B'Shert: A clear Sighted Enchantment

"This is one of the miracles of love; it gives --to both, but perhaps especially to the woman-- a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." 

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

As a child, my mum would tell me some of the most fantastic stories about the tooth fairy and other wonderful creatures. She would make these tiny little notes and leave them in a remarkable open hole in a knotted old tree in our yard. The little scrolls were delicately penned and covered in pixie dust. The enchanted elements my mother introduced to the childhood of us kids was a delightful pretend. Although I professed to be an ardent believer in all the magic of Neverland and Narnia, the sweetness was coupled with a knowing in my heart that it was all make-believe. But the joy in pretending was the bond of belief with my little siblings and with the grown-ups who indulged us. 

When we fall in love Lewis suggests there is an ability to see through the enchantments, the beauty, and perfection yet to remain enchanted by them. One of the most enchanting ideas in the realm of love is the idea that there is someone out there called "The One" and if you play your cards right and fate is on your side, you will meet and live happily ever after. 

Let's attempt to see through this enchantment with those glasses a gracious Love can give us.

What can we logically believe when it comes to "finding the one?" Is it a cosmic good we can't revoke like the Calvinist consideration of salvation, or is it a choice-- that you and I could potentially get along just fine with anyone?

More importantly, what is my responsibility in finding or waiting for "The One"?

Some people will meet with one hiccup (or in other words proof that there is a natural enchantment on them and the person they fell in love with might be as flawed as much as his or her self) and dropped the relationship with a line like "I just don't want to be tied down in case someone better comes along." This is both a false notion of people and of their own character being worth to digest what they imagine they deserve, an easy no-conflict happy ending and incredible sex. 

There is no holiness in the heart's affections to these people. No sacredness is considered possible in discovering who another person is. 

They will barge in and leave the door open when they walk out. Yet if they continue they will find out the truth they keep ignoring.

 No one is perfect, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of G-d. Yet even G-d cannot meet their expectations, He will not worship them and to be a deity is what they want. Love and adoration are tied together in their identity, not their fidelity. 

When my sister and I were talking about "The One" just before she and her husband were married, we decided that beyond all the factors and the timing between them, they chose to be the one for one another.

 This is a statement of singularity in heart, the covenant of the wedding vows. They weren't "The One" until that covenant was cut between them. In this case, stomping barefoot on the glass under the chuppah, they became "one flesh" the symbol of the broken wine glass was the reality of their old selves, shattered and something they can never go back to.

I don't know how to explain marriage to a secular reader. Christianity teaches marriage as "Holy Matrimony" or as a sacrament, Judaism holds it as a binding covenant ordained by G-d. Both parties are joined together with the object of holiness. 

Going to Bible College I have witnessed lots of weddings and romances. Some which have been obviously blessed by G-d and others full of heartache, stubbornness, and impatience. Not all of the second kind are doomed, in reality, a sort of death has to enter our human loves so that they can be in their place, below our love for G-d.

We don't fall in love to tell a love story, we fell in love to live one.

Countless times advice has been given to us young girls to wait. "It was when I stopped looking that he found me," or "when I gave up my desire for marriage G-d gave me the man of my dreams," all talking about a negative action.

How can I agree to this notion that is often presented as a "giving up" when I am also called to be full of faith and hope for good things? I am encouraged to enjoy being single and "finding" myself before getting married. We call this singleness and are starting in Christianity to reaffirm that it is a gift, something the Protestant tradition has historically less of an appeal for.

What we really mean to say when we say "a season of singleness" is a loose Celibacy, refraining from sexual immorality, yet being open to meeting the person we can make a covenant with (which is expressed sexually). Singleness makes us sound like we are no ones but our own, yet for the single Christian you have been bought and you are not your own.


As a "pilgrim" how do I walk the long road Home when I am weary of walking it alone?
How do I keep myself from seeing a walking companion as a wee little home himself?

Even more pressing, how to maintain hope that someone will ever keep in step, instead of my growing stressed response toward hermitage?


Some days I really consider being a hermit, to lock myself up like Emily Dickinson and write in solitude. Unloving and unlovable because you can't really love people by imagining you have done so, and you don't love them if they can't hurt you, love risks vulnerability.

But there might be something good in hiding away, to an extent. Last year I met someone who was talking about it, I didn't really take it as a serious notion, but then I broke my heart-- and at last, I understood.
 It hurts like Dante says:

 "Nessun Miggior Delore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice, Nella miseria."
The crown of sorrow is the memory of happier times.

It makes sense that Ophelia goes mad when Hamlet entirely changes from wooing her to insulting and avoiding her. When we fall in love our identity and reality concerning the most original and noble of things is tested: Love. Not just Eros, but the kind that G-d calls Himself. The real kind, the foundations of our image kind, the great commandment fulfilling kind.

Marriage can be done for weaker reasons, it can be legally undone for less. But having fallen in love with the charming prince that my first love was, I found I'd rather marry because of something better than an escape from normality and loneliness.

 I think marriage has a remarkable ability to edify not only the two married persons but their friends and families as well.

 Reject the notion of two lovers against the world.

