Singlehood and all that cargo

IF you are single, looking to marry, you will be concerned about the qualities and attributes that your future spouse will bring into a lifelong matrimonial relationship.
You have your preferences, inclinations and attractions about that companion—now what if the strobe light turned and focused on you?
What kind of spouse do you intend to offer the man or woman you will marry? What kind of person are you planning to present when you finally meet that dream woman or dream man?
Quite naturally, the attitude we have when selecting vegetables or fruits at the market; clothes in the boutique; or meats at the butchery, tends to be the same when we decide to choose a marriage partner.
The choice of goods or services to pay for is all about what I like, and retailers commonly abide by the maxim ‘the customer is always right.’
The choice of whom to marry is a completely different dimension, whereby it is not all about what I like but whether I am myself likeable in all the important points—which is not apparent to all of us.
When it comes to matters of the soul, the inverse consideration always has to be: ‘Will I meet her expectations?’ ‘Will I meet his standards?’
Trouble is, once I have screened and searched myself, and found that I will certainly not meet her expectations, I will in many instances not excuse myself and walk away.
It is evident to me that I cannot match up to her height (character) or weight (personality), but she is too special to just forget about.
In comes Plan B. I decide to present her a smokescreen, a veneer that will conceal my shortfalls, defects and deficiencies and offer a manly image she will fall for.
The smokescreen may be any ruse that will appeal to her—a lie in short.
If you are single, think about the consequences of this line of action.
If you do not qualify for the job of chief executive officer of his or her life, and you present powerful but fake papers, you are making that person pay for sub-standard goods.
You know fully well what it means to get home and find that the yoghurt or lemonade you bought is long expired; and what it takes to make your way all the distance back to lodge a complaint or seek a refund.
When marital bliss is marred by the suddenly putrid taste of disintegrating yoghurt or unviable lemonade, there is no refund.
I cannot pay back the emotional, psychological, mental, physical and spiritual currency she has surrendered to my soul from the very depth of hers. I cannot dissemble the unspeakable intimacy that made us one flesh and release her, not just like that.
Two things will happen at that point of her awakening: either she will opt out of the marriage, and go away hurting and trying to recover for the rest of her life; or stay and implode.
By ‘implode’ I mean that she will retreat, sit on all her bitterness and carry on as though all is well; but without her soul being in it.
Then we have a marriage without a marriage.
QUESTION
The one question that is commonly asked is, ‘How will I know the right one to marry?’
Today, we necessarily need examine an even more critical one: ‘How best can I package myself to make me the right one?’
We all know the difference between buying and taking home brand new goods and secondhand commodities.
Used vehicles come with inbuilt disadvantages that unused ones do not have.
The spent lover comes into the marriage with a pile of difficulties that the brand new and unused lover must unfairly wrestle with—normally without finding rest.
If I am going to find the right woman, I must ensure first of all I meet the requirements of the right man.
Bible language goes beyond that, if we understand Proverbs 18:22, therefore we should rephrase that and say: if I am going to find the right wife, I must ensure first of all I meet the requirements of the right husband.
The point scripture makes is that a man who finds a wife (not a woman) finds a good thing and receives favour from the Lord above.
How should I package myself?
Here are a few critical tips which are critical imperatives: firstly, abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22).
That will happen if I am able to even recognize the appearances of evil, even when it is so popular that my peers are daily spending money and effort on pursuing it.
Evil by nature is always highly attractive and appealing because it comes to us with great beauty—that in fact defines temptation—but it stings like a serpent in the end.
Abstain from those things that society abhors; those works that use and abuse you and others; those acts that reduce you and reduce others; those ways that cripple your sense of judgment.
Someone will argue; no one is perfect and those are high-sounding ideals.
Let us ask ourselves: where is the advantage then; is it in choosing to lie down in the mud and wallow in it because it is yet a long way to the stream where we will have a nice bathe?
Those lovers who opt to have it easy today, who despise high-sounding ideals because after all no one is perfect, who choose to enjoy rolling in the mud now because that is a cheaper alternative, will act unfairly tomorrow.
