“I’ll be Married by 24” and Other Lies I Believed at 22
By: Morgan Billingsley
I remember the conversation vividly. It was March of my senior year, and I was home visiting family and interviewing with various classical schools during Spring Break. Sitting in my grandmother’s living room with her and my mom, I said, “Come on Mom, I’ve been with him for almost two years now. It isn’t crazy to be talking about marriage. Twenty-two isn’t too young.” My dear, precious mother didn’t look so convinced that this was the man and now was the time to talk about matrimony.
To me, everything seemed to be lining up: my then-boyfriend and I were approaching our two year anniversary, graduation was only a couple of months away, and my interviews for a teaching position had been going swimmingly. If then-me had had it her way, I would be married by 24, talking with my husband about starting a family and settling into a home to do just that.
Fast forward to the present: I just recently turned 24, but that -- the promised march of time -- is one of the only things that has gone “according to plan.” Most notably for our purposes, the man I thought I would marry has become someone that I don’t speak to. Ever since the breakup, which was followed by some rather perspective-shattering realizations, I have become acutely aware of how tightly I was clutching my idea of the future. Now that I am living a future which looks so very different from how I had once dreamt it, I -- by the powerful grace of the Holy Spirit -- have begun the hard and holy work of healing those heart-wounds, both new and old, that my unrealized expectations brought to the surface.
When I had that conversation with my mom, I was just so ready to finally, finally get my happily ever after. That boy was not the first I had dated, nor was he the first I had entertained the idea of marriage with in my head. With him, I had thought I found my “at last.” When it became clear through much prayer, discernment, counsel, and no lack of failures on both of our parts that we were not ultimately “meant to be,” I was crushed. As I added this relationship to a painfully long list of ways my heart had been broken, heartache began to feel like my own Sisyphysian torment. The questions for God rushed in like a flood: “Again, God? I’m losing another one? What do I have to do to keep one, to make it work?” The list goes on and on; I imagine, dear reader, that you are likely familiar with at least some of these questions.
I wrestled with these questions and so many others for months, and as I did so the Holy Spirit began to reveal to me that I had been subconsciously thinking about love in entirely the wrong ways. My history with heartache began when I was 15, with not-insignificant heart entanglements occurring throughout my teen years and into my time at Hillsdale, each leaving its own unique mark upon me and my unspoken understanding of love. Each distorted my view of relationships in ways that I have only recently articulated to myself. When, by 22, I was in a position to be talking seriously about marriage, it felt like a hard won victory. When I lost that, I had to ask myself: why would it have felt like a victory? Who is the enemy here? What, or who, was I trying to defeat? Why am I viewing love like a prize I’m competing for, rather than a grace, a part of my vocational inheritance?
With those questions I realized that I had begun to think of God as being, somehow, opposed to my romantic happiness -- which is rather a silly idea, considering I have always felt that my vocation is marriage and motherhood. Somewhere along the line, the lie had crept in that I couldn’t trust Him to provide for my heart’s desires. I had come to believe that if I was going to attain those dreams, I would have to muscle my way into it. I had come to view relationships -- and God’s handling of them in my life -- like a cruel game of tug-of-war, where I wanted the goodness of love in my life, but God wanted me, so to get to me He would tug the relationship away. I, as the loser, ended up empty handed, broken hearted, and with rope burns on my hands from how tightly I was clutching the thing I thought I wanted.
Of course, this illustration is not an accurate reflection of the Father’s heart or of my experience of His goodness and grace throughout my story. Each heartbreak really did bring me closer to the Father in important and beautiful ways which I acknowledged then and now. However, my stubborn, broken human mind often failed to grasp the depths to which He was being merciful to me all along. In retrospect, I realize that I had begun to mistake His perfect protection and provision for cruelty and jealousy: a sort of “she can’t give her affection to anyone but Me” attitude on behalf of God, as if love were a limited resource and God were in competition with men -- both of which are entirely silly propositions. Yet, my silly little mind appeared to embrace them.
As these thoughts had been trickling in over the months, I realized some time ago that I needed to work with God to reconstruct my understanding of His heart and of my identity as His Beloved. Having started dating someone recently who seems like an answer to so many prayers, I am particularly conscious of not letting these fears, wounds, and inaccuracies color my view of romantic love or the Father’s heart for my heart. One day recently, I was deep in prayer during Adoration about all of the above -- the historical hurts, the new boyfriend, my desires, etc. -- when the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart in a voice as clear as day: “You want to be a bride, but you are My bride first. I will protect you as My bride and I will provide for you as My bride. You are My bride first -- you always have been.”
These words blasted away every fear, every misconception, every mal-formed belief I had been recently unwinding. The idea of God as Heavenly Father--though deeply beautiful and important--is familiar. But the idea of God as Heavenly Husband? Despite how clearly Jesus laid this out in Ephesians 5:25, I had never dedicated much thought to Jesus’s active -- not just historical -- role as the Church’s Bridegroom and, by extension, mine; or how He, in exercising His duties as Bridegroom, has been protecting me all along from men who were not fit to partner with Him in the earthly responsibility of being my husband.
In that moment I began to see everything my heart had endured through this lens. In marriage the husband is the head of the household; he ultimately makes the hard, sometimes painful decisions for the protection of his wife and family. He is entrusted with her care, protection, and guidance -- even if she may protest. Similarly, every instance of unrealized expectations -- including my dream of being married by 24 -- was not a punishment, but a protection. Jesus, unlike earthly men, cannot make mistakes or misjudgments in the care of His bride. Therefore, if He guided my heart through pain, He did it to protect, preserve, and provide for me. Like Joseph leading Mary and Jesus into Egypt, away from everything they had ever known and into almost certain tribulation, so God may lead us into the desert because staying would mean devastation.
In His mercy, Christ has been revealing my identity to me. I, as Christ’s beloved bride, the pride and treasure of His heart, have never been playing tug-of-war with Him. He has never been out to punish me for giving my heart to others. He has never acted the part of the cruel, jealous lover who manipulates and taunts. He has only ever been loving, protecting, guiding, and preserving me as only He, the perfect Husband, can. (And, it is worth noting, He has done the same for the men that have come and gone from my life.)
So, I’m glad I’m not married at 24. The desire for marriage and motherhood absolutely remains, but I am re-learning to trust that God, as both loving Father and faithful Bridegroom, is protecting me and providing for me in the best of ways. Every heartache, breakup, and tear was wrought for my ultimate good, as will any that may be yet to come. As for you, dear reader, the promise is the same. He will protect you and provide for you, in this life as much as the next. You are His bride first -- you always have been.
