THE T'S, THE X'S AND THE FIGURE 8'S

The Burdens of men and women, "removing the accumulated disappointments"

• Isaiah 54:11: “ Oh thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundation with sapphires. “

• Despite my rambunctious sexual history of youth, I actually wish I had never had sex.

  How’s that for a startling statement, in our sex-drowned culture of 2026??

• My generation of the Boomers was sold a formidable bill of goods that greatly damaged and destroyed innocence and honor between male and female.

  Yes, I know about passion being untrammeled and uncontained...and the sex is ABYSMAL. Not just bad...ABYSMAL. The two orgies I attended in youth were pitiful, not exciting...and someone always got stomped (usually someone shy). Over a decade, I had sex with fifty different people..not good, none of them. This is not a “diss” of any of these people...this is a diss of myself for trying to mitigate the battles between men and women, myself! “STOOPID”, in the vernacular. Men are different, they carry different burdens. Woman are different, they also carry different burdens. Men and women are supposed to help one another.

• How in the world has the human race survived all these thousands of years?? There are battles from all directions, especially between the two tribes of all of us, men and women.

  I never formally married...spooked by the 50% divorce rate and less than stellar experiences I had. Parent’s marriage failed, everyone I knew, failed in marriage. More, promiscuity and fornication are neither merry nor remotely better. It remains a marketing machine, a pornography and $$$ making behemoth that tramples human beings, a hunger that is never filled. My dear friends of youth were ensnared in that hungry pursuit and so was I. They are almost all dead and I am still here, by the mercy of God.

  I sat in a room filled with marriage and family this last weekend, including Saturday night, Jan.10, 2026, and Sunday morning, Jan. 11, 2026, a blended group of a handful of churches, gathered for an annual praise and worship event.

  Where did I sit? Square in the back row.

  Husbands, wives, little persons, the fruit of male plus female union...little ones receiving many mom and dad hugs and honorable structure...and this was the same for the followup Sunday morning service.

  Me, still the Elder loner.

  Is it easy to shift the “stuck-stubborn-hurt before- I’m not revealing my heart to a man ever again” theme?

  Nope, not remotely. Quite honestly, I don’t want to.

  No, I’m not an “ incel”. My celibacy is not “involuntary”, it is absolutely chosen...by myself, as a guard over my heart.

  Quite frankly, despite all the heated discussions and the obvious desperate need for healing between men and women, or detente at least...I resist thinking I could bond again with a man. It is too much blasted work. Since I am too old to bear a child, there is THAT point, one that brings a sad remembrance of the two abortions I had back in 1973, after Roe passed. A worse time of chaos, there never was and I was square in the middle of it. To some degree, I have not fully recovered from that chaos, why I remain a loner and hence my writings of warning.

  At this point of Elder age of 73, the idea of sharing a bed with a man again...I don’t think I could do it, even covered under the covenant of marriage.

  Even when I was bonded to one dear man for many years ( before I returned to God, from my years as a Prodigal), we had separate bedrooms. We were both loners who needed space, not “possession.” We had no children.

  As a writer, my bed is already full...of books and papers, writing ideas and research... Having another body so close...NO WAY, my domain would be invaded. I need solitude, I need quiet, I need to be alone.

  Here I was at this wonderful event, amidst a sea of figure 8’s...the honorable bonding of male plus female. Life charges into being, little persons enter, take over your life and heart. The phrase of “ T and X and 8’s” was totally from Holy Spirit, as I scribbled notes at the start of the worship music. The sharp “T” shape of men and the more rounded “X” shape of women, when aligned, are a marvel of God’s plan, one I failed at.

• Petrifying to me, little persons parking within me, taking over me...scariest thing ever and a reminder of my failure. My own Mom prayed for a daughter after two sons, and she so graciously gave me passage into this world and bless her for doing that in her 39th year...despite Dad being LESS THAN PLEASED to be advised that one of his sperm had met one of Mom’s eggs and WEW was blasted into form.

