Strangers In the Night

When something goes bump in the night and you know it could only be one thing…

I remember that night quite vividly, even though it was a few months ago now.  I was chin-deep in a film assignment and had been up until almost midnight pausing and fast-forwarding through various scenes of the movie ‘Strictly Ballroom’.  It was a Saturday night, but with nothing social to show for its self, it resembled a week night. 

 

3.50pm

Upon reflection, the day had not been remarkable either.   I’d gone for my usual 8km run on my usual running route, a practice that was not unusual for me on any given Saturday.  It was my reprieve and sanity during times of being weighed down by a flood of assignments.  This assignment was the first in a quick flurry of essays at only a few weeks into the semester.  Oddly, I do remember one distinct thought during that particular run, and that was that nothing much had happened in my life for a while.  I’m not sure what constitutes “happened”, or even “happening”, it was more just that nothing out of the ordinary had appeared recently.  It’s the unexpected things in life that had not appeared for some time now, like a prang to my car, or receiving a reply to an email I’d long since forgotten about.  These aren’t monumental or catastrophic events, they’re simply out of the blue.  Incidentally, I also remember thinking during said run it’s usually after having an intuitive insight like this that something does happen. I gave it no further thought; nothing was going to happen.

 

11.50pm

Deciding I needed to call it quits on the assignment for the time being, I switched off the lounge television and dvd player, placed my laptop on my desk in my bedroom and promptly got ready for bed.  It was almost midnight, and I knew the only way I could improve the assignment now was if I met it with fresh eyes in the morning.  I brushed my teeth, I put on my night crème (doesn’t hurt to start young), I climbed into my pyjamas.  I’d been home alone throughout the evening until Anna, one of my three flatmates, arrived home.  We passed in the hall uttering our goodnights.   It was definitely shut up shop time both of us and her bedroom door must have closed not long after mine.  Notably, the two other flat mates didn’t return home that night.

 

I was in the habit of saying my prayers at night around this time.  Not that I’m not still a night prayer, but I think I go through patterns with my prayer life.  Right now it’s very much in the moment and as it comes to mind, but a few months back, on that night, prayer time tended to be mostly structured, much like the rest of my life – lectures, assignments, church, gym, meal times – everything was to a schedule.   Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t also slip in a quiet one during any other hour of the day.

I should mention here something about my prayers.  I don’t confess this before many people as it seems to confuse and leave people stammering for how to respond to such a suggestion, so it’s just easier not to go there generally.  I was, however, for a rather long time, convinced that many of my prayers manifested in reverse.  For example, I prayed about a problem at my old job and instead of improving it got worse.  Time and again I would pray for my on-going physical pain to relent and be eradicated once and for all, yet years tumbled by with no sign of improvement.  If I was emotionally bruised, the praying, it seemed, set the pain further into existence, instead of slowly shedding away the layers.  As I’m typing this now though, many months down the track, I can see that my prayers were answered.  And not for the polar opposite of what I wanted either (nor for the opposite of what was best for me).  In terms of the job, I left almost a year ago after being accepted into university.  This move was one of the best I’ve ever made and I’ve never looked back.  The pain issue (detailed in my blog Does Taking Medication Really Make Me a Substandard Christian?) has improved remarkably, and though it’s not gone completely it is actually under control for the first time in over 20 years.  The emotional turbulence has also improved, but again this is a whole other blog in itself.

I shed this background only because it was relevant to the way things panned out on that night.  So, back to my detailing of events…

 

11.55pm

I was in bed now, silently praying in the stillness of the night.  Having spent much of the day on my own (to necessitate the coming together of my assignment), I was notifying God of how it would be nice to have someone to talk to at the end of the day – someone physically present who I could talk to about anything and everything.  The tiredness took a hold of my exhausted thinking faculties fairly quickly, and pieces of prayer then began floating around in my mind as though they were helium billboards with random topics on them.  The posted words would then kind of pass by the ever watchful eye of the great I Am.  I was definitely almost asleep.  Of all things, I distinctly remember this prayer portion in motion (as random as it was): “it would be good to have a man in my life, even from a safety point of view…”.  Funny, God must have thought I was bringing forth every which reason for why He should relent and bring forth a man in my life.  The fact was though my safety had never been an issue.  I’ve walked from function venues to dimly lit car parks in the middle of nowhere more times than I care to let on; I was completely un-phased by the idea that my safety could be jeopardised.  Reflecting back on it now however, it was out of character for me to bring up such a topic when talking with God, even if I was half asleep; I’d never contemplated mentioning it before. 

 

12.00am

The praying must have been over pretty quickly because before I knew it I was being awoken by a knock on my door.  Strange, no one ever knocks on my door after I’ve gone to bed…

Having been prised quickly and unexpectedly out of my sleeping state, I grumbled a word or two in recognition of the knock.
 “Can you please get up?” a weak and slightly urgent voice came from the other side of the door. 

My honest thought at such a request was probably along the lines of “I’d rather not”.  In the space of a few seconds, my mind rewound to the mouse trap that had been positioned in the hallway not far from my bedroom door earlier in the day.  There had been a rodent in residence at our flat, and it had become apparent after a couple of weeks that Mickey wasn’t going to leave on his own accord.  The only plausible reason that I could think of for why my presence was required in the dead of the night was because Mickey had met his fate.  His disposal wasn’t really this flat mate’s cup of tea, I figured.  His disposal isn’t really my cup of tea either, I thought to myself, why couldn’t we have just sent the mouse an eviction notice?

 

I switched on my bed side light and, climbing out of my warm nest of blankets, opened the door.  My flatmate Anna stood frozen on the spot in front of me.

