I was thinking about how hard it is to wait for the right person, in regards to marriage today, and I just happened or was it Providence, to read this,

   "She stood beside her window dreaming again of the home she would build when her Knight should stand before her revealed in beauty no words could describe.  The moon was shining now in solemn glory on the white-shrouded Square.  Temptation had only strengthened the fiber of her soul.  She knelt in the moonlight beside her couch and prayed that God should ever keep her faith serene.  She rose with a sense of peace and joy.  God would hear and answer the cry of her heart.  The City might be the Desert -- it was still God's world and not a sparrow that twittered in those bare trees or chattered on her window ledge in the morning could fall to the ground without His knowledge.  God had put this deathless passion in her heart;  He could not deny it expression.  She could bide His time.  If the day of her deliverance were near, it was good.  If God should choose to try her faith in loneliness and tears, it was His way to make the revelation of glory the more dazzling when it came.

     She drew the covering about {herself} with the firm faith that her hour was close at hand, and fell asleep to dream of her Knight."  

from "The Foolish Virgin," by Thomas Dixon 1915 pg. 31-32 chapter II "Temptation"  

She sounds pretty selfish, like she's going to sit and do nothing until God gives her what she wants. Maybe God is waiting until she can prove that she's willing to do whatever He wants.

I didn't get that impression from the book, but maybe you know more about it, than I do.  

Quote from: Marcelino

Quote from: MaterDominici

She sounds pretty selfish, like she's going to sit and do nothing until God gives her what she wants. Maybe God is waiting until she can prove that she's willing to do whatever He wants.

I didn't get that impression from the book, but maybe you know more about it, than I do.  

No, all I have is the quote. Perhaps she redeems herself in other passages. : )

Yeah, I guess it could come off that way.   I think she's supposed to be waiting for the right man and not just taking the first man who comes along.  And she's not able to mingle so much with others, because the life in the city is very "sophisticated" as in, they fornicate and think little of it.  So, she feels kind of trapped/isolated, but she keeps trying to remind herself that there are men out there with her values and in her class, that will want to marry her.  So, her struggle seems to be about doubting that and her faith in God seems to be the only thing that's keeping her from joining the other girls in the dating scene, that she knows will likely lead to mortal sin and tragedy.  

By the way, she tries to connect with her church community, which was quite conservative, but has become liberal minded, in regards to women.  So, there she is, almost 100 years ago, sort of caught in that storm or bind, that so many folks find themselves in today.  Maybe there's a way out of that, but I don't think it's as obvious to most people as it might be to "cradle trads"