They will realize that even in their worn and torn state, they themselves cannot opt for a worn and torn life companion.
Therefore, they will unfairly fight tooth and nail to marry the one who abstained from every appearance of evil when they themselves had embraced that evil day and night for years on end.
We can simplify that further.
From all considerations, it is unjust and unfair that a male or female prostitute should marry a person who has been chaste all along.
Here is why that marriage is unfair; and why you must take serious care to package yourself fittingly for your spouse-to-be.
MENTALITY
My professional sojourn has brought me face-to-face with the mentality of male and female prostitutes.
This is a group that has been exposed to horrendous experiences with the opposite (and sometimes the same) sex.
The individual in this line of life has been injured emotionally, psychologically and spiritually because of abusing other people’s innermost passions, and seeing and handling many people’s sacred inner sexuality.
This injury of the psyche is far more pronounced among female prostitutes whom I have spoken to one-on-one.
Mind you, these male and female prostitutes do not have to be commercial.
Even the commercial ones do not have to line up publicly on roadsides.
The finer definitions far exceed the more obvious ones because not all prostitutes are even known to be prostitutes.
Such prospective husbands and wives come to the church altar with inner cargo which has been ignored or minimized, wished away in the thinking that it will all work out fine.
Let us add that male and female prostitutes do not have to be physical with anyone else; some masturbate with the help of porn and thus engage in spectrophilia—sex with ghosts or spiritual wives or husbands.
By the time the wedding happens and married life begins, you have two athletes taking off into the 500-metre steeplechase from two vastly different positions.
One has done ten laps already; been in and out of love affairs, bed sheets or forest shrubs with all kinds of people.
The other does not even know what one lap feels like.
Only that, as we said at the beginning, instead of excusing himself or herself, the spent soldier decides to stay and enjoy a ‘second helping’ of the pie.
All these are the risks of the anti-abstention mentality.
You become an injured soul unjustly wedding and welding yourself to a healthy and innocent soul if you make no sincere and genuine confession as to where you are coming from.
Instead of being driven by fear and a desire to deceive your way into marital bliss, tell the truth: some spouses will do all they can to help you deal with all that inner cargo.
Inner cargo is not only sexual.
Some husbands and wives have built financial fortunes out of crookery; disadvantaging and depriving people of their monies through slippery business transactions and the lot.
Some husbands, some wives have married into families of sangomas, witches, Satan worshippers, cannibals, murderers, criminals, swindlers, conmen and women, plus.
At times even the man or woman is unaware of the truth of their family tree—but then truth always surfaces where least expected.
If you plan to marry, carry out strenuous stocktaking.
Come to terms with what and who you are.
Where the windscreen is shattered; where the shock absorbers are finished; where the fender and bumper are mangled; where the tyres are finished; where the spark plugs are not responding anymore or the unseen crankshaft is cracked, seek meaningful help.
There is absolutely no need to compound a felony by quietly lumping and heaping it on the shoulders of a blissful, loving spouse. That is the same as murder.
There are those things you can ‘hang back’ from doing. So ‘hang back’.
To do so, in road traffic parlance, is to choose to leave ample space between your vehicle and the one in front of you.
If you can afford to ‘hang back,’ you will survive should that other vehicle suddenly brake, or ram into the one ahead of it.
‘Hang back’ from fleshly excitements and let your peers drive on.
Should you decide to cruise on at bumper-to-bumper speed, overtaking eight truck-and-trailer vehicles at a go, you may never be able to come out of the next traffic pile-up alive.
You may never have the space to even think of packaging yourself fittingly for him or her.
But what if the past is all ruins and debris?
And what if both of us are wrecks and we are failing to govern ourselves and therefore harming our relationship?
This is where faith makes all the difference.
Jesus Christ calls you personally. He said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
We labour in marriage because we are heavy laden; overloaded with all that inner cargo which we have hidden from one another.
We need to come to a place of awakening so that God may forgive us all of our sins, and bring us to a place where we can forgive one another and start afresh.
Then he will give us rest.
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