“Someone has come in through Jenny’s window and is hiding in her room…”  her voice carried in the surrounding stillness. 
You know how it is generally accepted that people look on at other people’s misfortunes and fathom internally notions to the effect of ‘Yeah, but it will never happen to me’?  I was having one of those moments in the time frame of a split second.  Thus, I waited half a second for her to quip “Got ya!  Only teasing!”  and once that half a second was up, I knew it was time to execute a response.  Plan get the hell out of this house needed immediate initiation. 

 

I grabbed Anna by the hand and walked us quickly passed the occupied room, though I dared not look in for fear of witnessing anything that might leave me paralysed on the spot.   I lead us out our front door and into the foyer.  It will be alright, I reasoned with myself, the landlord lives upstairs so we’ll alert him and it will all be fine.  Hurrying up the stairs with Anna right behind me, I knocked on the door in the dead of the night and waited.  No answer.  I knocked louder and called out.  Nothing.  I heard a noise inside our part of the house, like someone was now inside, and looked at Anna whose eyes said she’d heard it too.

“Call the police” I instructed Anna.  She was poised next to me with her cell phone still stuck in her hand from when she’d been browsing the inter-webs from the comfort of her own bed.  A shaky hand began pressing buttons, and I persisted in my bid to wake the landlord. 

 

 

12.05am

I kept a close eye on the foyer below us as we stood quivering at the top of the stairs.  What if they come through the door we just exited from; what do I do then? I pondered.  In my imaginary vision of what these intruders might look like when viewed from our angle, I saw not one, but two men.  I have no idea why. 

 

I would like to say that next, in true Chriz-o form, I began reverently praying, but truth be told I can’t remember praying at all.  My only thoughts were that if these intruders appeared, it would be pretty obvious what our situation was: two young females at the top of the staircase panic-stricken yet unable to enter through the door of accompanying living quarters.  Thus, they cannot reach what safety resides on the other side.  Or, should it become a briefed newspaper heading: victims unable to raise the alert of intruders, come hell or high water. 

So, I resolved in my internal dialogue, the police really were our only bet.  But what if the intruders can hear out desperate calls for help from inside the flat?  the issue continued to persist in my mental meshing.  What if they emerge and, changing tactics, come after us?  I didn’t give a damn about our possessions I must say, although for one fleeting moment my thoughts did return to my laptop, assignment residing within, clearly visible from my bedroom door that I’d left open.  It was an opportune setting for any burglars meandering through. 

 

12.20am

It was over ten minutes before the knock arrived at our door marking the arrival of those reliable rescuers we know as cops.  During that time the call taker on the other end of Anna’s phone had remained on line, bringing forth the only presence of calm and collectedness in the entire ordeal.  I opened the door, conscious of my attire for one brief moment yet bent on ending this tribulation as quickly as possible.  The house was inspected with a torch by two officers, and a third paced around our front yard, sniffer dog in tow.  Declaring the house free from any intruders, lights were promptly flicked on and I only wished my sense of inner peace could also be reinstated in such a speedy manner.  A smidgen of reluctance towards the idea of feeling safe seemed reasonable to me, after all, I knew the police would soon be gone and Anna and I would be left to endure the rest of the night on our own.  With the portion of relief I did bathe in though, I took comfort in the fact that, right now, we weren’t going to be confronted by any untoward men. 

1am-8am

As predicted, sleep was elusive for both Anna and I for the rest of that night.  We slept with our bedroom doors open so we could talk to each other from our rooms.  A sprinkling of lights was left turned on throughout the flat, should any new intruders approach this property, we wanted to make certain they knew that residents were home.  The landlord was still none the wiser of any of the goings on we’d just bore in our quarters of the house. 

 

The following day a closer look was taken at our flat’s exterior, and the midnight stranger’s intents became apparent.  Jenny’s bedroom window had not been left open a crack as we initially thought, a set up that would have facilitated sinister persons in pursuit of gaining access.  Jenny’s window, she informed us upon returning the following day, had in fact been closed.  The burglars had prised it open with a crowbar, and had then reached in and drawn back the curtain, which was the noise Anna had heard from her room next door.  Jenny’s curtains, however, had not been closed that night.  Needless to say, it is now mandatory flat practice to close all curtains in the flat upon nightfall. 

 

Additionally, a window in the lounge at the opposite end of the house had also been dealt to by a crook wheeling a crowbar.  It appeared that insufficient time had seen this window only damaged in the frame and not actually prised open.  The ranch slider too had scrapes depicting further attempts at entry.  With this much tampering it seemed most likely that there was more than one stranger set on entering our dwelling spot.

 

In my opinion, there could have been only two things that deterred the encroachers in their pursuit of entering: Anna turning on the hall light as she headed towards my room to alert me to the matter, and our rachis at the top of the staircase that no doubt echoed throughout the surrounding areas.   It struck me as a pungent realisation then that, had Anna arrived home ten minutes later, I would have been there alone and out to the world.  If I had awoken to noise I would have assumed it was one of the girls coming home, as had been the case historically when I’d been disturbed during sleep.  However, if the crooks had entered my room, I would have been beside myself.

