"We
don’t have many accounts in Scripture of how various couples met and married,
but we do have the stories of Rebekah and Ruth to consider. These were women of
godly initiative in the fact that they noticed the needs of others around them
and they worked hard to meet them. When the Lord decided to introduce them to
their future husbands, these two women were serving, not hunting. We can trust
God with our desires, even when we don’t see any activity and we’re not
receiving any answers to our prayers. For this reason, I find great
comfort in two intimate, poignant accounts of how the Lord blessed single women
in the Bible.
We must
never forget that God’s silences are not his rejections.
They are preparation for a greater
revelation of him.
What a
tender, compassionate, and personal God we serve! We have to keep that truth
about his character foremost in our minds as we wait on him. It’s never easy to
do. We will be tested and tempted in that wait. We will also grow in trusting
God with this hope deferred if we do not succumb to bitterness and
unbelief."-`Carolyn McCulley
I used to hate Valentine’s Day. Not just because I was single, but because I always seemed
to have the worst luck on Valentine’s Day.
The first Valentine’s Day I remember getting a gift, was
third grade. That was great…until
I realized he’d given several other girls the same gift. Even in my 3rd grade head, that
did not seem right! It definitely
did not make me feel special and unique to him, but instead like I was just one
of many.
Then there were the many Valentine’s that were just lonely,
because my illness made me isolated.
I felt very left out of Valentine’s all the way around.
The saddest Valentine’s day I can remember was when one of
my friends moved away on Valentine’s, at a time in my life where I only had a
few friends. I’m sure there were
other Valentines that were equally as hard that I can’t remember at this
moment.
When I finally had my first relationship, I thought “this is
the year I’ll have a GREAT Valentine’s Day”….what happened instead is that we
had our first, really terrible fight.
Of the three Valentine’s I had a “Valentine”, two were absolutely
miserable. There are worse things
than being single on Valentine’s, and dating someone and knowing you are with the
wrong person is one of them. Trust me.
Valentine’s Day can be really hard on the single, especially
those of us who feel called to be married. It seems like a reminder that we are single. For me, I doubt my calling and it can
quickly unravel to a crisis of faith if I let it. And yet I remind myself, that I must trust God with this,
and hope that in time, I’ll have some answers to the questions.
I’ve found in recent years, this day doesn’t have to be a
hard day. I’ve been blessed the last two years to spend time with family and
friends over Valentine’s weekend.
Last year I went to a movie—the first movie I’d been to in at least 4
years—with my mom and two friends I grew up with; this year, I was able to
spend some time fellowshipping the Saturday before Valentine’s with some
friends God brought to me in more recent years. It reminds me that all love should be celebrated, not just
the romantic kind. And instead of
heart of bitterness and confusion, I have a heart of gratitude and joy. The latter is much better.
If you are currently single today, I want to share some
things the Holy Spirit has encouraged my heart with today—these are things I
feel are beneficial to us whether we are single for a lifetime or single for a
season.
Trust that God’s plan
and timing is perfect—while we may not see the reason for our singledness,
God is Sovereign and His Will is perfect.
He has a reason for this season in your life, whether it only last a few
more months, a few years, or never changes. Trust that He is good and that He doesn’t withhold the best
from His children. Allow Him to
use you and be glorified in you now.
Serve others today. –
There are people all around you hurting, in need of love and grace. Whether married or not, we are blessed
with opportunities and the ability to show others Christ like love today. If marriage is in the cards for us, learning to
sacrificially love and serve others today,
will enhance and strengthen our relationships with our spouses tomorrow.
Invest in yourself.—While
we need to humbly love and consider others better than ourselves, we still need
to “tend to our own garden.” What
in your life do you need healing from?
What areas do you need to grow in?
How can you become more Christ like? Asking ourselves these questions and seeking the answers
does not make us selfish, but instead helps us to be full enough and strong
enough to pour our lives into others.
And once again, this will benefit us if marriage is part of God’s plan
for our lives. I think it’s
impossible to go into a marriage without at least some baggage—we live in a
broken world with broken people and we all have a past where we have been hurt
by both our own sin and the sins of others—so we always, in some way, carry
that with us. However, I think with
time and work, we can make the “baggage” more of a carry on and less of a
multi-piece set.
Remember your value.—I’m
preaching to myself here, because I struggle the most with this one. A friend of mine recently posted that
the worst part about being single on Valentine’s day are the lies we tell
ourselves. When we aren’t “chosen”
by someone, we can feel that it says something about our worth and value, and I
think woman especially struggle with this one. On those moments we feel overlooked, we have to remind
ourselves that we already have been chosen—that God sent his Son to die in our
place, and that He chooses us to see His glory displayed. Not only are we chosen, but we are
accepted, valued, cherished, adored, and loved, and that will remain true even
if we are single for the rest of our lives. And once again, if we one day marry, finding our identity
and worth in God will take a whole lot of pressure off our spouses to feel like
they need to fill that void.
Most of all, I want you to know you are loved. By Christ and by me.
Happy Valentine’s Friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment