The List

Donald Miller posted a blog about a week ago in which he shares a list his fiance (sad day for me) told him a list of things that she had always wanted in a husband, and he both fits this list and is in the process of becoming the list.  So I'm curious, if your married, did you have a list and did your spouse meet the qualifications of that list?  If your single, do you have a list?

There were many comments on Miller's blog about the variations of the types of lists that people make from shallow to ultra-specific to needy to unreachable.  Again I question how does a broken person (as we are all broken people striving to be made holy) create a list that isn't flawed in some form or fashion?

I long to be loved.  More so now than ever before.  I am in a dark season.  My body does not like me, my brain chemicals and hormones do not want to play fair, and I am depressed like never before.  Should I go to the hospital and check myself into the rubber room-depressed.  I have loved people deeply and selfishly and sinfully.  Scripture says "love your neighbor as you love yourself,"  that's hard to do when most days are filled with self loathing instead of self loving (the holy kind, not the kinky kind).  And frankly I feel like most days I kinda hate people too.  There is a great book called "The Mystery of Marriage" by Mike Mason.  There is a paragraph that rocked my world and exposed my heart like I have never seen before.  In this paragraph he talks about how other people are basically like a litmus test that reveals the amount of love or hate that we have in our heart, and most days we realize that we just resent other people being alive.  It's true.  It's poorly paraphrased, but true in my heart.  It's a paradox for me.  I would jump in front of a bus for complete strangers and friends alike, but just as quickly I will resent you for taking up oxygen and my personal space.  Lord help me, but I've become a hermit.  Mike Mason also wrote a book called "Practicing the Presence of People: How to Learn to Love."  I bought it and quickly hid it in a dark pile so I wouldn't have to read it.  It makes me growl just thinking about it.  So it's no surprise that I am not married.  I can just see the exchange of vows.  He says, "I promise to love you and cherish you and stick with you through sickness and health till death do us part."  I growl, kiss him, and go have sex.  The foundation of a beautiful marriage.  Till death do us part might only be 3 months.

Back to the idea of lists.  I had one a long time ago, made when I was 17, naive, pre-cancer, pre-hysterectomy, pre-heartache.  I have no idea what my list would be now.  I know a few things:  an extravagant worshipper of God, a person who loves cultures, and that's about all I can say for now.  So join with me in praying for someone who fits those two items to come into my life, and for me to lose my growl.  They are equally miraculous feats.