The blows I suffered so deeply in my early teens with the sudden death of Mom in 1966 (stroke) and one brother in 1968 (Vietnam), created so much confusion, sadness, rebellion, sexual wandering and utter chaos. I don’t emotionally know at all know how I can be fully repaired. I struggle deeply with this, even as an Elder. You’d think I would sign a peace-pact...but NOOO...not WEW...

• Too old to be a mom, too prickly to be a submissive wife, who would want me, a legitimate question! Should I live in a cave? On an island? In a tree house?? My own planet???

  Why does Papa God whisper in my ear about the future?? God, isn’t my only future serving You and Your Son here on earth through my writing gift, advocating for the brokenhearted, and then in HEAVEN with an assignment with the Lord Jesus?? I’m not marriage material!! Good grief, I’m 73, who wants an Elder, a recovering cynic??? Damaged, broken!!

  Perhaps my arguments are simply my combative nature...as I am, to some degree, sorrowfully, my earthly Father’s daughter. Defensive mode, tackle mode...I’m too good at it, as he was, as well.

  My dad was wired similarly, prickly, argumentative...really did not want domestic wife and kids. I think he may have been a sex addict. He eventually told me about his first wife, unknown to me until I was out of his house. First wife he met in his youth in San Francisco, he was obviously compatible with her. “ So much mayhem in bed” was his blunt description to me of himself and his first wife. Alas for dad, the Great Depression of the 1930s hit, he could not find work, he had to move far north to podunk and work on the railroad...and wife did not want to live in podunk...so they sadly divorced. In fact, Dad cheerfully once told me that he was not fully certain his divorce went all the way through, and “you could be illegitimate!” Thanks, Dad! Dad later met Mom, who was not sexually compatible and things later fell to shreds. I did not have a stable template to follow.

  I have too rowdy and unhappy a history with men. I still love men, still profoundly respect the difficult work men do, their sacrifices, their courage, their boldness and their caring for others. I am attracted to men.

  Women bear children and have massive contributions to humanity..the figure 8 is a needed balance, even if I failed at it.

  I remain celibate and happy with my bed of books.

  Why am I stirring this terrifying, blasted pot after age 73?

  Well...Holy Spirit DOES indeed give me the theme and title each week, including my puzzlement as I sat in the back row of the worship evening with pen in hand, paper on lap, hearing “ Ts and Xs and 8s” and wondered “ NOW what’s He up to??”

  Dunno...even if I run at top speed...I cannot escape God...and indeed, I received a gold- embossed invite in the heavenly mail with more WEW assignments, I guess I’m not yet done. I guess this is part of the Refiner’s Fire...as God works to clean out the dross of my life and cleanse and refine me to more like His dear Son. I guess also that dross includes regret, lingering grief and sorrow, shame, embarrassment, self-condemnation, among others.

  Ever try to outrun God?? He started this whisper...and for now, I simply listen and pray like a maniac.

  My message this week: ask for HELP daily and hold fast to God! Please do understand I am not advocating for celibacy for the married, but simply sharing my visceral life history, what I myself have gone through. This was a very difficult piece to write and to share! I do not know what God is cooking up for me in my Elder years...but from my “flopping on the couch with Papa” nightly since December of 2017, meeting Him with a notebook and pen, listening or crying out to Him and writing down our conversations, the fellowship and relationship is GROWING...deeper and more profound than I ever thought possible. Maybe there’s hope for this curmudgeon...and I assure you, I’m a good one, very well-practiced! God is also the Master of healing broken hearts…

  Most important decision of your life, besides repenting of sin and asking Jesus Christ into your heart, is to pick a Godly marriage partner, the figure 8 of husband for women, wife for men. Not an easy process...but it can be done, in a partnership with God.

  At the end of this conference I attended, at the Sunday morning portion, a wonderful speaker shared a phrase that held my heart: “removing accumulated disappointments”. That phrase stopped me cold in my tracks.. and hence my tiny spark of hope...

  Wendy Elizabeth Williams Friday, January 16, 2026

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