J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian
From Devout Atheist to Skeptical Pastor: A Blog For Busted-Up, Beat-Down People (Like Me)
Anonymous asked a question:
How do I find Christian love at 27? I find that so old to start afresh…
Hey dear friend, first I’d like to point you here:
– 7 Thoughts on Singleness: Is Something Wrong with Me?
I know that being single when you don’t want to be is painful. There’s no way around it. I also believe that singleness is a perfectly legitimate life-choice, and that it can be a gift in itself.
Continue reading “I’m Too Old to Find Love: How Do I Start?”
Anonymous asked a question:
What are the top 3 things you love about your wife ?
There are a ton of things I love about my wife. Even if she didn’t have the following “traits,” I would still love her. These are not necessarily a top three, but an “at least three.”
Look, a romantic wishlist is a nice thought, but it’s also creepy and unfair. It’s setting up an impossible monstrosity of expectations and you’ll be disappointed for no other reason than you played yourself.
I don’t mean lowering your standards. I mean setting real ones, for actual people who exist. For people who are just people and not a customized Frankenstein creature.
The person you’ll end up with is going to be their own personwith their own hopes, dreams, goals, anxieties, and weird little habits. They’re not a checklist trophy that will meet your every size or quota.
They’re going to be way different and in fact way more interesting than the stitched up hologram made from half-baked movie cliches and choir-preaching memes.
Relationships are about compromise. Not compromising yourself, no. But about two weird people making it work. It’s a wild mix of chemistry, compatibility, non-negotiables, history and trauma, highs and lows, disagreements and pushback and feedback, augmenting goals, and lifelong change.
“Get you a guy/girl who” only works if you see yourself as a main character-savior-hero and you see others as a secondary prop to fulfill your romantic comedy narrative. In that case, you have other issues and you can wait.
And waiting in the meantime is a really good time for growth, for self-discovery, and for becoming the kind of person you never knew you were looking for. Singleness, really, isn’t waiting. It’s being.
— J.S.
Photo from Unsplash
Hello wonderful friends! Here’s a seminar that I gave in San Jose, CA about the truths and myths of dating & relationships within both the church-culture & pop-culture. Stream below or download directly here.
Some things I talk about are: “The time I overheard a couple have their final knock-down drag-out fight, my absolutely favorite type of scene in the movies, what everyone really wants in the hospital, dating theology from Taylor Swift, when God looks at you through the ceiling, and Christianity according to a cologne sample.”
I also did a follow-up Q&A which you can stream below or download here.
Be immensely blessed! — J.S.
Photo from my engagement shoot, by Angel He Photography
Marriage can be extremely difficult work. Here are three daily habits which I strive to practice (imperfectly with much stumbling) in marriage. Also, how Christian faith becomes practical in our relationships.
The video is slightly adapted from my viral post “3 Lessons I Learned Instantly In My First Week of Marriage (That I’ll Need For Life)”
This is part of a series of videos called “Where Faith Meets Life,” covering topics like politics, abuse, marriage, and mental illness.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/jsparkblog
Be blessed and love y’all, friends!
— J.S.
gahbeedee asked a question:
hey there, thank you for your blog. i have been going through a breakup the past month (we are both christians) and wondering if you’ve made any posts on this topic.
Hey there dear friend, I’m sorry for all that’s happening, and here are a few things that I hope may be helpful for you.
1) Break-ups are, almost step by step, the same process as grief. It seems silly, but breaking up with someone also means saying goodbye to everything that person was. Their presence, their texts, their smells and laughter and even the annoying way they shake their leg when watching a movie: you’ll be constantly reminded of all these little quirks, and each day, will have to remember and embrace that they’re now gone.
2) Break-ups are pretty hard. In the grand scheme of things, a break-up is a rather normal part of life (I’ll get to that in a second), but I think most grown people are pretty quick to dismiss how hard it really is. You shouldn’t feel silly about how emotional and up-and-down this process is. Some days you’ll be fine, and some days you’ll be crying your eyes out or cussing out the sky.
