the dangers of dating as a single mom (or as a single dad, but you know – I write what I know)

There are so many directions this post could take.

But I’m going to just head in one for today.

Let’s talk about the drought problem.

You know, when you have running water at your house, you don’t think about running water – right?

When everything is as it should be and you take a shower in the morning, do you find yourself very grateful for that water?

Eh. Maybe if you’re a really grateful kind of human – sure.  But likely, you don’t think about it at all.

You don’t praise God for tap water when you fill your coffee pot.  You don’t lift up praise hands when the toilet flushes regularly.

You aren’t tweeting or instagramming (why are these words??) that your water bottle is full and that there are ice cubes coming from your freezer.

Nah.  You just take all that healthy clear water for granted, like we do.

But hey – remember that ice storm that took the power out in South Carolina this past winter?  We didn’t have power for a few days.  Our friends were without power for seven days.

We have well water, so flushing the toilet was not working well.  We have six people living here, so not flushing the toilet was not working well.

You see what I mean?

We were thirsty.  Like – just legitimately thirsty.  We were ill prepared and hadn’t planned ahead and we were thirsty and our bathrooms stank and it was annoying to live a life without access to water.

Annoying.

When the power came back on – we literally cheered.  We ran out and sang our praises to the men from Duke Energy.  We clapped.  We drank long gulps of water and we flushed those toilets with gusto.

It was thrilling.

This is a long analogy, but go with me here.

When a marriage has ended, you wind up wounded.  Injured.  Hurt.  Betrayed.  Scared.  Distrustful.

You are without.  Without love.  Without affection.  Without a warm welcome when you come home from work.  Without a comforting shoulder rub when the day has been long.  Without warm feet when yours are cold in bed at night.  

And it’s not for one day.  Or seven days.

It’s for a good long while.

And, likely, it’s been for a while before that.

So when the water starts to flow again – you’re real thirsty.

See what I mean?

So you might be tempted to rejoice a little more at the sight of water than say, your married friend whose glass is half full and whose spigot is flowing freely.

Don’t think too deeply about the analogy, you guys.  It’s just a word picture.

But you can feel a little like you’ve been dying from lack of water.

You’ve been in a drought.

So a trickle of water – maybe even luke warm water that you’d spit out in other circumstance – might seem pretty tasty at first.

There’s the danger I’m talking about.

We say in our family a lot – hunger is a tasty sauce.

After a long hike, a smooshed banana seems appealing.

After a delicious meal, you’d toss that banana aside.

And after a marriage ends, you can be in a real relational drought.  No one has reached out to hold your hand in months.  Years.  

Whatever it is – it feels like a dry season and affection can feel like a waterfall.

That’s risky.

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