A cross you would never ask me to bear

All my life, I've wanted to be married. I've wanted to have a family, and a home. I've wanted little children and anniversaries and all the things that come with the vocation of marriage. I'm not alone in this desire, not at all. I know plenty of young women who want to be married, who desire to be loved, who feel called.

And yet.

I some times look at the women that God asks to wait. Who are going through their twenties, thirties, and faithfully pushing through. Discerning and yet always, at the end of the day, finding that it is marriage they feel called to. I look at them, and in my brokenness, I ask God not to give me that cross.

I'm in the beginning of my twenties. In another display of brokenness, sometimes I think that because of x, y, and z, you name it, I won't be asked to wait. I won't be asked to do something that can sometimes really suck. Oh, Lord, but I go to daily mass. Lord, but look at the suffering I've been through. Lord, look at all I've given you.

Yet, when I stand before the Lord, really, I have nothing in my hands. I have nothing to give Him except things that He has given me, graces He has poured out. The Lord doesn't owe me anything. He doesn't owe me a husband, He doesn't owe me a family, He doesn't owe me the life I imagined for myself.

That is not to say that He won't be generous. The Lord is always generous, just not always in the way that I think He will be.

I have fallen, and I continue to fall into this mindset that looks at my relationship with the Lord as a kind of gumball machine. Let me put in all the things that I've done for you, Jesus, and you just give me what I want. That's how this works. (This is when I praise the Lord that He's stuck with me for as long as He has. I sometimes get sick of myself, I'm surprised He hasn't. Ah, love).

So, when I look at these women who have been asked to wait, who are waiting so faithfully, beautifully, gracefully. Who are waiting much better than I ever do. I sometimes ask the Lord:

Lord, you would never ask me to bear that cross, would you?

But what makes me special? Not much. Like I said, the Lord doesn't owe me anything. Why should I be given something that so many hearts long for, hearts that are far better, far more generous, loving, kind than mine?

He has given me His son. And that, that is enough.