 

Like a little prayer…

In relation to my earlier conviction that my prayers produce the exact opposite to what I pray for, something came to mind as I was contemplating this blog yesterday.  I recollected an ornament that a friend of mine has in her home.  I can best describe it as a small piece of rectangle wood with a maze-like pattern carved out of it.  Up close it doesn’t isn’t look like much, in fact, it appears a bit nonsensical really.  However, when you take a few steps back and view it from a greater distance, it becomes obvious what it is…

 

 

It would be easy to consider my prayer that night and then examine it against the events that unravelled and think this is merely another example of a prayer failing me.  In truth, the following day my thoughts were somewhere around those lines, after all, who wouldn’t want a man around at a time like that?  But really, on closer inspection, I’m trying to put God’s intervention into a limited box.  My small thinking means that a knight in shining armour would have had to appear for me to believe that God truly heard my prayer and intervened accordingly.   I digress though, as this is real life, and not a product of Disney land.  Furthermore, you’ve got to wonder why a guy would be on my premise so late at night, unless he was my spouse, but that was never going to come to pass in the space of five minutes.

 

No, God remained true to His mandate of the standards we should live by. He sent me a flatmate to intercept my being alone that night, and provide alert ears that would raise the alarm.  Again, thinking about it further now, the fact that Anna arrived home only some minutes before the break in was attempted means I should see clearly how God aligned His intervention.  Anna’s arrival back was so close to the actual event that I should never have missed seeing it for what it really was: God sending in another to aid my safety just at the moment it was needed most.  Additionally, I think going through something like this with another person forges a new found trust and an unspoken bond as a result. 

 

Like many things in life, there is a lesson to be learnt here.  God can sway our thoughts when we’re praying in such a way that our prayers are aligned to what we need the most, even if we don’t know it at the time, and even if we are dog-gone tired.  Thus, the God who gave us life can protect us in our times of trial and needless to say He is to be praised for this.  Oh, and one more lesson:  always shut your curtains at night  J


-Wendie

Does Taking Medication Really Make Me a Substandard Christian?

 

To pop a pill or to not pop a pill, that is the question…

Having battled with physical pain for much of my life, I’m no stranger to taking medication.  Taking prescribed drugs each day is as much part of my routine as having breakfast and brushing my teeth.  I’ve happened to notice in recent years, however, that there are a couple of schools of thought within Christian circles regarding said taking of pills.  For example, on the few occasions I have mentioned to other believers that I take medication to assist myself in getting to sleep, the response – “REALLY?  You take sleeping pills?” – boasts of their dismay that I could even contemplate doing such a thing.  Perhaps the taboo in this instance lies not intrinsically in the taking of pills in itself, but because sleep disturbance can often be lumped together with mental illness.  As it happens, a fair few followers of Christ have a tendency to shun anti-depressants and the like without even a second thought about what might be best for the individual.  It is this sort of reaction to drugs that births in me a desire to avoid mentioning what I swallow back in the privacy of my own home; it’s almost as if my practice of pill swallowing is on par with dabbling in the occult in the eyes of some…

Nonetheless, there does exist a group of Christians who would think very carefully before heading to the medicine cabinet.  Ultimately, it is a decision each of us has to make for ourselves.  I am not debating this topic though simply for the sake of it, rather, a few conversations have stirred in me a desire to respond with my own view point.  In one such conversation, I distinctly remember walking from the church car park one Sunday evening up to the auditorium with a fellow worshipper pacing alongside of me.  She confided in me that she had a headache, but that she didn’t like the idea of taking pills to relieve the discomfort.  The Lord, she told me, is her healer, with the underlying insinuation being that a visit to the drug store was not a sound dual action.  Thus, she was praying and pushing through the pain; that was her choice.

Of course, perhaps the reluctance to help one’s self by taking drugs is tied up with the idea that God can deliver us from all ailments.  I get the impression that to take the wheel into one’s own hands and take something by way of medication seems to be associated with shifting away from God’s healing hand and relying instead on things of this world.  More and more I’ve found myself withholding from those in Christian circles just what I’ve suffered from and jointly how I manage it, mostly for fear of being judged.  And so I have, in a backwards glance, begun wonder:  does taking medication really make me a substandard Christian?

A little background…

I’ve thought about writing a blog on my own battle with physical conditions on and off for some time now.   I think the real reason behind putting it off is that I do consider myself very much to be a private person, this also attributes partly to my unwillingness to share my ailments with other believers.  I haven’t shared my health issues with more than a small portion of my friends, and whilst nothing about my body is particularly out of the ordinary I still feel it is not the sort of thing that needs to be publicised.  This proclamation may seem ironic given that I am now blogging about it, but if I am to write this blog and actually have it make any sense in terms of my own conviction then I should probably discuss a few things in relation to me personally.  You will soon learn why the topic of Christians taking medication concerns me…

When I was nine years old I was operated on for appendicitis.  I’d been having abdominal pain for some months and, following a scan, it was eventually discovered that my appendix was in need of removal.  I looked forward to being free from the pain that had become a part of everyday life for what seemed like a long time in my child eyes.  I was soon to be disappointed, however.  The pain persisted long after my appendix was removed; in fact, it worsened as the years went on. 

In addition to this on-going issue, I was also a sufferer of unbearable cramps every month.  Like many faced with this predicament, I couldn’t feign fine when the pain came gushing through my abdomen.  To manage, I’d knock back whatever medication I had going at the time and wait over an hour (and often up to two hours) for any sign of relief to begin to take hold of my innards.  The pills would barely start working before they began fading out again and the pain would recommence escalating all over again.  It would start from a murmur of discomfort to full-blown, thrashing-around-on-the-bed agony in the span of twenty minutes.  This was what I dealt with from the age of 12 and a half.

To paint this picture accurately, in conjunction to the pain pills, it is necessary to mention that I would always cry out for God to deliver me from the intolerable pain (whether it was of the female variety or from the aftermath of having appendicitis).   Moreover, with only one exception, God did not reach down and free me from my struggle. 

