Rargh.

Sometimes Stephen's mom just pushes buttons on Facebook that I wasn't asking to be pushed--in fact, buttons I was seeking the opposite of--and that is what bugs me about her on Facebook. Yep.

So, now that I got that initial burst of steam let off, here we go. I posted a link to a blog and some comments with it. Here is the blog link and my comments:

http://theartinlife.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/my-husband-is-not-my-soul-mate/

"Gist of the blog: "There is no ONE PERSON for you [to marry]. But once you marry someone, that person becomes your one person."

When I first started realizing that this was true, (circa 2006, thanks to a chapel sermon by Gene Schandorff), it really stressed me out. Not because I was devastated to learn that there wasn't "one person" for me (in fact, I was kind of relieved), but because I realized my entire generation had been taught wrong, which worried me a great deal. How could we ever find real happiness if we were constantly seeking something that didn't exist???

But now I realize, happily, that God is sovereign even over errors in human teachings. He is still glorified, because He is still forming solid, happy, God-honoring marriages today in my generation. Blogs like this are a good reminder of that to me. :)

And Margie's comments back:

Some good stuff here, Steph, although I would disagree with one or two points. (For instance, I do believe God plans whether or not we marry and who we marry and has had that planned from before time; but, as is often the case with "God's Plan For My Life", these are things we can only know for certain in retrospect.)

Okay. So now how do I respond to this. I'm massively irritated at her comments, which is why I'm putting it through the Diaryland filter first.

Okay, why am I irritated.

First, I think she said exactly what the quote said and yet she was thinking that she was saying the contrary.

Okay, that's it. That's all I needed.

On a related note, part of the reason I posted it in the first place was because I recently added a woman I haven't spoken to or heard from in years, but have not stopped thinking about occasionally. Adrien and Justin's mom.

Back when I knew her, she was Deborah, but now she goes by Leann. She divorced Adrien and Justin (and Jacob)'s dad shortly after I graduated from high school, and it shocked my entire church. They were that sort of family that everybody thought was perfect. Since then, Leann has gone through an entire life change. She dresses and acts all trendy and young and flirty now, even though she's in her 50s. Even today, she is very proud of her decision for her "new life." It kind of makes me sick, but when she added me on Facebook, I thought, Hmmm......Ministry opportunity? So I added her today. And practically in the same breath I saw my friend Zanna post the blog from above, and thought, Perfect! I'll just post it with my thoughts to gently let her know where I stand without directly confronting her.

So then my mother-in-law makes this comment that for all the world makes me want to self-righteously proclaim on that link that marriage is for life and yadda yadda yadda. Good grief. Pride doesn't waste a minute, does it? But I restrained myself, or God restrained me, however that works, and instead I privately messaged Margie my responding thoughts, as well as explained to her why I wasn't saying so under the link.

LATER: Muahahaha. Stephanie the diplomat strikes again. I'm getting good at this, I think.

After 4 friends posted coming from roughly the same angle as my mother-in-law, I finally decided it would be good to respond somehow (and in the process remind people that my Fb page is not a place that is open for debates), and after agonizing over it for an hour, this is what I came up with:

I didn't expect this link to spark controversy. Ladies who have posted, you haven't violated my "no debates" rule at all, so thank you very much for that. Just in case, I'll take this opportunity to remind everybody else who sees this today that, as a personal boundaries line, my page is not an open place for debates, although you may leave your thoughts peaceably as these ladies have.

For the record, I fully believe God's hand was at work directing Stephen and I toward each other during our friendship and relationship. That's always how I tell our story. I just think it was a sad misguidance for the church culture of the 90s and 2000s to tell all of us teens to direct our energy toward pursuing a spouse as if it were irrevocably promised to us that we would have one and as if we would have to have incredible personal insight in order to choose the "right" person. This was often taught in close connection with other errant theology that I won't go into right now.

And in defense of the author, I think she was writing to a specific audience, and I think therefore it may have come across more extreme in one direction than another. She herself puts an addendum at the end of her blog noting that it was intended for a much smaller audience than it has reached, coupled with a request that people leave only respectful comments, much like I have here. So I think it wisest to take the writing with a grain of salt.

Whew. Living a life trying not to offend 400 people is HARD! This is exactly why I don't allow debates on my page.

Anyway, I think I handled that decently. We'll see how friends respond. I hope they understand where I'm coming from.

-Stephanie

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