Remarriage.

Okay, I'm going out. Hmm... what do I need to do to get ready? I guess I better change. Hmmm, should I wear these earrings or these? Oh what do I care, I hate earrings. I'll just leave my pearls in as usual. I better fix my hair. I haven't even brushed it. Oh, thinking of brushing... I better brush my teeth before I forget. Okay, ready. WAIT! Where are my rings?! Rings! I must have on my rings! (Butterflies start to flutter in my tummy and I start to blush like a teenager...) Okay, phew! Rings are in place. Stop being an idiot, Natasha! You're just going to get groceries!!!

Every now and then, I have a day when I feel very single. I'm only 29 years old after all. Still a few months shy of 30. Okay, maybe a couple of months... Oh my, it's coming up quick. I'm almost 30!!

The thought of remarriage sends my heart and mind spinning. I blush at just the thought of being approached by a single man. (Though, I must confess, I have noticed that there are none, so no worries there!) But in the case that I ever did come across some eligible bachelor, what on earth would I do! What on earth would I say?? I would stutter, have no coherent train of thought, probably freak out, and run away... Someday, I may have to deal with that, but for now... I have my rings. Wear the rings. Flash the rings. Stay away from men! 

Approaching 30, starting a whole new decade, feels like another one of those milestones that puts my old life in the past and thrusts me forward into something new and different. But how new and different? I seem to fight change every step of the way. All of what I do, I am still forcing myself, working hard, trying to keep living whether I want to or not. I can't imagine being happy again. There is always joy in the Lord's Presence, but happiness in life is not something I expect anymore. (However, I do have an inkling that the Lord still desires it for me.)

I hate being alone. The first thought of remarriage entered my mind very early after Lynn's death. My feeling was, How could I have all this love for a man no longer here? What do I do with it? Where do I put all this love still living in my heart, destined for a husband?? I am a wife. It doesn't just disappear. 

The other side of the remarriage coin has to do with children. I pondered, Surely, my children won't grow up entirely without a father figure! Surely, at least by their wedding day, there will be a man they can call "Dad" to walk them down the isle! My daughters cry out for fatherly affection and many nights I have cried out to the Lord, Give my children a Daddy!!! They need a Daddy!!!! I think there are many ways a family can adjust to becoming a single parent dwelling, but I don't think it ever feels right to be without a Daddy. There is no adjustment big enough to make up for what is lacking in the absence of a father. My only hope has been that God will be their ABBA, their Daddy God (as we say), and he will be a father to the fatherless...  But I have also given them my permission to pray for a new daddy. And this, they are doing.

I love Lynn deeply and truly, but acknowledge my desire to have a companion. I am suffocated by loneliness. I miss having someone to love. But I also acknowledge that these days, weeks, years... continue to shape me into a stronger and better woman. Healing is happening, slowly but surely. I have grieved for Lynn, begging him to forgive me for my weaknesses, my inadequacies, my failures as his wife. But in all truth, I know we were just young! There is so much we hadn't learned yet. Sometimes, I comfort myself with the notion that we would have. We would have learned it. We would have matured and grown and learned... I don't ever want to believe that Lynn had to die in order for me to grow and mature. I hate that Christian-ease notion. Instead, I am blessed to grow and mature in the midst of suffering and loss. I am blessed to experience the emptiness of widowhood. I am blessed to hunger and thirst for righteousness, because I am filled. I am blessed to mourn, because I am comforted. God truly does work all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes. 

Often, when I pray about God's plan for my life. I can not avoid this subject. Are you presently preparing someone somewhere in the world who will someday be my husband? My second husband?? What an insane notion! I still cannot fathom it. But I do hope for it. And my children are praying for it. For now, I am simply telling the Lord that he better be rich and handsome. :) Right now, he'd have to be pretty fabulous to catch my attention :).