‘The gift of singleness’

I heard a great sermon once about the ‘gift of marriage’; this is a gift that I have not yet been blessed with. The same sermon also referred to the ‘gift of a period of singleness’: this I have received, but struggle with daily.

As a person who has spent ten years in consecutive ungodly long term relationships, I realize that I was better off alone than in any of those negative situations. At that time, my faith was ‘on the back burner’ and I was not walking in the will of the Father. As a result of my own insecurities and messed up priorities, I found it impossible to be alone. I went through various forms of abusive and emotionally draining relationships rather than be on my own. Since re-committing my life to God, not only have I been single but I haven’t had the remotest opportunity of a potential companion. I prayed that God would keep the ‘wrong’ men away from me and he has. I have to admit, the option of being able to turn away the ‘wrong’ men may have at least made me feel attractive but I’m sure God doesn’t see it that way.

I have had a wonderful year of reassessing my priorities and rediscovering my faith. God has given me a new start, new job, new skills, new career, new home. He has given me security in Him without the dependence on another person. In this time, he has worked on healing the numerous open wounds left by my own stupid choices of relationships. He has gradually made me feel worthwhile and important in my own right without the need to be half of a couple. He has built up my confidence, made me aware of my gifts and facilitated their use as part of His plan. I am a different person to who I was a year ago. For that, along with everything else that God has done that I don’t deserve, I am eternally grateful and in awe. However, walking home alone on a festival day really highlights my loneliness. I am aware of God with me but I do look around me at all the couples and families and sometimes wonder if it will ever happen to me. I am thirty now and my biological clock is ticking more loudly every day.

I am very influenced by music. God particularly speaks to me through this medium and I find myself relating to emotions expressed in lyrics. In this vein, lyrics in Bebo Norman’s ‘Perhaps she’ll wait for me’ comfort me. He describes this song as being about trying to live in the present but dreaming of a future where he may be given the gift of falling in love. He is now blessed with a beautiful wife who has just had his first child and I am thrilled for him and encouraged by this.

Some more of Bebo’s lyrics are “It’s funny how it hurts me, the love I’ve never had��?. I think that encapsulates the way I feel. After years of ‘serious’ relationships and one engagement, I realise now that I have never actually been in love. I have never felt the connection that I should have with a partner and so many people in this fallen world never do. The reason for that is that God was not in any of my previous relationships. These situations were wrong and sinful and were not part of God’s plan for me. With scales removed from my eyes and a different perspective on everything, I am aware that it’s no wonder there’s such a low marriage rate and high divorce rate. We are made to be living in God’s destiny and will, if we go against this, it will not result in happiness.

My requirements of a potential husband have changed in the light of God in my life. My church group leader spontaneously began praying for me one day. She prayed that God would bless me with a ‘man of light, in whom there is no darkness’. I thought this was beautiful and realised that rather than hoping that the attractive men of darkness I knew would get a glimpse of light, I have made a conscious decision that I will wait for my ‘man of light’. My requirements in a potential husband are now very different to previously. He would have to be a man living in God’s will and direction, someone I could respect and trust and who I was sure God had chosen for me. I have also come to the realisation that, as an independent woman, I have to be prepared to submit to my husband and give him his place of head of the household as God would wish. This would have been a problem for me in years gone by. Not anymore. God has dealt with my anger and cynicism I had about men, brought on by my own bad choices. Not only that but also that when I meet the man that God has prepared for me, I know that he will be deserving of my respect and will be prepared to love me as God directs husbands to love their wives.

I don’t believe that God has wants us to be alone, I believe that there is someone for everyone. God has planned all our futures before time began and I don’t expect to spend my life alone but if this is what God decides for me for whatever reason then I should be strong enough in my faith to deal with this. This is what my period of singleness is showing me. It’s not easy being alone in this life but I will wait for the man that is God’s choice and look forward to that. I will make the most of this time with God and pray that he uses it to make me into a woman of God that would be a wonderful find for the lucky man that He is preparing me for.

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