It's 8:51 on a Saturday night, and I'm home, freshly returned from yet another wedding. I think I average about 10 weddings a year (over the past 4 years), and I could probably marry someone, verbatim, from Pastor Aucoin's script. (But I'm very happy for the new Mr. & Mrs.! I love seeing new families start...)

I'm already in my p.j. pants, and I'm debating the value of a fruit smoothie over frozen pizza.

My life is very tame, very quiet, very void of excitement, and limited in personal interactions. I am so delighted with everything that God has been teaching me-- the quiet filing He's done on my imperfect character over these past few months. I see a (slightly) more gracious, peaceful, dependent person emerge from His tutelage.

But I'm lonely.

I can see everything God is doing. I turn to Him faster, I delight in His care, and right now I'm grieving over my discontent. How cruel, to say to a God who has lavished abundant love, grace, and joy on my life: "You're not enough." My heart rends at the lack of love I'm showing to my Father, and I pray, over, and over: "Please... I want you to be enough. Satisfy me with you. Be the only delight of my heart."

And yet my flesh fights back, and godly desires constantly war with deceitful selfishness. I know that my desire to be a wife and mother is a good thing. These are roles God designed specifically for women. He wants me to desire them. He created me to desire them.

But I am never to prize these roles more than bringing glory to my Savior. Should my lack of fulfillment in these areas of my life lead me to bitterness, anger, self-pity, and ungratefulness, then I know my desires are no longer God given: they are now mangled atrocities my sinful flesh has twisted and warped.

So, I'm lonely. And constantly battling my desires.

I want to be married. And I want God to be enough.

I don't want to be lonely. And I want to be okay with being alone.

I want to cultivate admiration and skills for the roles of wife and mother. And I want to be satisfied and joyful, should they never come about.

Such a delicate tight-rope!

I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise
spring up before all nations.

(Isaiah 69:10,11)