Regardless of this absence of intervention, though, I need to make a vital point here:  whenever the pills did kick in, no matter how far down the track it took for my pain to ease, I would always, ALWAYS thank God that I had access to this medication.  I truly believed I was blessed to be living in a nation with accessible pain relievers and other medical provisions.  I also believed I was blessed to be living in this era:  had I been alive 100 years ago (or even 50 years ago), such drugs would not have been available to me (and, if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty of it, 100 years ago I would have died as a 9 year old from appendicitis).  I would not then and cannot now be convinced that God doesn’t have a part in modern-day medicine.  It was an answer to my prayer to be freed from pain, even if it wasn’t by the hand of God in the space of five seconds.

“I could not then and cannot now be convinced that God doesn’t

have a part in modern-day medicine”

In 2001 at the age of twenty I underwent laparoscopic surgery and was finally diagnosed with endometriosis.  It was rather extensive by that stage, and a doctor who had witnessed the operation commented to me afterwards that I “must have been in a lot of pain”.  It wasn’t until I had my second laparoscopy at the age of 22 that relief finally visited me, nevertheless.  Following my diagnosis, I was also prescribed much more powerful drugs to combat any future pain, medication that might have proven invaluable had I had the luxury of taking it during my teen years (if you’re a sufferer of endo you will know the story – it is very difficult to get anyone to take you seriously when you describe the severity of the pain).  I wonder how many hours sleep I lost during my high school years simply because the pills were inadequate for combating what was a much bigger problem than anyone ever realised.  I had surgery again at age 27, and following this I started taking the pill in an effort to keep me on a good run of freedom from pain for as long as possible.  I’ve met people over the years that are hard set against the pill, they cite that it can cause fertility issues later on.  As I see it though, if I were to marry and God wanted to bless me with children, no prior use of synthetic hormones could stand in the way.  Certainly it is not in God’s character to take us through something only to then abandon us on the other side.

 

What seems unfathomable to me is that some would consider it out of the question to take medication that those sufferers of the past could have so greatly benefited from.  Perhaps we should consider that the prayers of sufferers from generations previous are in part responsible for the bringing about of more advanced medicine today.

 

Finally, in relation to my other abdominal issue post-appendectomy, I spent many years and accumulatively thousands of dollars seeing GPs, specialists, natural-paths and anyone else who might possibly be able to help me.  I must have had ever test under the sun done at some point.  In 2010 I paid a visit to the Food and Allergy show at the Greenlane show grounds; there, dietician Anna Richards gave a presentation on food intolerances.  I decided to make an appointment to go and see her, not because I believed in my heart of hearts that she could help me, but because ticking another box was an art I’d brought to perfection.  Much to my dismay though, Anna introduced me to the FODMAP diet; this diet was the first thing to ever make a significant and long term difference to my daily abdominal pain.   

 

To summarise further events intertwined with this particular pain, two years ago I was given medication to help me sleep as, for reasons unbeknown to me to this day, I’d gone from being a notoriously good sleeper (bar the instances of pain), to being someone who couldn’t rake in more than two hours sleep a night to save herself.  The medication prescribed to me is not intended for insomnia per se, but is often used for its drowsy effects to treat long term sleep deprivation.  This drug, in conjunction with eliminating restless nights of lying awake, has also alleviated 95% of my abdominal pain and as such I’m no longer in need of being quite so rigid with the FODMAP approved foods.

 

I was considering inserting a phrase like ‘due to share luck’ or ‘by chance’ in relation to the pain reduction from the sleeping medication, but I feel this is an unfair accreditation on closer deliberation.  While I can’t say exactly why I believe this, I am certain that this prescription drug was God’s way of helping me deal with my on-going war against pain.  If God had said to me “Will you accept a few months of sleepless nights in exchange for the long-awaited relief of your daily abdominal pain?” I would have readily said yes.  I guess God didn’t need to ask me that question; He already knew my answer. 

 

“If God had asked me “Will you accept a few months of sleepless nights in exchange for the long-awaited relief of your daily abdominal pain?” I would have readily said yes.  I guess God didn’t need to ask me that question; He already knew my answer”

 

During the years prior to any sign of relief, it is fair to say that I’d wondered on many occasions why God seemed reluctant (in my opinion) to divinely intervene.  I don’t think we can really examine God’s reasoning in this regard without referring to the well-known book of Job.  In Dr Larry Richards’ works Every Good and Evil Angel in the Bible, Richards’ points out that what is significant about God allowing Satan to torment Job is that God had an entirely unique “purpose in mind” for this allowance (Richards, 118).  The chapter ends with the conclusion that whilst God was “ultimately responsible for Job’s suffering”, from the very onset of it, God “intended Job’s pain to result in good”, and this good is realised when we see how Job drew nearer to God (118). 
 

I don’t pretend that my situation was vaguely similar to that of Job’s, I haven’t lost loved ones in the wake of my testing, but I do feel that this experience has drawn me nearer to our creator.  For one thing, if the pain was restricted to one year, rather than many years, it is entirely conceivable that my prayer life would have been altered to reflect this.  Without the pain, I would not have been nearly as eager to have God hear my cries.  Also, if it wasn’t for my own experience, I would not have had the empathy that I have today for others suffering through illnesses, nor would I be so dedicated to praying for their healing.  In this sense, my story is not entirely dissimilar to Job’s; good has also come about by my prolonged suffering.
 

