Jim's Primeval Journey: Girls

Good…good…good…good…good…good…very good…not good.

Because I trust God’s first seven assessments of his creation, I have no reason to doubt his eighth assessment. But this is not about me theologizing about what “It is not good for the man to be alone” means for humanity. This is about me reflecting upon how my own primeval (earliest days) baggage bumps into and finds meaning in light of God’s words and actions in his Primeval narrative (Genesis 1-11).

I want to blame my teenage yearnings for a girlfriend on the music of the 70’s. I have no idea if today’s music has a theme, but the 70’s had a constant flow of heart-wrenchingly romantic music for those of us put off by hard rock. My buddies and I were really into pop music. We had AM radio, and listened faithfully every week to American Top 40. We also had the Midnight Special every Friday night. So my particular subculture had a steady diet of love songs: Precious and Few, More than a Woman, How Deep is Your Love (OK, everything by the Bee Gees except Jive Talkin'), She’s Gone, You Make me Feel Brand New, Don’t Pull Your Love out on Me, Walk Away Renee, Daisy Jane, Sarah Smile, Alone Again Naturally, Ain’t no Mountain High Enough, All by Myself, After the Love has Gone, Midnight Blue, I Like Dreamin', Don’t go Breakin' my Heart, I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.

In high school I actually never had what you would call a long term relationship with a girl. Truth be told, I never had what you’d call an actually serious relationship with a girl. OK, I never had anything resembling a relationship with a girl. Well, while I’m at it I may as well confess that I never had a date. There. I said it.

What I did have were crushes. For most of jr and sr high school I think I averaged about one crush a week. Of course no girl ever got to enjoy the amusement of realizing they were the object of my brief (but intense) interest. I was too afraid to talk to a girl, and not quite sick enough to be a stalker. But I was one lonely boy. Thankfully, my buddies were afraid to talk to girls too, so we just got together and talked about girls. But we were all quite sure that getting together to talk about girls was different from (likely inferior to) actually having a girlfriend.

Going away to Briercrest Bible Institute, I gravitated to a gang of guys equally afraid of (but highly interested in) girls. We’d get together and talk about girls. And laugh our heads off at the thought that if we ever walked up to a girl to ask her out, we’d just throw up on her. Now 30 years later, as a member of the faculty at Briercrest, I can’t imagine that there are any Briercrest guys as dorky as we were.

To make a long story short, I asked Anne out. The main reason I didn’t throw up on her was that her friend told me that if I asked Anne to serve with me at the senior banquet (we were juniors) that I could be assured Anne would say yes.

And to bring things right up to today, when I try to describe what being married to Anne means to me, I’m always afraid I’ll stray into idolatrous talk. My anchor, my rock, my life, my light, my joy, my love. It’s scary how important she is to me. I try to be very constant in thanking the Lord for her, in part as an exercise in keeping God #1.

As I said, I won’t theologize beyond what it means to me personally that “it is not good that the man should be alone.” What it means to me is simply this: here is part of the Bible that is near and dear to me. I totally identify with it, and I feel like I’m living it. It reads like such an understatement, but wow, what a blessing that it is my real-life testimony: God has given me a “suitable companion.”