Fiona

My 8 hour work day consists of battling the pains of old age with ladies and gentlemen who wish they could do more than their bodies allow. I’m sitting at a meal with Gladys, and she tells me all she wants to do is eat a big juicy steak, although her teeth (or lack thereof) won’t quite allow for anything more than ground-up hamburger meat. Then there’s Jake, a patient I see sometimes at a different facility, who can’t quite remember who I am, although I spend an hour a day reminding him.

The funny thing about Jake is that even though he can’t remember my name or the names of his kids, he tells me vivid depictions of his college baseball games and “that time he score a touchdown in the last 30 seconds of the game at the state championship.” He can tell me every single thing he did for fun when he was a child, and let me tell you, every single day, I can’t get away from him without his face lighting up, and a smile stretching across his face as he tells me about the time he met Jesus.

I think each of us have defining moments in our life that stick out and never quite leave us. Moments we cling to when our little world seems to be turned on end. I think, in His mercy, God allows us to hold on to those memories, like Jake clings tightly to his, even when our hair grays and the rest of our sense drifts away. I can definitely pinpoint a few of those moments in my life. One of which I shared with a few people recently. I was asked to write it down and share it, so I’ll get right to it.

Most of my life up until the summer of 2010 was spent trying to figure out why in the world I existed on this planet. I had been told my whole life that if I worked hard enough I could get into a good school and open up doors of opportunity for my life. I spent most of college chasing everything under the sun to satisfy this absolute abyss of longing in my heart…I wanted to be loved deeply, to have a great love. I wanted a man to tell me I was beautiful and that I was HIS. I wanted that feeling of walking into a room and people knowing we were together, for a man to be proud to call me his girlfriend, fiancé, and eventually wife.

Because this was a deep desire of my heart (and don’t get me wrong, I think God places desires in our heart for a reason), I searched for love like that, and came up with a lot of good tries and a lot of big failures. My insecurities drove people I loved away from me, because I expected more out of them than they should ever provide for me. I knew that God was supposed to come first, I really did. I had been told that my whole life… but God was no fun and he definitely was not going to sit next to me while I watched a movie, or take me on a date. I was not happy with God. I saw Him as this thing I owed penance to every morning before I could go do what I wanted to do with my day. I always felt guilty that I never spent enough time with Him, because I never quite got around to it.

I spent 4 years of college and quite a few months afterward doing my darndest to hold onto a relationship that had become a huge idol in my life. At the end of the day, it was the truth that this relationship and this boy’s opinion of me mattered to me far more than God’s. I was lost, and thoroughly disgusted with myself. I turned into someone I hated, and to this day cannot believe that I was. Even in that, God was gracious to me to provide friends who spoke truth into my heart time and time again. Without them, there is truly no-telling where I’d be.

I remember starting graduate school in May of 2010, and my life was sudden and complete chaos. I was losing hair by the handfuls and acne had decided to declare war against my face. I mean seriously, it was ROUGH. In the midst of all of that, I was slowly dealing with the fact that my idol of a relationship was reaching its bitter end. At some point that summer, I found out he was dating someone else. It was HARD, but I felt like a weight was lifted off my heart. Not because he was a bad person, but because I felt like I could finally move forward.

I remember spending the months between that and September just diving in head first into God’s word. I would leave class and walk the Bear Trail with a Matt Chandler podcast in my ears, and just walk for hours listening to as many as I could. I didn’t feel like I had to, I just NEEDED TO. I wanted it. I needed it like food. I woke up craving Jesus and his consistency like I needed air. Because of the intense nearness I felt to Jesus during that time, I would NEVER trade the pain I felt which lead me there. It is true that he is so near in our heartbreaks. He is so rich in healing! I think he always is, but that we only take the time to listen once we’re stripped of other things we hold so dear. I would not have made it through those months of school and pain without Him. He was wholly GOOD to me. And then, in September, I went to visit one of my best friends in Colorado where she was doing a discipleship training school with YWAM (youth with a mission).

