I was watching Gilmore Girls recently. Cram watching it, before they release the new ‘A Year In The Life…’ in November on Netflix (Woo!) Something that Lorelai said struck me one episode and I had a time working through why it poked at me in that particular manner.
“There are very few times in my life when I find myself sitting around thinking ‘I wish I was married’, but today… I mean; I’m happy, you know. I like my life, I like my friends, I like my stuff. My time, my space, my TV. But every now and then, just for a moment, I wish I had a partner, someone to pick up the slack, someone to wait for the cable guy, make me coffee in the morning, meet the stupid sink before it gets sent back to Canada…” The Incredible Sinking Lorelais, Gilmore Girls, Season 4, Episode 14; Warner Bros. Television, February 17, 2004
I think it’s because in that moment, she speaks ‘everyman’ and it’s one of the reasons that we all love Gilmore Girls, don’t we…except if you don’t love it. Such a shame..!
Like Lorelai, I am actually quite content where I am, and one day, it will be great when a right relationship happens. There are those times though, when there’s a pang that there is no physical person to reference things to. I have amazing friends and family, but if it’s midnight, it’s not exactly kosher to call people up.
Even if y’all say it is. No. No, it’s not. We’re all adults here, and there are boundaries. There are times when it is completely appropriate , and times when it is completely not.
I know these kinds of issues are not limited to me, or to people who are single; there are plenty of people who are married whose partners who aren’t on the same page spiritually too. People who may have husbands or wives who have not chosen The Narrow Way yet, or are not as aware yet. I’m not even going to try to pretend that the world is about me.
For me personally, the things that catch me the most are the times I am faced with managing spiritual conflict. But it doesn’t happen all the time, just on occasion.
It happened most recently during and after a completely innocuous transaction between myself and another person. In that moment, something decided that I needed to be challenged on my authority in Christ. Excuse me…! The interaction with the person was concluded and I had one of those moments. Wishing that there was a person, a human man-person, who was there to take up the slack, to be the head, to help deal with the drama. For a few seconds being one person was one person too few, and I am getting seasoned in this stuff. So as I said, it doesn’t usually faze me.
A few minutes of seeking God’s face, and He throws this verse at me, and I was so grateful, and have been supremely grateful ever since.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:14-16 (NIV)
After looking it up and praying; as is my habit, I spoke the words out loud. ‘It is written, Christ is my Head. I am growing up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ.’
In an instant, it resolved the spiritual challenge that was against me. Cut it off completely. I also felt for the first time, that I was clicked into Jesus in a way that I hadn’t experienced until that moment.
Oh Gosh. How powerful! To be given such a gift, that immediately resolved for me so much cultural and spiritual baggage. Which then becomes a permanent reminder, direct from Jesus Himself, that no matter what part of the body we are, no matter what place we live in, no matter who we are, no matter what particular census form boxes we tick- single, married, divorced, widowed, age range, male, female. No matter what gift we have, no matter what work we do, no matter where we live or what we have or don’t have… We all live personally and directly under the headship of Jesus.
Even though it is obvious, and I’ve read it hundreds of times over my time in pews, it’s the first time Holy Spirit has really lifted the veil on this verse for me and it became a Sword.
Paul prayed for the Ephesians in this manner:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)
My primary focus is to bring the fullness of a life in Christ to people, exactly where they’re at, no matter where they’re at. As a single, nearly middle aged woman with no kids, an enormous border collie with entitlement issues, and not much else to show for herself, a relationship with Jesus is all I have.
This beautiful development in our relationship, also brings all my other relationships into a different kind of focus. Wholeness as a person means something different to me now than it did up until that point. I would not have said that I felt incomplete, but obviously up until then, something was disconnected that I knew nothing about.
This strengthening of the bonds of who Jesus and I are together; this asserting of the completeness of His Headship, leaving no room for challenge from any quarter. This brings a new strength, a new completeness and adds a new dimension of safety and security for who I am and will be within myself and in Him.
This also brings a new level of awareness in the way I see other people. This small adjustment completes the leveling out process for me regarding people. There is an absoluteness in my understanding of equality under Christ, whether one has chosen the Narrow Way yet or not.
Sometimes, the smallest adjustments can make the biggest impact, and Holy Spirit loves to show us those, just as much as the enormous ones.
God Bless You Very Much
Anita