As a further branch on the subject of suffering, there was one significant episode where God did reach down and intervene.  I was 18 at the time, and I awoke one night to intense pain in my abdomen.  This in itself was not a new experience; although in the space of a few minutes I quickly came to realise it was heading in a formerly un-ventured direction.  As I climbed out of bed with the intent of finding something to take, the pain climbed rapidly and in the space of a few seconds and I was in more pain than I’d ever been in my whole life.  Novel symptoms occurred as I stood there: sweat began seeping out of me like never before and the room would not stand still.  Now feeling scared, I wanted to call out for help, but I had no strength in me to carry my voice any further than the four walls of my room.  I wailed “God help me” and in my frightened state I totally believed I was going to die. 

 

What happened next was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life.  I woke up on the floor and even though I’d not yet taken any medication, I was completely free from pain.  It was a miracle in the most literal sense.  I can still recall my profound relief upon realising that not only had I not died, the pain had gone.

 

Again, this is not something I commonly share with others, I can probably count the number of people I’ve mentioned it to on one hand.  Even as I contemplate it now, I’m not entirely sure why I’ve rendered it inappropriate to retrieve this incident when citing the work of God’s healing hand.  Perhaps it is because the battle didn’t end there, although I feel ever grateful now as I did back then for God’s decision to swoop-in and save me on that particular occasion.  In my mind, however, this episode might be affronted by others when I am forced to acknowledge that the typical daily pain still revisited me in much the same fashion for a long time after this (basically until I was introduced to the FODMAP diet, and later on the sleeping pills).  What then can I say about this on-going suffering and my reliance on God…

 

 “We do not want you to be uninformed, bothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
 

Perhaps that night was God’s way of showing me that He is more than capable of helping me in my time of greatest need.  Although my intent had been to swallow back something for the pain, God chose that event to reveal that He does hear my cries and that I cannot be entirely self-sufficient.   To go back to the point I am making, my taking of pills doesn’t mean I am not reliant on God.  God didn’t hear me thinking “I’d better get up and take something for this pain” on that fateful night and in turn decide “Oh look, she doesn’t need me after all – the pills will suffice”.  If the instance described here proves anything, it is that pressing into God does pay off, and that God doesn’t withhold deliverance because we’ve tried to help ourselves.  Rather, it seems to me that God can work in conjunction with modern day medicine.

 

Is it over for me in terms of healing?

No, it isn’t.  As a wise Christian friend once pointed out, when the bible describes Jesus administering healing to people, He doesn’t lay hands on them and leave them markedly better off than they were before, yet still marginally sick.  I think what I am getting at here though is that, in my experience, God is a God of more than just that one moment of complete deliverance; He is also the God of helping you every day in the lead up to that release.

 

“I think what I am getting at here though is that, in my experience, God is a God of more than just that one moment of complete deliverance; He is also the God of helping you every day in the lead up to that release”

 

Perhaps it is my long standing relationship with medication that has made me want to defend its cause in the face of Christian critics.  I still believe God can deliver us from intolerances and sensitivities as through His stripes we are healed.  I’ve been to many healing meetings in my time, and have had church prayer ministers lay hands on me as well.  For as long as I am with these ailments, I will continue to pray for my deliverance from them in additional to receiving prayer from others whenever it is offered.  However, I think to assume that this is God’s only means of intervention is to limit how God works.  After all, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and why can’t that be via medication?  To reiterate once again, I don’t think it was share luck that saw me land on sleeping pills that near-eliminated a much more loathsome battle within my flesh.
 

To be perfectly blunt about the topic at hand, if I were to eradicate medication of any description from my life, it would be like handing myself over to a prison sentence for a crime that I didn’t commit (or perhaps one that I’d long since repented of).  To this affect, I don’t believe God wishes for His children to live their lives as though they were doing time and suffer unnecessarily.  Medication, when administered correctly and for the right reasons, is a blessing and should not be treated as though it is an abomination, or a substitute, to the Lord.

 
 

Wendie

 

 

References:

Richards, Larry. Every Good and Evil Angel in the Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998. Print.

The Man Drought: It's Not a New Dilemma

 
I wish to forewarn you before you commence reading this blog: it is not an easy pill to swallow.  In fact, it is a damn awful pill to say the least and I imagine that not a lot else can compare to it for those singletons whose futures are inter-tangled with these facts.  Yet that is what they are: facts.  Not airy, fairy, pie-in-the-sky speculation, but inalienable truths for our time.  This blog is relevant to New Zealand women, although certainly women from Christian churches in the Western world will be able to relate to some of this text.  Despite any sense of hopelessness that arises here, as this blog will demonstrate, there is a kind of relief for us sufferers of the man drought, so, if you are willing, please read on.

 

It first came to my attention about six years ago that something was amiss between the sexes in New Zealand and Auckland in particular.  For one thing, it was hard to ignore what was right in front of my eyes in the church auditorium every Sunday:  lots and lots of young women, and a sparse scattering of men.   Then something much worse happened, my speculation was realised not only by someone with access to actual statistical numbers, but this information was then passed on for the general knowledge-consumption of the New Zealand population.  A brutal heading boasting “Man Drought” proceeded consensus numbers detailing the number of men verses the number of women in the 25-49 year age group.  In a country holding of a modest populace of 4 million, there are 50 thousand more women than men in this age bracket.  Opportunities for single women weren’t looking good to say the least, and I believe something inside of me died that day (specifically, a large serving of hope).

 

The Man Drought in New Zealand per se is not exactly what affects me, although certainly I feel for all single women in this country who long to be partnered up yet have thus far only been disappointed.  What mattered to me the most was the grave shortage of men in the church, after all, this is where pretty much all women I am close to spend their time socialising, and if it wasn’t within the church walls, then more often than not it was with other Christians. 