3) A break-up isn’t the end of the world. There may have been many promises made and a lot of sweeping romantic plans for the future together, but no, a break-up isn’t a world-ending event. They happen. Two people may be perfectly wonderful people, but the timing wasn’t right or they discovered they weren’t compatible, and that’s okay. It’s hard, but you won’t always feel the same splinter of grief like you do now. Break-ups are built into the eventualities of life.
I think “crushing” on someone is a natural thing, and in the right place and the right time, it can lead to something great. Most of the time it’ll pass, as it’s meant to, and we can look back and laugh at the ridiculous amount of time spent mentally replaying the one failed conversation that we still twitch about in the shower. Crushes happen, and they almost never equate to a magical romance materializing out of thin air.
But the darker problem with “crushing” is that it occasionally turns a real live person into a trophy, a sort of non-independent rubber statue imprisoned on a pedestal, and if you ever finally reached it, you’d either squeeze it too hard or please it too much. In both cases, both people lose.
Relationships are hard work, and absolutely require more than the initial illusion of fleeting chemicals in our easily tricked brains. That rush of first feelings is overwhelming, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grander scheme: and we could save ourselves a lot of trouble if we took up Taylor Swift to “count to ten, take it in, this is life before you know who you’re gonna be.“
Here are five types of romanticized crushes that require a heavy dose of self-awareness. I apologize in advance for the snark: I’m only so impassioned here because I’ve seen how badly it can get out of control.
1) Hate Crush (aka Freudian Defense Mechanism)
What it looks like: You like someone, but you hate that you like them, so there’s a lot of passive-aggressive, mean-spirited, hyper-critical gas-lighting aimed their way. This looks cute in movies, but is often awful and humiliating to an actual human being with, you know, their own thoughts and dreams.
Problems: This can be irreversibly destructive if you drag someone long enough through your daily catharsis. I understand the psychology behind this—we resent what we can’t have or we just hate it when we feel so vulnerable with someone—but displacing anger out of confusion when you can’t “have someone” is a really dark, desperate issue that might require real help, immediately.
Continue reading “5 Kinds of Romanticized Crushes That Will Mess You Up”
Here’s an article I wrote that’s been published on X3Church, called:
“3 Lessons I Learned Instantly In My First Week of Marriage.”
It’s about three hugely important lessons I learned early in my marriage that I’ll need for life.
Here’s an excerpt:
Marriage means your stuff isn’t your stuff anymore.
In our first week, we didn’t fly off to the honeymoon, which was another two weeks away. We spent time unpacking, opening wedding gifts, frolicking in our new home, and merging our lives together. About five days in, I wanted to meet up a friend to hang out, one of the groomsmen in the wedding.
I neglected to tell this to my wife. This is one of those very obvious things that I should’ve knew from the get-go, but in my defense, I’m an idiot.
Marriage is about Two-As-One, as We instead of Me. My time was no longer my own. It was our time. Our things. Our bank account. Our bed. Again, this sounds obvious, but I’ve spoken with so many singles and unmarried couples who were dismayed at the idea of splitting a life in half. No one is quite prepared to completely surrender unilateral decisions. We quickly learn why Apostle Paul compared our relationship with God to the marriage union — because we are entrusting our will with another.
The wonderful advantage is that rather than “splitting in half,” it actually feels more like a merging of strength. Our individual abilities can make up for each other’s weaknesses. Our knowledge and our view on life is suddenly augmented with an entirely new angle. By the end of the week, I was figuring out what she would want and why, which helped my tiny brain to open to new avenues I had never considered.
Read the full post here!
— J.S.
Romance is wonderful, but it’s one of the many things that actually points to the Creator of everything, just as a strand of sunlight points back to the author of the sun. The heat of romantic emotion is a window into the Eternal Romance that you were made for.
Before thinking about relationships, we’re designed to have relational intimacy with God. It’s not merely that Adam and Eve “disobeyed” God in the Garden, but they were disconnected from Him too. They severed their true source of love and goodness and glory. Our significance and validation comes from Him. Without this, we’ll merely pursue our latest loudest feelings to accumulate more feelings, which is a bottomless perpetuity that will crush others and crush ourselves. You know what I mean. If you finally land that relationship you so badly wanted, your initial illusions always go out the window, and suddenly this person isn’t fulfilling you like you’d hoped. It hurts that person and hurts you, too.