Instead, here enter a man and woman who intend to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with their G-d. That is not what my first experience with love was like, nevertheless, I see it happening every day in the lives of people I know. Suddenly finding love is not so cosmic or impossible, it is natural and very common for people who have learned how to love.

To be brutally honest, I cannot say what I would have decided if the "prince" had chosen to stay with me. He didn't, so a retreat from rejection to an ivory tower was very tempting. Thankfully my soul bent toward surrender and to continue walking the road again. This unwanted freedom is something G-d has used more deeply than any other experience. I found areas in my character I was very pleased with, and some I am dissatisfied in.


I believe we are all called to be awake, vigilant, and active in our faith. I am not waiting to get married to start my walk with the L-RD. He and I have been traveling for twenty years now. I am always ready to fight, to be brave, and to defend someone else because I know He defends me.

The problem is we have been trained vaguely on what a woman abandoned to the will of G-d looks like. We are swifter to teach how she should be abandoned to the will of her husband.

For women in the church community, we have been told to wait. We have not been told what that waiting should look like. We treat it as if anything we are doing with our lives before we fall in love ought to be held loosely with the intention to be dropped the moment "Mr. Right" comes along. 

Although this atmosphere has been unintentionally created by people who love us, the prescribed formula is not always how love turns out. Sometimes women are called upon to chose between a husband and service that such a husband cannot appreciate. Of course, women are not alone in making that choice, men have to make it too. In surrendering in faithfulness to the L-rd we have a similar heart-ache to shoulder.

If our identity is grounded in relationship, we must watch for which relationship we rank highest. 
If this identity is in Christ, based on the relationship we have with Him, all the other relationships will find their place of order. Eros is a bully love, if we let it rule our hearts we will go made or be crushed under the weight of its tyranny. However the Love of G-d is perfect, it casts out fear and laughs at the future, is loyal of its own nature independent of the loyalty of the beloved. This Love transcends and transforms. If you think it will swallow up the other loves you are nearly right, only once swallowed it resurrects them. All loves should be baptized in this Love. 

The craving for identity and home has driven many couples into or out of relationships because it is not what relationship was intended to fulfill. Humans can only give to other humans human things, the craving is not a human one. That craving is in the core of our identity, past the culture and the personality and in the very origin of personhood, creatures fashioned after the very image of G-d.

When I think of what G-d may call me to as a wife part of me wonders if I will be like Elisabeth Elliot, and even if my husband is slain for the gospel living in it to the determination of loving those same hands that slew him.

Or I may never marry, being like countless women who chose G-d above all else. Elinor Chestnut, cutting up her dress to bandage wounds of those who are determined to silence and slaughter her.

 The hardest lately has been for me to imagine living long years, contented, raising children, never hungry, with a warm home that is often full of friends and neighbors. This is in part because of the loss of Paradise and because I moved five times last year. Something stable sounds like a dream given to other people, the kind of kids who grew up on the same street in the same home their whole lives. 

How can I believe someone will want to make a home somewhere with me? It is a new kind of territory to picture, yet that is just the sort of territory G-d excels in. Maybe when those older women say it was when they "gave up" what they meant was more profound. Setting aside the worship of their dream to entrust it and themselves to G-d's powerful hands and surrender the events of their lives to Him. Not in a begrudging way, but with a strong delight and confidence that He really can do all things and then we can trust Him with the circumstances He has given now.


When G-d brought the children of Israel out of Egypt he gave them an abundance of gold, this same gold was later melted into a golden calf worshipped while Israel was impatiently waiting to hear from G-d. That gold came mostly from the nose and earrings of the women and children. When the L-rd saw the calf He was furious and Moses made intercession for the people. Moses then ground the golden calf into a fine powder and had the people drink it. Now that was the weak gold from the spoils of Egypt, the very same medium was required in the creation of the Ark of the Covenant and other items for the tabernacle. When the gold was put in its place as a gift given to Israel so they could use it for the glory of G-d they pleased the L-rd with it and was the means of sanctification and substitution. 

Something similar is possible in our romance. 

"Blessed is she who has believed all that the Lord has promised her."

Maybe you have met the right one, maybe you have seen the "anointing," but that doesn't mean the waiting is over. The hardest waiting may have just begun. If you are to marry or to remain single, who you are will be defined by your relationships, and every moment has value because waiting is doing. A verb of restraint, a position of courage even when everyone is pressing you to be settled.

Waiting sits in the tension of what is promised and what is here. The best way to wait is with belief in your very marrow that the deepest longing of your heart will be satisfied. You are not waiting on a spouse, you are waiting on the L-rd.

There is a season for everything, my friends. Those seasons are unique to everyone. I have friends who married within six months of meeting and friends who have been dating for two years. But there is a rightness present in both relationships. Neither are perfect, nothing in this world is, everything is a little messy and unclear. The messy things are important to remind us that we are dependent on Someone who sees all things. 

The waiting doesn't just end when you meet your spouse, this whole life is your waiting on the doorstep to heaven. With creation, we groan for the glory of God to be manifest here, in us. Sin and death to be a memory, brokenness to be impossible. Home to finally have a face.