Having grown up in the church, having been prayed for by church goers, having been prophesized over by church leaders, having been the child of a married couple (my parents), marriage and parenthood was just what I was expecting upon reaching adulthood.  During my youth, I spent much of my time molly-coddling dolls, whilst dreaming of having real babies of my own one day.  I couldn’t wait to grow up, meet that man who would be out there waiting for me, and get married and start a family.  This, more than anything else available post-childhood, was what I wanted.

 
 

As children, we just assume things will blossom as they should in due course

 

 

It never occurred to me during those tender years that things could turn out any other way.  During high school, I was semi-frequently scathed by the words or actions of some unrequited crush in the school grounds.  My mother told me that Christian boys wouldn’t treat me this way: they wouldn’t lead me on, hurt me and then stride off leaving me in a pained state in their wake.  In my final year at high school I learnt, however, that this statement was not accurate either.  I’m sure many a Christian woman in the church pews can relate to this passage from Job:

 

                They are distressed, because they had been confident

They arrive there, only to be disappointed

Job 6:20

 

 

 

Hope, and then hope dashed

Up until not so long ago, I was on a desperate scavenge to find evidence that the imbalance of men and women in New Zealand would soon be resolved.  Probably more often than I care to admit, I would run Google searches looking for new statistical information to confirm that, in the words of Bob Dylan, “times they are a changing’”, this time in favour of women.  What I found instead was evidence that our female Australian counterparts had it almost as bad as we Kiwi women do, and that certain states in America, particularly New York, also had the same, albeit raw, deal.  In short, performing searches via the likes of Google never did me an ounce of good.  I am resolved not to carry out this pathetic charade anymore in future, and would urge any other woman doing it to also give it the boot. 
 

In addition to internet searching, I was also on the lookout for events that could improve the man drought predicament.  After returning from a trip to the States in 2008, I was greeted back to this little country by news of a worldwide recession.  Even people in England couldn’t find work.  I did not perceive this news as all doom and gloom, if Kiwis living in England couldn’t find work or were made redundant, then that simply meant, in my estimation, that they would have to return here to the land of the Long White Cloud (note: kiwis are notorious for heading to England for their overseas experience, and since there was not a surplus of females during my schooling years I believe that many a kiwi man headed to Her Majesty’s province, or similar).  With the recession in mind, I told myself that perhaps an influx of men was right around the corner - it wasn’t. 

 

Then, in 2011, Auckland hosted the Rugby World Cup, an event that hailed attention on a huge, international scale and that bought in thousands and thousands of tourists set to share in the atmosphere and see some of the games live.   Surely rugby, being a rather masculine sport, could assist in alleviating the imbalance of men and women.  To conclude, perhaps it did for a short while, but so far as I can tell not too many women met the men of their dreams during those several weeks of testosterone-drenched play offs, thus the disparity remains. 

 
 

Ecclesiastes

In the first chapter of Ecclesiastes we read something that, in my opinion, is exceedingly relevant to the present time:

 

What has been will be again,

What has been done will be done again;

There is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

 

 

 

After reading Ecclesiastes, Natasha decided it was time for a new prayer:

Dear God, could you please remove the sun and create something novel? 

I am willing to forgo future sunbathing sessions if you grant me this. 

 

Why, you may ask, do I think this is relevant to us in the present generation?  I’ve spent years praying about the shortage of men, and pressing in to God for guidance or an explanation (like I’m owed one), as I’m sure many a Christian woman have.  I’ve not felt His peace when dwelling on the notion that men will (frankly, miraculously) appear and the drought will be over.  This doesn’t serve as a guarantee that I will never marry.  It also doesn’t mean that none of my twenty or so single, Christian female friends will never marry either (all of my female friends are single).  It does, I think, mean that the problem at large will remain.  Not long after this passage came to mind (I feel God brought it into my awareness, by the way), it occurred to me that, if nothing is new, then somewhere there must be resources describing past shortages of men.  If such information does exist, then there must also be details on what was the outcome for the women affected by this disparity.  I found this information; I’ll lend you the gist of it…

 
 

Social Trauma Post World War One

An article titled “Condemned to be Virgins: The TwoMillion Women Robbed by the War” by Amanda Cable details the gender imbalance in Britain post the First World War.  Based on a book describing the subject, this text reads not unlike many of the conversations I’ve had with single women in the church.  “They dreamt of love, marriage and children”, the article begins, but such hopes were to be dashed. 
 

I’d like to point out a vital difference between this passage and the teachings Christian women tend to receive.  Never have I heard a speaker blatantly preach from the pulpit declaring Christian women won’t all end up married.  Never have I heard them directly address the glaringly obvious shortage of men in the church pews (surely, from their risen platform, it is somewhat obvious).  Smaller groups discussing the subject, often hosted by married people, tend to offer replies like “God doesn’t care about numbers, He is bigger than digits” in relation to the gender disproportion.  I stopped feeling comforted by such idioms a long time ago.  Yes, God is bigger than numbers, yet unlike the insinuation from well-intentioned speakers, it doesn’t automatically follow that God’s way of resolving this is by pairing us all off.  Also, thinking logically about it, unless God can start making new, grown men from clay again, this imbalance will remain.  I don’t believe the large number of men who shifted away from New Zealand was a God-ordained thing, I believe it was a man-ordained thing, and God cannot make men do what He wants them to do (nor can He make them marry those who He has chosen for them, more on that later).