We must first know ourselves before we get to know anyone else, and our one irrevocable identity is found in Him.
Hello beloved wonderful friends!
This is a seminar I gave on dating and relationships to a wonderful ministry of college students and young adults in Gainesville FL, aka Gator Town.
It’s called The Adventure of Dating and The Reality of Relationships. It’s about the exciting prospect of dating and the gritty, difficult, raw reality of relationships. Stream here or download directly here!
Some of the content is from my new book on relationships called The Christianese Dating Culture.
Be blessed and love y’all!
— J.S.
Singleness doesn’t define your value, ever.
What exactly is “singleness”? I wish we would stop defining things by the absence of something else. Being single doesn’t mean you’re somehow “incomplete” until someone else completes you. Let’s pause to consider that even the idea of singleness is false at its best, and oppression at its worst.
In the first century, Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 7 specifically to address single people. To paraphrase, he said, “If you want to get married, good. If you want to stay single, good, and it could be better.” To you, this might sound ordinary. But at the time, it was a loaded bombshell. This was actually an entirely revolutionary view of sexuality that had been previously unheard of.
During Paul’s life, the Emperor of the Roman Empire was actually charging a fee for the unmarried because it was considered bad for the economy and the family (never mind that Caesar was already bad for both). Being married with a family was considered the gold status of society, and a single person could only have been a widow or prostitute; there was no middle ground.
So Paul comes along, and moved by the Spirit of God, completely wrecked the whole idea of family and marriage and singles. Though marriage is desirable, it’s not a “state of completion,” and we have an entire church of brothers and sisters in Christ who are meant for deep soul-community, for both singles and couples. Paul legitimized singleness as an absolutely acceptable life-choice, but more than that, said it can often be better for carrying out God’s mission on earth (1 Cor. 7:29-35). Paul himself was single, which itself would’ve been quite a scandal.
Everyone has their own idea of the future, and at any moment it can be smashed to pieces. We’re not in as much control of our lives as we tend to think. And the more you plant your hope into something so untenable, so will your soul dry up into a soul that is collapsible.
I am begging you now: If you’re in this place of over-attachment to anything outside of you, please find a healthy way to handle it or just leave. Otherwise you will crush that person, that dream, that future, and you will be crushed by it too. Nothing can be sustained under the weight of your idolatrous expectations, including you. It’ll be worth your time to seek counseling, seek outlets, seek real help — and don’t get addicted to the recovery either. You need to learn to be alone with the silent vacuum of your own thoughts: because when you honestly confront the ugliness inside, you will be liberated from the weight of yourself.
I’m not writing this from a wrapped-up bowtie of a life. I’m still fractured in so many places of the soul; I still feel depression sinking its bony fingers into my sides. But I’ve also found that in the healing, by the grace of God and through wonderful friends, that life is worth living. If you think it hurts right now — healing hurts even more, because you have to get up and move. But I’d rather hurt this way. If life has to be pain, then I’d rather hurt moving forward than sitting down.
everarking asked a question:
Hi pastor Park, what are helpful questions to think about when discerning starting dating /going into relationships?
Hey dear friend, I must first applaud you for taking this seriously. Relationships are no small thing, and for you to even pause to ask questions means you’re ahead of the game.
Please allow me to share this post, which showed up in my first book:
– 6 Ways To Be Ready To Pursue A Relationship
Also, here’s a list of questions that showed up in my book on relationships, which is not an entirely complete list, but could help for a start.
Continue reading “Preparation For Dating and The Long Haul of Marriage”
isaacbeerkowski asked:
Hey dear friend, you’re definitely not alone in this.
There was a time in my own life (high school & college) when I just couldn’t stand to be single. I would go after every new girl in the room. It doesn’t mean I got them; it’s just that I desperately wanted to be in a relationship all the time. Of course, when I got in one, I wanted out. It was a selfish, vicious, stupid cycle that I confess to my own shame.
I’m not saying this is where you’re at. But in psychology, there’s an informal phenomenon called an aspirational crush. It’s sometimes a paranormal relationship. It’s not exactly sexual or even relational, but it’s that thing when you have a crush on every person who makes your stomach flutter. You could call it “girl-crazy.”
