Satisfied with Treasure

Psalm 17:13–15

Arise, O LORD! Confront him, subdue him!
Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,
from men by your hand, O LORD,
from men whose portion in life is of the world.
You fill their womb with treasure;⁽²⁾they are satisfied with children,
and they leave their abundance to their infants.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.
-ESV-

I haven’t made a personal post in a loooooong time and it’s not like I was ever super regular, but here goes. For the past 3 years I’ve been attending an Anglican church. While my parents have always been ecumenical in the way they talked about the Church we hadn’t ever regularly attended a mainline church. While I was in my rest period, in which I rarely attended Sunday services I found a friend at a prayer workshop. When I confided in her that I was looking for a church, especially one that was at least *trying* to address issues of race from a knowledgeable perspective and was more compassionate in terms of sexuality, she let me know that she was a part of an Anglican church plant that was about to start holding open services. Now if you know about the Episcopal/Anglican divide you know some of my hesitation. I’m bi and in the language of Christian sexuality discourse, I’m side B. That means that I acknowledge my sexual attractions and have no problem accepting myself as a bisexual person, but don’t think it’s right to have a same-sex sexual relationship. However, it’s unmistakable that side A Christians (affirming of same-sex sexual relationships) is what has made spaces that are even more conservative somewhat bearable. Affirming Christians have been the ones pushing the conversation about other Christians clearly unbiblical disregard for LGBTQIA people including their own children and confronting homophobia. Honestly, side B have come into being without side A because the church didn’t care about the damage the ex-gay movement was doing until people started leaving *shrugs*.

I digress, but the point of all of this is the I’m at a new church, it’s 3-4 years into this new church family thing, and it's happened. Another marriage season has arrived. So far there have been 2 weddings this year, 2 engagements (1 broken L) and a few relationships deepening in seriousness (barring a huge disruption these are probably pre-engagements). All the while, I feel like there is nothing on the horizon for me and it’s frustrating because this is the umpteenth marriage season I’ve gone through. I’ve watched the cycle happen over and over again as a preteen, through my teens, and through my college years, And watched it happen even with women who expressed little-to-no interest in marriage and children. I just don’t know why those who don’t want this get to have it (and even those who do, just not me).

On one hand, I’m deeply glad that I didn’t get married at 17-20, like I dreamed. I don’t know how I would have dealt with confronting my own sexuality in the confines of an already established family. For most people who have to navigate that self-discovery in those waters, it seems messy at best and devastating at worst. And there are so many other non-sexuality things I’ve learned, as well: ways I’ve changed and grown without the limits of having to consider a spouse’s opinion and having the freedom to figure things out without worrying about how/what I’m going to communicate to my children. For that, I am thankful.

And yet, other than writing, marriage and family have been the deepest desire of my life. It’s not like I don’t know what some of the barriers are. I’m fat, and that makes me undesirable to a lot of people, especially men. I’m also one of the few Black women in an overwhelmingly white and Asian congregation. I’m also not incredibly feminine with fatness and Blackness mitigating the perception of my femininity even more. I *look* queer, oftentimes when I’m not even trying and while that… (I’m growing to hate the word aesthetic but I’m going to use it here) aesthetic has always been attractive to me, it’s not known for being particularly attractive in these more theologically conservative circles. I don’t have much of my life together though I’m slowly but surely pulling it into shape. But a physically undesirable woman who doesn’t have her life together? Among people who don’t understand things like food insecurity or economic stress or the twists and turns in the life of a Black woman academic? I’m not surprised at the lack of prospects in this space. Yet it’s to this space that I feel called.

Part of me worries that I’m being called to lifelong singleness because these that make me a less-than-ideal wife are things are unchangeable or very slow to change in a healthy sustainable way. It’s not as if I haven’t considered some form of new monasticism as a way of life or even looked at the few Anglican religious orders here in the U.S. There’s a part of me that finds that attractive: the same part of me that went to a prayer internship for six months. The rest of me, though, cries out in deep distress. To be a deeply sexual person and never get to express that? To lack in that deep one-on-one years-long if not lifelong companionship? To maybe parent children without a vowed best friend to help me? I don’t know man, I don’t know.

This anxiety that I’ve been feeling came to mind this morning, as I was reading Psalm 16 & 17. That hesitation is exactly the place where God likes to place his finger for me. Like the rich young ruler who was willing to abide by all the rules, but couldn’t attain eternal life because of his hold on his riches; that one thing that we don’t want to let go of is usually the thing that God wants to pry from our cold clenched hands, not to deprive us but to replace it with something more valuable and that we never would have chosen for ourselves.

Noting that I’ve definitely been feeling a sense of atmospheric if not direct persecution in both the political and Christian worlds over the past few months, these Psalms spoke directly to my worries that God is manifesting his lack of care and protection for me by not giving me my hearts desire in the midst of political disenfranchisement (voting, Kavanaugh, all of the Trump bs) and religious disregard (John Macarthur and his anti-social justice statement). The Psalmist says, Arise, O LORD! Confront him, subdue him! Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword, from men by your hand, O LORD, from men whose portion in life is of the world. He knows for sure that the Lord cares enough about him to deliver him from those who hate him and wish him harm. Even though it looks like that they are prospering by the measures of this world and this life. You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants. As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. He ends the psalm reminded of how eternal treasures supersede earthly ones, in which even those who persecute him get to partake. I was reminded of another passage that’s been coming to mind lately:

Isaiah 54:1–3

            “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;
                        break forth into singing and cry aloud,
                        you who have not been in labor!

            For the children of the desolate one will be more
                        than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD

            “Enlarge the place of your tent,
                        and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;
                        do not hold back; lengthen your cords
                        and strengthen your stakes.

            For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left,
                        and your offspring will possess the nations
                        and will people the desolate cities.

I don’t know what the future holds and a solid 87% of my spirit cannot stop hoping and acting as if marriage is just across the horizon. And yet I feel the need to prepare myself not to lose heart if that’s just not the case (as it’s not been the case for the last decade). I don’t like this slowly growing feeling of desperation and I still feel myself growing and changing. I know that even without this nuclear family mold, I will be thankful for all that’s happened, once I look back on it. And that’s not even counting the streak of feminism within me that hates that I feel so incomplete without these markers of middle-class success. In this, my feminist leanings and the prompting of the Holy Spirit are in unison: there’s something I’m holding onto that I need to let go of. And once I have, so much more of what God has for me will be open to me. There are treasures I’m missing out on because I can’t lift my eyes up from what hasn’t happened yet.