Single Again

I’m single again.

And surprisingly, it feels pretty damn good.

The deep longing of my heart is to one day be married. I feel that God designed me for and intends for me to be married. And there are many aspects of dating and relationships that I enjoy. Yet, I have a strong sense that I am exactly where I need to be right now.

I was reading “Let Me Be a Woman,” by Elisabeth Elliot last night, and she wrote in the book, “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.” I get frustrated with people who exhort, “Be content in your singleness.” God put a desire on my heart to be married, and I see clear evidence of Him preparing me for a marriage relationship. God wants us to long for what he intends for us and not be merely “content.” But He also wants us to live today. This is the place I am in right now. I long for marriage, but singleness is God’s path for me today, and I will live to the fullest in that.

I have a friend who is involved with Celebrate Recovery, a Christian-based addictions recovery program that is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. She reminded me yesterday to take life one day at a time. And she is right. I get overwhelmed at times thinking about the future. At times, I feel overwhelmed by the prospect of meeting, dating, and marrying my future husband. But God dispenses His grace one day at a time. He gives me exactly what I need for today. And thankfully, this enables me to rely on Him every single day. So today, I trust that I am where I need to be. Single.

The past few weeks, I had been feeling increasingly unsettled with the guy I was dating. I hate to admit it, but I knew he was not right for me, yet I was reluctant to cut it off because I liked his personality. And I did not really want to be alone. I have a great support network of friends, but I enjoy the particular feeling of companionship in a dating relationship. I like having someone to talk to before going to bed. I like knowing someone is thinking about me during the day.

I have been feeling insecure, as well, the past few weeks, much more so than is usual for me. Like anyone, I have some insecurity, but for the most part I am pretty confident and well-adjusted. Now that the relationship is over, suddenly, my confidence is back. When I opened up to my ex about how I was feeling (while we were still dating), he told me that my insecurities were coming from inside me, he denied any part in it, and his words led me to doubt myself. Now that I am out of the relationship, I see that it wasn’t that anything is wrong with me, he just wasn’t right for me. And perhaps, as well, I was reacting to his emotional unavailability.

In my Bible study group today, we discussed Philippians 1 and the importance of fellowship. One of the benefits of having true friends who love us (more specifically in the context of the passage, Christian friends), is that they desire to see us grow and be happier and healthier. If our true friends give us criticism or negative feedback, we can trust that they are saying it out of love because they truly want the best for us.

One of my weaknesses is that in dating relationships, when the guy gives me negative feedback, I want to believe that he is saying it in a loving way because he truly desires that I be a more Godly and better person. However, I think in reality, a lot of times guys say things to me out of their own insecurities and weaknesses. Perhaps they are projecting some of their own insecurities, but whatever the reason, the negative feedback is not said out of a sincere heart. Unfortunately, I have a hard time discerning when this is the case, and I take their comments seriously, which in the case of this most recent relationship, made me question myself and feel some insecurity.

As my pastor David* said, “Don’t date guys in the gym. They are screwed up.”

No, that’s not the quote I meant, although he said that, as well. He also said, “Don’t fall in love with the icing, which consists of personality and physical attraction. We need the cake, the substance, to fill us up. The icing is delicious, but when we eat only the icing, we will end up with a headache.”

If I am really honest with myself, my most recent ex was icing. And I ended up with a headache.

Now that the sugar crash has cleared, I am looking forward to working on myself and becoming more emotionally and spiritually healthy. I am also excited to have the opportunity to look for a man of substance, a man whose heart belongs to God.

One of the best books I have read is “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,” by Peter Scazzero. He avers that spiritual and emotional maturity co-occur. (Side note: My recent ex-boyfriend was not at all spiritually mature, hence, he cannot truly be emotionally mature, either. It is not my intent to be critical of him, as he has many great qualities. But I admit that I conveniently overlooked the spiritual issue because I was attracted to him, and I wanted to date him because he was tasty icing. However, I probably should have known better.) In Scazzero’s book, he has one of the most informative charts I have seen that lists the characteristics of an emotionally healthy person. You can view this chart here. Jesus functioned at 100. He was both perfectly confident and perfectly humble.