There are all sorts of reasons this happens, especially because we live in a culture that’s bombarded by overly sexualized media. The church is just as guilty. There’s a church in New York that has an entire wall of pictures of married couples who met at the church, and while I understand they want to celebrate this, apparently the church is huge on hooking up singles. I can’t imagine what this does to the “less socially acceptable” single people. Overall, I find it a bit tacky and demoralizing.
But ultimately, this comes down to reflecting on what you’re really about.
The two best things I can say are:
Continue reading “I Got Marriage Fever: The Desperate Hunt For A Spouse”
Hello beloved wonderful friends!
This is a seminar I gave on dating and relationships to a wonderful ministry of college students and young adults in Gainesville FL, aka Gator Town.
It’s called The Adventure of Dating and The Reality of Relationships. It’s about the exciting prospect of dating and the gritty, difficult, raw reality of relationships. Stream here or download directly here!
Some of the content is from my new book on relationships called The Christianese Dating Culture.
Some things I talk about are: The romantic theology of Taylor Swift, that time I overheard a girlfriend catching her boyfriend with another woman, two soldiers at war gossiping about the Kardashians, the best Christian pick-up line ever, the gritty raw painful sweaty work of theater actors and ballerinas, the difference between “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Hurt Locker,” three directions that every relationship takes, if my fiancé gained 200 lbs, the scary anxious fear of marriage proposal and possibly hearing “Nope,” and a Q&A Session including the truth about “wives submitting” and how to find “The One.”
Be blessed and love y’all!
— J.S.
Here’s what I’ve learned about choosing the things of God and partaking in His mission.
I’ve noticed that after I disciple a young kid and see his eyes light up from the truth of the Bible, I can’t go back to how I was. It’s too good to give up. After I serve food at the homeless ministry, after I volunteer at a retreat, after I go on a mission trip, after I serve at an orphanage or a prison or the projects — the attraction of sin loses its grip on me.
Because the things of God are so much brighter and bigger and deeper than the things of this world. This is what Thomas Chalmers called the Expulsive Power of a New Affection.
Ever notice that after the gym, you’re too tired to fight anyone? Ever notice that after a healthy meal, you’re much less willing to eat a bag of Cheetos? And whether you “feel like” going to the gym or eating healthy, you choose it anyway: because not only is the alternative bad for you, but it makes the alternative less attractive.
Sometimes people wait to “feel right with God” to go serve Him. You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to be qualified or clean or deserving to serve. Your choices change your heart just as much as your heart changes your choices. What you do comes out of who you are, but who you are also comes out of what you do.
— J.S. from The Christianese Dating Culture
Anonymous asked a question:
I’m 27 years old and I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve only dated once but that didn’t go so well. I’ve prayed and I’ve prayed and I’ve asked God for my significant other but honestly sometimes I feel as if God doesn’t hear me. Which then causes my heart turmoil especially when I see other girls getting married and dating all the time. It just makes me feel like there is something wrong with me or I maybe I’m unworthy of someone else. I just really need some peace in this area or my life.
Hey dear sister, I know this is an especially painful season for you right now, but please allow me the grace to share a few thoughts with you.
1) Singleness is not a season of waiting.
I’ve said this before, but: You’re not waiting for a man. A man is not the focal point of anything. Jesus is the focal point of everything.
A Western culture indoctrinated in romanticism would lead us to believe that “singles” are simply biding their time, waiting for some significant other to save us from the throes of loneliness. And I know that the latest pop song or chick flick or young adult novel has awakened some weird feelings in you, and it would even be nice to have someone.
But relationships are hard work, celibacy is hard work, and life is hard work. There’s really no such thing as waiting for a spouse: your life has launched into being, and there’s work to do. If God is your priority, then a man who comes along who can even catch up to you would be dang lucky to have you.
Continue reading “7 Thoughts On Singleness: Is Something Wrong With Me?”
On the Amazon Christian Kindle List for Devotionals.
My friend Caleb sent this to me. Honored and humbled to be next to the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I also quoted in my book.
My wonderful friend Lauren from the blog Yesdarlingido sent me this to celebrate the book release.
— J.S.
Get the e-book on Amazon here!
And now in paperback here!
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 