.  A journey that begins with one lifting of one foot and a tentative placing of that foot.  And then another and another.  Two people both lifting and placing one foot after another.  Committed to each other.  Convinced they both travel the same path. Entwined as only lovers in lust can be entwined.  And as with any journey two people journey differently.  One tires more than the other.  One finds joy along the way more than the other.  One sees a path to be explored more than the other.  And then pain falls.  Perhaps on both.  Perhaps not.  And the success falls.  Perhaps on both.  Perhaps not.  And then routine falls.  The quiet and invisible cancer of boredom.  Perhaps on both.  Perhaps not.  Neither is immune because both are journeying.  And for each the journey is at times alone.  Perhaps for both.  Perhaps not.

I have been held spiritually, physically, financially and emotionally by my Miss Right.  And Miss Right has been held by her Mr Right as well.  Our roles have changed.  Our strengths complement our weaknesses.  Both over time and in every instant of confusion, anger, generosity, and even certainty.  None of which either of us knew when we fell in lust.  A physically addictive desire to become one (as often as possible!).

Lust fades.

The journey and the questions follow.  A journey like no other.  One that can destroy many lives if discarded.  A living grief unlike the death of a partner.  A living grief that causes loved ones to choose.  And in the choosing demands those choices are for one and not the other.  A choosing that impacts the financial, the practical, the everyday and scars something even deeper – Who I Am – Who You Are – Who We Were Meant To Be.

I know.  We were those lives.

And finding we wanted above all else to continue our journey together … that was another journey full of danger, of risk, of being right but of being right being irrelevant.  It was a journey through poison and hatred.  Through all the irritations of a lifelong journey held and accepted – yet now fully formed into a an anger darkness (almost) greater than light.

We were never Mr and Mrs Right.  We have only ever been two people who made the best of a journey we might have planned – but a journey where the “plans” of everyday living get in the way – make our own plans irrelevant.

God cannot “fix” that.  Because it would need God to “fix” every little detail along the way.  And that would mean I could never become me.  It would mean my soul-mate could never become my soul-mate.  That we would never find out how much the other had become part of Who We Are.  We both need to decide with every footstep after another which direction we take.  Whether we still walk together.  Whether we still want to walk together.

God cannot make that happen.  Nor would I want a God who could.  So when I read of those who imagine God can and does …

I wonder yet again at the church’s certainty of what is – and what is not – “false teaching”.

.

.