i came home tonight and i kept telling myself that i am where i’m supposed to be.  that im there for a reason.  that this responsibility i feel really is that, responsibility.  and not just some over developed sense of something like guilt.  that i’ll be back in new york when the time is right. or i’ll pour my heart out to that amazing woman when everything is finally where it should be.

maybe tonight i need to realize that this wasnt promised to me.  that i wasnt ever promised a path that would give me the white picket fence and 2.4 kids.  maybe i wasnt promised an easy road.  maybe im realizing that what my heart beats so longingly for, is something worth giving up what i’ve gained.

donald miller, in his book called Searching for God Knows What talks about adam and eve.  he speaks of the world God created, a world devoid of death, decay, crime, pollution, hatred and fear; a world where sin was absent.  he speaks of God creating the animals, the plants, the sky, the firmament, the sun, moon and stars, all culminating in what we commonly see as the pinnacle of creation – man.  and amongst this perfection, surrounded by every need being met in abundance, God said to adam that it wasnt good for him to be alone.

adam was perfect.  surrounded by perfection.  created by a perfect God.  and yet God makes it perfectly clear that it was not good for Adam to be alone.

if you were to ask me, i’d probably embellish the story a bit.  id want to say that adam was created with a yearning inside of him.  a yearning for something that he had not yet seen.  an emptiness inside that longed to be filled.

the facet of this that donald miller brings to light is something ive read dozens of times, and always missed.  in one verse, God states very clearly to adam that it isnt good for him to be alone.  i believe God confirmed to adam that he was created with this longing.  and yet in the very next verse, God has every created thing present itself to adam.  God gives adam the task of naming each creature that filled the earth.

what we dont realize, is the timing.  if you believe in the idea of creation, then you need to realize that the task given to adam was no small matter.  this wasnt something adam completed in a few minutes or even a few days.  Adam was given the responsibility of naming somewhere between 10 and 50 million creatures.  if you split the difference and say 30 million creatures, at an average of 1000 creatures a day, 6 days a week, adam may have easily spent the next 10 decades naming these creatures.

it’s almost as if God told adam “you shouldnt be alone” and then proceeded to show adam every single creature on earth, and why it wouldnt be his match.  why it wouldnt fill the need inside of adam to love in a way that he’d never known.

i wonder if adam felt the same way i sometimes do, if  – after God confirms for him something he’s felt since he was created and after he spends countless days naming each animal – he began to question.  question if there was that someone out there for him.

i wonder what is written between the lines of those two verses.  what adams nights were like.

i know i serve a perfect God with a perfect plan.  i’m not arguing that.  i’m just wondering what adam went through.

after 100 years, adam finally completes his task.  and God creates eve.  flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.  i wonder if it took adam any time at all to realize that eve was wholly different.  different in every way from everything he’d seen in his century of work.  if perfection could have become more perfect, it did in eve.

so where am i going with this?

it’s you.  and thats what i’m finally realizing.  this is for you.

im not saying im your adam, but i do know beyond any doubt that you are an eve.  you’re worth what adam went through.  you’re worth the endless days of work, the refinement inside of adam that must have gone on.  you’re worth the century of waiting adam went through.  you’re the prize that adam finally realized was waiting for him.  you are worth fighting for.  you are worth the innumerable days and nights of waiting on this perfect God and His perfect timing.

it’s not me.  and that’s the other half of what i’m finally realizing.  that this is really for you.

i cannot sit here and tell you that i want to be your adam while knowing i fly 1700 miles away in less than two days.  so this isnt about me.

this is about you.  and my prayers that you’re encouraged.  that you realize that what you’ve always known existed inside of you is something of endless beauty.  that i know it must not be easy to be single and almost thirty.  i know that.  but please, hang on.  wait for that man who will be your adam.  who’s willing to follow the perfect voice of a perfect God and His perfect timing.  that man who needs an eve to be on the other side of the task he’s been given.

you are an eve.  always and forever.  it’s not something you can change, you were born that way.

so please, dont give up.  dont settle.

your adam is out there.  and he’s fighting for you.  and he needs you to be there, when his task is done.