Mermaid Tales

“You’re not worth anything unless you are beautiful.” “You're not beautiful unless someone loves you.” No one has said these words, but every girl has heard them. This is the world I live in- the world I have been single in for twenty-two years. It's a world where the most most beautiful teenagers will sit before me with tears in their eyes because they hate what they see in the mirror. It's a world where the most kind and compassionate girls ask me if anyone will ever want to marry them because they don't dare hope for it. It's a world where athletes and artists and writers and readers wander down cold school hallways, watching the girls who are in relationships and wondering what those girls have that they don't. It's a cruel world. This world measures waist size and breast size and those numbers put a girl on a scale from one to ten. Scales: the demise of the female spirit. Scales, that weigh their value. Scales, that compare their complexi...

When I was little, I thought God’s plan for me was along the lines of marrying the four-year-old I was basically in a committed relationship with, having ten kids, and becoming a missionary that told people all over the known world about Jesus. When I was in highschool, I thought God’s plan for me was along the lines of marrying the attractive boy I had a crush on, having four kids, and becoming a kindergarten teacher or a pastor’s wife (the boy wasn’t planning on becoming a pastor, I was pretty conflicted). When I was in college, I thought God’s plan for me was along the lines of marrying some attractive guy somewhere (since there were absolutely no potential guys in my life), having two kids, and becoming a youth pastor (why depend on the boy if what I really want is to do ministry myself?). Now that I’m a year into my masters in divinity, I think I finally figured something out about God’s plan for my life. God’s plan for my life is to be completely single right now , ...