Singleness: Full of Woe or Full of Worship by Calley Sivils

Valentine’s Day 2020 will be my 11th without a significant other.

And that’s okay. But I wanted to share some of my processing in order to encourage others walking through a similar season.

Only our Lord, of course, can know intimately the nuances of your particular experiences with singleness.

Perhaps you have always been single.

Perhaps you have had a recent breakup and this is your first Valentine’s without a dating relationship in a while.

Perhaps you’re unexpectedly single after the loss of your spouse and the waves of grief seem particularly strong at this time of year.

Perhaps you’re like me and your last relationship was before you were a believer and you’ve only met with heartbreak since, even from men who claim to love Jesus but don’t handle the stewardship of their sisters’ hearts well.

Whatever your story, I want to begin with reminding you that the Lord is not only near but dwells in you. He walks through your life with you; He is the Sustainer in both the valleys and the mountaintops.

The world around us is gearing up to celebrate erotic and romantic love in ostentatious fashion: candy and cards and candlelit dinners will abound. You wonder if that will ever be your story too.

But as these waves of loneliness and grief and unfairness wash over you and the encouragements from your married friends that say “be content” start to sound like razor blades, I’d like to whisper that it isn’t about you.

Maybe you avoid any thought of romance altogether or maybe you secretly indulge fantasies of you and someone…anyone. But these tactics have the same root, my sister: they display a fear of the future, a fear of the unknown. The reason for avoidance is to not take up the responsibility to self-regulate your desires and the reason for fantasy is likely because you’re afraid the Lord won’t grant you one of your own.

Oh, my sister, romance and marriage are so so good and so delightfully woven by our Lord. But, again, those relationships aren’t about us.

Culture unfairly piles so much on us, sister, I know. Pornography (and sadly sometimes even Christian culture) hasn’t helped, fueling pride and breeding ‘ideal’ images of the perfect wife, even in Christian men’s heads.

I’m not an Insta-worthy model, even at my best.

My family is too broken, no one will want me.

I’m too smart, and that’s intimidating to men.

We are so prone (I most of all) to make our singleness about us and find any reason we are single except the only true one: the sovereignty of our Good and Gracious Lord.

Here are some key things to remember, my sister, as we go throughout our sojourn here:

1.)   God is Love

Christ was not crucified or raised and He is not coming back for us to view His love as second-best, sisters. We will struggle. We will desire. And those things are okay. But we must always run and confess and lay our needs for love before Him first, who knows how to love us best and the timing of what we need best to be loved at the best time.

2.)   You are not your own

As our world exalts the all-sufficiency of erotic love, part of our walk as single women will be to shine as counter cultural examples: lust is not all powerful nor is its fulfillment all-satisfying. Marriage is not the beginning of love but one of the ways God chooses to whittle away self-love and magnify Himself. Our bodies are bound to the will of the Lord whose body was beaten, nailed to a cross, and is now resurrected for us. And no one else.

3.)   It’s okay

My sister, it’s okay to desire marriage. Do not feel weak. But do not set your heart on it so securely that the absence of it leads you to view God’s love as lesser or any differently. Marriage is a wonderful picture of Christ and His Church but it is also only one avenue God can use to make you more dependent on Him.

Sister, He is so good. Rest. There is nothing you can do to force a spouse to come into your life and there is nothing you can do to convince the Lord you’re ready or earn a spouse from His Hand.

If it is to be given, you can be assured it will be at the good and better time.

If it is not to be given, you can be assured your life will be good and better all the same.

But we cannot know, my sister, or somehow search out His plans for our lives apart from His glory. We can only worship now as we will forever.

I will end with this thought, which was of much encouragement to me:

“Because the Lord is Sovereign, I have been single 10 years. Because the Lord is sweet, I need not worry or fret over the next 10 even if I end them the same!”

Happy Valentine’s Day!