 

 

 

New to the church cell group, Sharon knew she’d found the right place

when she quickly realised there was not a man in sight

 

Back to my initial point.  In contrast to church teaching, this article describes how during a school assembly one day, a British Senior Mistress mustered up the strength to make a harrowing proclamation to her female pupils:  only 10% of you will ever get married.  Her subsequent statement was just as hard hitting: “This is not a guess of mine.  It is a statistically fact” (Cable), (italics – mine).  My heart hurt for these war-time women, and a deep empathy for how they must have felt upon hearing this resounds within me.  Unlike kiwi men who have left our shores on their own accord, these women would endure permanent singleness because their potential suitors were dead.  Many years on from this Bournemouth High School assembly, statistics revealed that a whopping 35 per cent of women in their reproductive years never married (Cable).

 

One girl who was present during this post-war announcement, Rosamund Essex, later wrote a book where she recalled that disturbing declaration.  In her book her school Mistresses words were touted as ‘prophetic’ (Cable).  The word ‘prophetic’ resonated in my mind for some time after reading the article.  Countless times I had hoped for a prophetic word for the women in my social circle, yet even as Christians we were without such messages worthy of our thoughts. 

 

 

No hope vs false hope

Some months ago whilst once more considering how the church dispenses a blanket notion that we’ll someday all marry, I found myself wondering:  what is worse?  Full on, yet ultimately false hope – the kind of hope derived from putting all your hope into one specific outcome - or reasoned hope, where more than one avenue is considered?  Had the church suggested to the likes of my friends and myself as part of the church body some time ago that it was likely not every member would marry (for any number of reasons), then perhaps the disappointment we are experiencing now wouldn’t be so soul-wrenching and utterly unexpected.    As it were, I don’t think it ever occurred to me during my younger years that my status of being single would continue well into my adult life.  After careful consideration I am at a point where I consider that perhaps reasoned hope, that is hope which is not dead set on one particular outcome only but which considers other outcomes are jointly plausible, is better than full on, albeit false, hope in this area. Why?  Because false hope is a hope that will always disappoint.

 

I originally sort to see this comparison as a distinction between no hope and false hope.  Having thought about it in greater length however, to cease hope in something completely is not a goal to be aimed for.  It is wise to pray for the things we would dearly like in life, and if we really were to eradicate all traces of hope then I think the practice of faithful praying for something that is Godly and good (such as a husband) will be lost and buried along with our dollop of hope. 

 

Let me share with you something else that has come to mind these past several months.  As Christians (or people of any belief system), we all know of a person or persons who have suffered from cancer.  The Christian sufferers and those close to them will undoubtedly pray for healing and for the treatment to be a success.  In short: they pray to be free of this hideous, invasive disease.  Yet we all know that some Christians do get healed – be it through deliverance prayer or through chemotherapy – yet others don’t and consequently die.  So, if we except that some Christians with cancer do live whilst others die a premature death, then how is it that we jointly believe all Christians who desire to get married will get married?  This is but one comparison that could be made here; I use it only because most of us will, during the course of our lives, have lost someone to this disease (similarly, most of us will also know of women and men who simply never found a spouse).

 

 

 

God has got it all figured out, girls – your husband will still be taller

than you even when you are sporting high heels on your wedding day.

But what about the scripture that says “The Lord will give you the desires of your heart”.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time of this passage, but I will make a couple of remarks on it.  Firstly, as I was typing it into the Google search engine, I’d barely gotten three words entered when it offered the exact verse at the top of the list of possible searches.  This tells me that a lot of people are well versed in terms of this piece of scripture.  In relation to marriage, I will share what a close friend of mine once told me this verse means.  My friend believes that this verse, which in full reads “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” and is found in Psalms 37:4, means that the desires we have in our hearts are there because the Lord put them there.  In other words, if a desire we have (assuming it is in line with God’s word) is in our heart, it’s because the Lord purposefully placed it in there.  There seems to be a common tendency for Christians to think this means God will then give to us whatever those desires might be.  The bible, however, doesn’t go on to say that.  Rather, it goes on to say we should commit our ways to the Lord and trust in him, and in terms of what the Lord will do for us, it says this: “He will make your righteousness shine line the dawn, the justice of the cause like the noonday sun”.   Not quite that same as getting exactly what we want now, is it?

 
 

Advice from well-meaning married folk:  “She obviously never got married because…” and so forth

There have been a few occasions now, mostly during all-female hangouts, when the question of why some women are still single by the time they reach, say, middle age has arisen.  The most popular answer (according to my own remembrance survey) that is offered to this question is that there is “obviously some unresolved issue or problem that she has which means she’s never been able to progress to marriage”.  Again, based on my own observation, it seems that some single Christian women even like this answer.  I’ve come to the conclusion that this is because it means that our fate is in our own hands in so far as we can gain marital status if we simply work out our problems.    I myself used to think this was most likely the case, but then I learnt a new theory whilst taking a paper in Psychology last year (isn’t it interesting what God can use to expand our minds?  A bible verse here, an academic lesson there…).

 

The lecturer described how, as human beings, we have a tendency to blame other people’s undesirable outcomes on some supposed character flaw that they bare.  The example went something like this: you invite a friend over for dinner, and she arrives twenty minutes late.  You quietly think to yourself something along the lines of “well, if she wasn’t so disorganised”, “if she wasn’t so casual about everything, she might actual be here on time” or similar.  The point is you blame her for the undesirable outcome of arriving late.  Your friend, on the other hand, being the owner of the outcome, is more likely to be thinking “How was I to know there would be so much traffic at this hour”, or “If it wasn’t for the truck that had broken down I’d have been on time”.  In contrast, the friend blames her lateness on the situation, NOT on a personal disposition. 

