love in a hopeless place ...

i’ve been pondering a potentially controversial topic lately ...

marriage.

or the lack thereof, to be precise.

i was radio-surfing while driving the other night, and rhianna’s new song ‘we found love’ caught my attention. all i really heard of it was the repetitive chorus, “we found love in a hopeless place.” looking up the lyrics later, i realize that this is not at all what the song is about, but it served to provide a bit of encouragement, nonetheless.

i must admit - and i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who would say - that the chances of getting married can seem rather slim at times. according to the united states census bureau, the singles population has nearly "quadrupled in just one generation." people are waiting longer and longer, championing independence and success instead of dedicating themselves to the Godly pursuit of marriage. all the while, on some level, they still long for the blissful union that God has promised. but they are told that they should be content in their singleness - revel in it, even.

yes, there’s something to be said for being content and trusting God with wherever He has placed you. but, as candice watters states in her article ‘getting to marriage’ on boundless.org, “a generation of singles are stuffing their discontent and starting to believe that it's their discontent, and not their protracted singleness, that is their sin.”

singleness a sin? i’ve never thought of it that way before, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

we spend so much time trying to figure things out before wanting to join our lives with another. but maybe the reason we have so much trouble trying to figure things out for ourselves is because we were never supposed to try and figure things out on our own. we aren’t supposed to have so much of our stories written because we’re supposed to be writing them with someone else. i could be wrong, but it sure seems like figuring out life and joining our giftings with someone else would be so much easier and more enjoyable than trying to figure it out on our own.

so what are we waiting for?

candice goes on to assert that society has convinced us we should be waiting “for a miracle story that defies the odds.” but while you wait, “chances are you’ll miss out on what could have been ... wonderful and timely.” are we waiting for someone to walk into our lives? or are we expecting fireworks? maybe we should start praying for God to open our eyes and soften our hearts to the people who we are already doing life with on some level. i say this with no ulterior motives, as i can be as guilty of this as the next person. it's just that i see an awful lot of Godly singles around me who are not dating and have to believe that there is surely a solution more simple than we're making it. things may seem hopeless, but could it be that the love we’ve been waiting for has been standing right in front of us all along?

leave it to a random song on the radio to remind me that love can, indeed, be found in even the most [seemingly] hopeless places.