For now, I will work on my relationship with God first and foremost. I am also seeing a counselor who can help me grow emotionally and psychologically. Beyond that, it is my aim (with God’s help) to put my trust in God when it comes to relationships. I desire to follow His will for me and not to date someone just because he pursues me or seems attractive. I want to look for the substance, the heart, the cake. I wish to fully and intentionally rely on God to provide what I need, particularly in the arena of dating relationships.

While I do wish to be in a relationship that is headed towards marriage, I am not going to go out and specifically seek to date. Rather, I wish to follow God’s direction. For now, at least, I am discarding my old List of qualities and characteristics to look for in mate, and I am going with my friend Emily’s* list, which I have written about previously.

1. He loves God more than he loves me.
2. He supports my ministry by encouraging me and praying for me.
3. He truly understands God’s grace, and is thus able to love the Lord and be forgiving.
4. He fights for me and for our relationship.

Today, I am very thankful for friends who are praying for me and encouraging me. I am thankful for the amazing people that surround me daily. I am thankful for the healing that God has brought into my life. I am thankful that my happiness, joy, peace, and hope comes always and only from Jesus Christ. I thankful that I feel confident in my identity in Christ.

*Names have been changed.

Sadness

Over the last few days, I have been struck with sudden lightning storms of sadness, of sorrow, unexpectedly and more frequently than usual. At those times, my emotions are close to the surface and I feel like crying. Yet, my life is going amazingly well right now. I feel a sense of joy, peace, and contentment in my heart and spirit that has been very elusive throughout my life, particularly until I became a Christian several years ago.

My spiritual walk is progressing well. I feel very close to God, and my time spent praying and reading the Bible has been rich. I have been gaining a lot of insight and wisdom through people, books, and meditation, which has led to a deeper understanding of God’s love and His faithfulness.

Physically, I have been blessed with health and fortitude. My workouts have been rewarding, and I am getting stronger. I have managed to avoid getting the cold or flu thus far this winter. I am eating healthy, and I feel energetic and happy with my body (at least, as much as is possible for a woman).

I am growing psychologically, and I feel emotionally healthy. I have been self-confident and goal-oriented. And I am, as always, striving for personal growth and increased maturity.

Relationally, I have been so blessed. My friendships are deepening, and my relationship with my mom is happy.

I am so thankful that God has placed so many blessings in my life. And while I do not wish to feel a sense of entitlement to these blessings, I do want to appreciate and enjoy the sweet spot in which God has me.

So why, when I feel happier and more content that I have felt in a long time, do I feel emotional and sensitive? In part, I think it is because on a subconscious level, I don’t really believe that I deserve to be happy or that I deserve good things in my life. I have struggled with depression for most of my life, and particularly before I became a Christian, so just feeling normal was rare. And now that I feel such joy, I do not know how to sit with it and just be.

Additionally, most strong emotions that I have experienced in my life have been sad and lonely ones. So now, when I feel strong positive emotion, my heart does not know how to respond to it. At times lately, I feel overwhelmed with thankfulness and joyfulness, to the point where my eyes well up with tears.

1 Peter 1:7-9

These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Thankfulness

When I stop to think about it, I find it astounding that the Word of God, everything we need to know, is written in a book that is so easily accessible (at least in the United States) and so compact. Of the Bibles I own, my favorite copy fits easily in my purse. Yet despite its diminutive size, it teaches me something new every time I open it. God’s Word brings me comfort and peace, security and wisdom.

In recent months, I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s grace, particularly with regards to my thoughts and behaviors - my performance. Intellectually, I know that nothing I do or don’t do can make God love me any more. And nothing I do can make Him love me any less. Yet I am human, and a perfectionist, and at times I feel discouraged that I am not doing enough, or I am not doing the right things. At times I worry that I am not living the life that God wants me to live. I feel like I fall so short of what He wants for me.

At these times, I have found that I am most encouraged by meditating not on what I think God wants me to do for Him, but what God has done for me. In an eternal sense, He has given me new life and salvation, the promise of restoration and everlasting life with Him. In a temporal sense, He has filled the sense of emptiness I felt for much of my life. He has given me faith, hope, love, ministry, friends, and He has built my character.

Today, on Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for His promises to me. What follows are a few of my favorite verses and the blessings I have as a daughter of Christ.