 

You can possibly already see where I am going with this.  It can be easy for some people to look on at single women of a certain age and say that her prolonged status of being single is the result of something dispositional.   This may be true of some women, but I personally don’t believe it is the case for the majority in the church.  I believe I am correct in saying that most Christian women who are single currently are not single because of something dispositional; rather, they are single because of the situation.  The situation is, of course, that there is a huge shortage of men (approximately 1 single man to every 3-4 single women – again, this pertains only to Auckland, and numbers will vary slightly from church to church).

 

One last thing about receiving advice from married people.  These folk will almost always give advice in accordance to their own marriage-abounding experience.  If they were out actively searching when they met their future spouse, they will tell you to get out there and do the same.  If they disbanded the proactive approach in favour of patiently waiting when the would-be spouse arrived, they will suggest this is your ticket to success also.  I will say but one thing on the matter:  every person’s experience will be slightly different, and you won’t know what method will work for you until you can look back on it in retrospect.  If you feel at peace with what you are presently doing, don’t abandon it because of well-intentioned words from others.  Consider that you are right where the Lord wants you, and that whilst this may or may not result in partnership, the Lord has got you there for a reason, whatever that reason might be.

 

 

 

Heeding her friend Tammy’s advice, Kylie was sure it was only a

matter of time now before her waiting patiently would pay off and the Fed Ex man would whisk her away to a life of marital bliss

So…….. is there any hope?  What I believe we can be sure of

The realisation that my chances of ever getting married are relatively slim is not a conclusion I am fond of fostering, nor does it leave me with a great yearning to fling my arms open in praise of an all-powerful, all-loving God who seemingly can’t even deliver me and my fellow God-fearing sisters from prolonged singleness.  I’ve asked the question that probably many of us have asked at some stage: what’s the point in living my life in accordance to God’s way?  In doing so, I am still left despairing in a pond of loneliness, not to mention living out my days as though there is no sexual component to me.  It ignores those maternal desires that are being cast to the way-side along with the tick-tocking of the clock.  Frankly, this all seems like an impossible bite to chew.  Furthermore, what good is waiting for ‘the right one’, if ‘the right one’ isn’t ever going to come along?  I feel God has revealed two things to me that cover these concerns.
 

Firstly, I believe God does have someone, or someones plural (more than one possible suitor in the entire world seems plausible to me) in mind for each of His children.  However, God also gave us free will.  I’ll again use an analogy here to explain.  When applying for a job, God might urge us to take one vacancy as opposed to a number of other roles that are available.  We can, however, choose to rely on our own understanding and take another offer instead.  Perhaps it pays more, perhaps there appears to be more room to climb the corporate ladder in comparison to the door God wants to lead you through.  To be flatly honest (in this analogy, and in the actual subject at hand), perhaps it just looks more attractive!  By ignoring God’s leading though, we’ll never know why He wanted us to take one over another, and our abundant-living will be compromised because of it.  I propose the idea that God does not force people to marry those whom He has chosen for them; like all things in life, not excluding salvation itself, it is ultimately our choice whether or not we obey Him.  To further make the point, I’ve also wondered how many of the men who’ve left this nation were actually called to leave (or how many were called to stay put over there).

 

Secondly, there is always a reason to do things God’s way, even if it will never amount to what we consider to be a Christian birth-right to us here on this earth.  It struck me rather suddenly one night that if we obey God and honour Him with our body, mind and time, and if this does not result in the marriage and family we so wanted here in this world (after all, God is for marriage – he invented it as he saw it wasn’t good for man to be alone), then God has to reward us on the other side.  It is that simple.  And let us not downplay the fact that the other side is for all of eternity; things in this life are but temporal.  The bible makes it clear that those who are first here will be last over there, and those who are last here will be first there (Matthew 20:16).  Now that is something to be excited about.  This message was further affirmed me to whilst I was browsing through a second hand book store before Christmas (call it shopping on a student budget).  Randomly flicking open a book titled ‘The Thorn in the Flesh’ by R.T. Kendall, my eyes fell upon these words:

 “And, yet, I feel it is fair to say that, as you resist the opportunities for sexual fulfilment outside of marriage, your reward in heaven will be perhaps as great as that of any missionary leaving home and going to a foreign field.  Do not underestimate what it will mean at the judgement seat of Christ when it will show that you refused to give in!  In the words of the famous sermon of the late Dr. R. G. Lee, ‘Pay day, some day!’” (Kendall, 29-30)

 
 

Closing remarks

As I embarked on writing this blog, I knew there was much I could say on the subject of the shortage of men in our churches today (and on the shortage of men in New Zealand, more generally).  I’ve allowed this text to be of reasonable length because I feel that my points are relevant to most women who find themselves perpetually single.  In closing, there is one more thing I would like to say about dealing with singleness as a Christian woman, and that is this: each day, take five minutes to feel at peace with where you are at in relation to your goals on this earth.  Whether you are dating, or haven’t had a date in years, except that this is where you are at today and thank God for what you do have.  If we can integrate this as part of our daily lives, then the struggle of being single, though it may never completely dissolve, will certainly begin to lose momentum and become more tolerable. 
 

At times this life feels long and the loneliness can seem insurmountable.  Eternity, however, is a lot longer and promises to be more than fulfilling for those who follow Him. 

 

-Wendie

 

 

Reference list:

Cable, Amanda. "Condemned to Be Virgins: The Two Million Women Robbed by the War." Daily Mail Online 2007.
Kendall, R T. The Thorn in the Flesh. Florida, United State of America: Charisma House, 2004. Print.
The Committee On Bible Transation. Ecclesiastes, Job, Matthew, Psalms. The Holy Bible, New International Version. Colorado Springs: International Bible Society, 1984. Print.