People are weird.
I find it funny that if you google 'weird', you get a definition that says: 'suggesting something supernatural; uncanny'
Then it gives a great analogy:
"The weird crying of a seal"
Yeah because we can all relate to that here in south Texas, where the only time you'll hear 'crying' and 'seal' in the same sentence is when some redneck is telling you about something gone wrong in his too-far-jacked-up truck engine.
Thanks google. Keeping it relevant since Al Gore spawned the internet. Or whatever.
I had to block another girl on my facebook feed today. It wasn't her, it was me (I lied, it was totally her). This brings the number up to a lot, and pretty soon I'm only going see 2% of my friends in my newsfeed. Which, as long as it's the 2% that don't irritate me, is fine.
No but seriously
I had to block her because she brought the total tally of 'Professing-Christian-and-I-married-young-and-am-super-defensive-and-outspoken-about-it-on-the-internet' girls to seven hundred and twenty-two, which as we all know is seven hundred and twenty-two too many.
I just lost it. I started to read her post, which was a response to an inflammatory article that has recently sparked a flurry of polarized responses, all vehement.
The culprit inflammatory article that incited the fiery flames of response like flint to dry tinder is titled something like '23 things to do before you're engaged by 23'.
It's written by some girl (Who I'm assuming is 23) that made some pretty strong statements, about marriage, about people marrying young for the wrong reasons, and ends in a list (23 things, go figure) of ridiculous things to do while you're still single, such as, but not limited to:
'eat an entire jar of nutella'
'get a passport'
'hang out naked in front of a window all day'
I don't advocate, recommend, or understand the list (why would anyone hang out naked in front of a window all day??). Actually, I don't even care about the list, or the arguments. I have my own opinion of it all. But I am irritated with the response that plopped itself ignorantly in my newsfeed, that is a recycled echo of the same argument that seems to frequently come up.
It's condescending tone rubbed me wrong, as it began with a patronizing 'I'm sorry you don't have a Godly view of marriage' and went on to tell the author 'if you did find a perfect person, what makes you think they'd want to marry you?'
Well aren't we just oozing Jesus all over the place?
Then, to follow such a benevolent opener, she went on, enumerating how being married is actually just a 'journey of learning to love someone else like Jesus does', and learning to 'be more like Jesus'.
I've heard it before. Same lines, almost word for word, from so many girls like this one. How they are so excited to learn to be like Jesus by serving their husband and being his help-meet.
You know what else teaches us to be more like Jesus? Being physically persecuted for our faith. Having God say 'no' over and over to what our heart longs for. Losing things we love. Interestingly, I rarely hear about how much these girls are looking forward to being made perfect through suffering in a prison cell, or being made holy through the death of a close friend.
Why? Oh, I don't know. Maybe because what they are really looking forward to is NOT becoming like Jesus. Maybe, what they are really looking forward to, IS being married.
I'm ok with that. I want to rejoice with you who rejoice.
I just don't want to hear your spirituality-veiled, pretentious, gushing.
She ends with an exhortation to millennials (Hey, that's me!) to 'not be shallow' and 'live a life full of purpose, love, and Jesus!', and not be afraid of "'settling' when God brings a great man or woman in your life, because you'll go on all sorts of adventures together!" (exclamation points are all hers, by the way). Well, thank you for your advice that comes from less than a year of experience being married at age 22. In science, we call that 'insufficient data to form an opinion'. Kidding, that's just what I call it.
The comments, I'll spare you; they were even worse. Filled with remarks about how sorry everyone felt for the girl that wrote the '23' blog post (And we all know 'She's obviously bitter, I feel sorry for her' is a patronizing statement that's code for 'She's a pagan moron, I'm so glad I know the righteous viewpoint that Jesus would propagate if He were here'), and how they'd much rather make out with their husbands than a stranger (Another thing I don't advocate on the 23 list).
One person even left a comment that called her 'an immature skank who doesn't know what love is'. A comment that was promptly liked by the girl who vomited her overspiritualized, poorly reasoned opinion all over my newsfeed.
That was such an obviously offensive comment, that I looked at that commenter's profile.
She's a young, newly married, preteen counselor at a baptist church.
I cannot tell you how much that surprises me, given that she's a cookie cutter replica of...well....a whole heck of a lot of other girls in her same situation.
I have heard this. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. This literally peppers my facebook with blogs and status updates and notes all the time. And the arguments all say the
Same.
Exact.
Thing.
The 'Christian-and-single-because-we-don't-settle' camp scowls, and criticizes the intentions of the 'we-married-young' camp as being faulty, unfounded, and immature.
The 'Christian-and-married-young' camp howls about how beautiful and Godly marriage is, and how much they're going to be like Jesus.
Back and forth, defense after defense, justification after justification, accusation behind accusation. And while we tell each other how the way we're working out our faith with fear and trembling is the best way, and send slighting, veiled (some not so veiled) insults back and forth, I wonder if Jesus shakes His head at how ridiculous His children can be sometimes.
If Jesus had a facebook, I wonder if He'd block me from showing up in His newsfeed.
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