1. I am thankful for the grace of God, His forgiveness, and my adoption as His daughter.

Ephesians 1:4-8 - For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

2. I am thankful that God delights in me, that He loves me.

Zephaniah 3:17 - The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

3. I am thankful for hope.

Romans 5: 1-5 - Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

4. I am thankful that God wants us to have the desires of our hearts.

Psalm 37:4 - Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5. I am thankful that I do not need to worry or be anxious, because God is in control.

Philippians 4:6 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

6. I am thankful for the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23a - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

7. I am thankful that God sent his only son to live the life I should have lived, to die the death I deserve to die, so that I have eternal life.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Friendship

A couple of weeks ago, an old friend whom I‘ll call Susie, actually the sister of a friend with whom I keep in touch a few times a year, called me out of the blue just to chat. Susie has been having a bit of a rough time lately, feeling anxious and discouraged, and she hoped it would help to talk to me.

A couple of weeks before she called, I had been talking to my therapist about loneliness. The impending holidays, combined with some personal struggles, have brought on a sense of alienation and isolation. Naturally, my therapist encouraged me to reach out to others. She advised me to call my closest friends at the times when I feel sad and withdrawn.

While her counsel makes sense rationally, it is difficult for me to reach out to others. I do not want to bother or burden my friends with my struggles. I want to appear as though I have it all together. I do not mind talking about past struggles, but when it comes to current trials, I try to deal with them on my own.

God must have a sense of irony, because just when I thought, “I’ll deal with these feelings by myself,” Susie called asking for a friend to help her talk through her struggles. And did I think she was bothering me, as I would have felt if I had been the call-ee? Not in the slightest. I felt honored that she would open up to me; I felt great respect that she could ask for a friend when in need. I admire her for seeking to grow by reaching out to others. As it turns out, we have much in common, and I felt cared for by her, as we could relate on many issues.

I discussed with her my reluctance to reach out to others, and as it turns out, Susie has the same fears. She contacted me because she was at a point of desperation, but she iterated how difficult it is to call friends when she is struggling. She recounted friends who seem to drain her emotional energy, and she does not want to become one of those people. Of course, if she is worried about being a selfish friend in the first place, she has nothing to worry about. This phenomenon is similar to the admonition that you only have to fret about being insane if you think you are perfectly sane.

When God provides people in our lives, why do we keep to ourselves? Why do we, as women, feel guilty for sharing our burdens with others? How can we reach out to each other more? How can I better care for myself and my friends? Why do we feel so alone at times, while we often share the same struggles?

I am thankful for the women in my life, and for seemingly arbitrary kinship, though it was in God’s plan all along.

What Would Jesus Buy?

This may come as news to some, but the holidays are not just about buying crap. In fact, they do not have to be about buying anything.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and while many are planning their meals, buying their turkeys and tofurkeys, cleaning their houses for guests, and dreading the re-emergence of family dynamics and old grievances, I have been pontificating on what it means to be thankful. You may argue, not entirely erroneously, that Thanksgiving is really about some pilgrims and a big rock. But according to Wikipedia, the ultimate source for reliable and well-researched information, before Thanksgiving was a secular holiday, it was originally meant as a special occasion on which to give thanks to God.

I have heard virtually nothing in popular media about thankfulness as we approach the feast day. However, much as I try to avoid popular media, I have been bombarded by references to Black Friday. Does the name sound ominous to you? I cringe every time I hear the term.

Somehow in our society, we have managed to turn two major holidays (originally meant as occasions on which to thank God and celebrate Him) and the entire interceding month into a consumeristic nightmare. Why is our society so eager to numb out on shopping malls, super marts, and discount stores? Does it seem strange to you that talking about God in popular media is mildly taboo, yet it is perfectly acceptable to convince the masses that happiness is found in a clearance sale?

Does anyone remember that Thanksgiving is about being thankful for the blessings in our lives, and that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, the almighty God born on Earth as a living, breathing infant, poor and homeless?

Personally, I have protested consumerism for years, particularly around the holidays. As a result, my stress levels are at an all-time low, and I am more able to focus on the aspects of the holidays that are important to me. Lately, I have been focused on what I should be doing or not doing, but now is the time to focus on what God has done for me.

The day after Thanksgiving is affectionately known by many as Buy Nothing Day. Participate by not participating. And consider what Thanksgiving and the ensuing days mean to you.