The craziest thing that I’ve learned about God is that there is no mistake to His timing. If you woke up today, it’s because He has a word he wants you to hear or some divine purpose your life must fulfill for another. If you visit a friend in Colorado at a DTS program, it’s probably because that will be the ONE week that the most fantastic woman of God will be speaking. And that’s exactly what happened.

Here I am, broken. I am completely confused about how to satisfy my life, and wondering what in the heck is wrong with me that I am not close to marriage by the end of college (yes, I was southern brainwashed). In walks this beautiful 60-something-year-old ball of joy with a British accent named Fiona. Now, let me set the stage for you. Fiona is from England, and has spent her life traveling the world telling people about the Love of Jesus. She has taught at many a discipleship program, speaking event, bible study, etc. She has had cancer, survived it, and kept on trucking. And, strangest of all to my little southern mind, she has never been married.

Hearing Fiona tell her story was one of those moments for me that I’ll never forget. When I am in the shoes of my patients, looking into the eyes of my speech therapist, I hope to tell her this story when she asks me for a defining moment of my life.

Fiona tells of all her adventures, her joys and heartbreaks. Then she looks us all in the eyes, and with the most sincere heart, she says the following (as close to verbatim as I can get):

“I’ve never been married. It’s not that I don’t want to be married, I do. I still believe that before I die, I will be married. But I look back at all that God has lead me to do, and I realize that I could never have done those things with a husband to take care of. I have hundreds upon thousands of children whom I keep contact with. Children I have walked through life with. But none of them are my biological children. And if I’d had biological children, I might not have the time or energy for those hundreds of thousands. I could never have traveled at the capacity that I have and told people about the Love of God had I had the responsibility of taking care of a family alongside it. And so, I have learned that if God doesn’t give you a husband or a wife, it’s because he has something far grander for you. Something that will bring you just as much joy, although it may be a different kind. The fact is, that I have never married because I have never met anyone thus far who can keep up with where God is leading me, and if you are not going to lead me to more of God than I can have alone, you will do nothing more than slow me down.”

I have never met a more joyful person than Fiona. She radiated it. It was all around her, like jewelry she wore around her neck. This blew my mind. Happiness and joy without a husband? Without kids? For 60 years?

It really got me thinking. I found myself asking a question to my own heart. A question I still ask myself every now and again to keep my heart in check. I come back to this question time and time again, really trying to soak it in.

If Jesus alone was all I had in this world, would that be enough?

When I finally was able to answer yes to that question, I understood the meaning of freedom. Freedom from people pleasing, routine, traditions, expectations, and being like everyone else. There are many days that I forget this truth and God re-directs me back to it. I have to remember this the way I remember my address or my phone number. But, when I believe with all my heart that He is enough to satisfy me, I take my shackles off and laugh in His goodness, not bound to any earthly thing that will not be here tomorrow.

You see, what I realized in September of 2010 is that I will not always be someone’s wife. I could marry tomorrow and my husband could die the next morning. I will not always be someone’s mom. I will not always necessarily be a homeowner. My home could burn down. My money won’t always be there. But I will ALWAYS be a child of the Most High God. I will always be the remnant of His redeemed. Never can Satan or anything else snatch me from the palm of His hand. Nothing can separate me from Him. I am loved fully by a God who fully knows the wickedness of my heart, and gave His life for me when I was at my most wicked place.

And so, if you are waiting, don’t wait. DO SOMETHING.

If you are single, use your freedom to chase Jesus and His dreams. If you’re married, deepen your reliance on Jesus more than you rely on your spouse. Mentor somebody. Give your time. Get to know your next-door neighbor. Build relationships. Donate money. Serve in your church. Lead a bible study. Start a non-profit. Learn to hear his voice speak to you.

But don’t wait to find that at the end of what you most desire is merely an imperfect man when RIGHT NOW you have the infinite God at your fingertips. Perhaps you will find, as my friend Fiona found after 60 years, and as my friend Jake still remembers even when everything else seems blurry…that fullness of joy can be found in many different avenues in life if our heart is fixed on Him.