“Can we just go ahead and rename Facebook Engagement Book already?”
This is the familiar plea of those who are single. And in turn, myself. In the midst of engagement photos and wedding announcements over social media, my future consists of only saying yes to the bridesmaid’s dress. I am afraid I have become a bit of a wedding basher, drowning in my own self pity. I can no longer let myself get away with it.
Because if I’m honest it’s not that I’m bitter about marriage, I’m bitter because I feel like I’m missing out. Social media is the perfect recipe for comparison and loneliness — people post at their best and check at their worst. Combine that with posts about love and marriage and eternal bliss and it starts to press in on my deepest insecurities.
People are posting wedding pictures while I’m watching “My Best Friend’s Wedding” on Netflix. My married friends are buying houses and I can’t even afford the nice peanut butter. It’s this constant comparison game and a reminder that I’m somehow behind in life and it makes me feel very alone. Our lowest moments are when our values really play out.
What do I do when I’m lonely? Am I tempted to dive further and further into the Facebook comparison game? Do I just throw up my hands and spurn the whole idea of marriage? Do I pick up the phone and text those old flings hoping they’ll ease the pain even just for a night? I would rather fix than feel.
And my quick tendency to fix shows a pretty big lack of faith. When I send that text I know I shouldn’t, or use cynicism to mask my pain, I’m really just demonstrating a pretty blatant lack of faith. My actions in my loneliness communicate that I don’t really trust God to provide for me. I’m tempted to feel passed over and forgotten.
It is in these moments I try to remember who God says He is. Just recently three of my friends got engaged on the same day. I was on Facebook when they all proclaimed it over social media. It was this day I stumbled around in my Bible to 1 Samuel 1:19 where the Lord is speaking to Hannah. After God promised her a son, she waited years and years for Him to fulfill his promise, “And the Lord remembered Hannah…” And then I burst into tears because my name is Hannah. Because the Lord remembers me. I have not been forgotten. I haven’t been passed over. He still remembers me despite my lack of faith and my tendency to run away from both Him and my pain.
Whether it is not yet time or whether there will be a time, it’s okay. If the God of the universe remembers me then I am more than enough. I’m someone worth choosing. I’m someone worth remembering. I’m not someone to get passed over no matter how much my newsfeed tries to tell me otherwise.
Photo by (flickr CC) Tom Woodward
