The Gift No One Wants

Though I can't recall any of the other details of the night, or even who I'd been with, I remember the moment vividly. It was one of those moments that I wanted to bottle up and carry with me in pill form so that I could savor it again in a moment of discouragement or weakness.
I was driving home after spending the evening with another single friend, and we had really great conversations and I really felt like I was able to encourage her in her singleness, and I just remember feeling incredibly content that God was using me in my singleness and by extension, incredibly blessed and privileged to be single.
If you're about to tune out because this sounds too Pollyanna-ish, I will confess that sometimes I do feel like this woman featured in a Babylon Bee article.
But lately, God in his grace has been giving me a taste of the blessings of singleness.
This is not going to be one of those posts where I write out all the reasons that single people rule, and married people drool. I actually spoke on a relationships panel a few years ago about singleness and I think I made singleness out to be way more awesome than it always feels. I'm happy to take your suggestions, though, if you want to contribute to any future posts.
Today, though, I want to focus on the bigger picture. Because ultimately, your marital status isn't actually the point. Your marital status is really just a tool that God uses to accomplish his purpose in your life. What is most important in life is to glorify God and be satisfied in him, and living that out does not depend on any external factor. God uses a whole array of external factors to accomplish that in your life.
Right now, God is using my singleness. I can tell you lots of ways that God is using specifically my singleness:

1. I've got street cred with my single friends. "Oh, you want to use your singleness as an excuse to make unwise decisions? Well, guess what, I am in the same boat and I still don't think that's a good idea."
2. I have so, so much more time. Unfortunately, rather than using my endless free time to pursue hobbies (underwater basket weaving, anyone?), I pour it into helping to keep a church running and discipling other women. (Oh wait, that's way better than basket weaving)
3. I really have no other choice but to wrestle through truth and grace with him. Yes, I have friends to talk to, but only God is always there. At 3 a.m., I can't turn to someone and talk about my struggles. I have to talk to God, and I think that's awesome.

BUT... If I were to start dating someone tomorrow, that wouldn't be the end of God using me. It would just morph and change as I moved through other phases of life. It's just that today, God is using me in this way and I count that a privilege.

Think I'm crazy? Yeah, sometimes I think that's crazy, too, but as I dip my toe into the water of faith and take God on his word that what is best for me is to walk with him and glorify him, he parts the waters and gives me glimpses of deep joy. Here's what we know to be true from what the Bible says:

1. God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
2. The ultimately "good" or blessings in our lives are either to head off to eternity or to be used to further the name of Christ. (Phil. 1:20)
3. Everything "worldly" that we could count to our credit is worthless next to the joy that comes from walking with him. (Phil. 3)
4. We are God's poetry, and the purpose of our creation and redemption is to do the work he has prepared for us. (Eph. 2:10)

Our mission in life is to glorify God and be satisfied in Him. As we learn to trust him in that, to ask him to use us and to get the privilege of seeing him grow his kingdom, he slowly molds our hearts to find joy in that truth. But just like everything else that we walk through in faith, it is a slow process to mold us into seeing that truth. But, as he promises in Phil. 1:6, he will be faithful to carry that to completion.

Life in the Friend Zone

Raise your hand if you've ever felt like Ashley I (from Bachelor in Paradise).

You meet the (wo)man of your dreams, and you instantly hit it off and all is going well until you realize that things don't seem to be moving in quite the direction you thought it would be at by now... so you get up the nerve to say "hey, [(Wo)Man of Your Dreams], what's happening here?" And (s)he says "I think you're a great friend / I have a boy/girlfriend in another state that I didn't feel the need to tell you about / I'm gay / [insert additional reasons that are a clear indication you're in the friend zone here]."

Ugh, that sucks. Worst feeling, maybe ever.

And often the (Wo)Man of Your Dreams was a total jerk for leading you on and they didn't guard your heart, and that sucks.

I've been there. In my first post, I referenced my "dating" history, and it mainly consisted of meeting a guy, spending a ton of time together, having "the talk", hearing him say that it's not going anywhere and then proceeding to spend as many of my waking hours with him as possible until one of us moves or he starts dating someone else.

I'm not going to let those men off the hook... at least not for anything that happened prior to "the talk." I think it's important that men and women do more to be mindful of how their actions come across to those of the opposite gender that they spend time with.

BUT...

Everything after "the talk", and even some things from before, were on me. When we hold on to a friendship in hopes that it will turn out for something more, we are only setting ourselves up for disappointment.

When I moved to my current city five years ago, I was determined to break the pattern. A few things I've learned:

• Don't spend time alone with someone of the opposite sex unless it's a date, or clearly not a date. And if it's clearly not a date, don't assume it's a plot to spend time alone with you. It generally is what it is. If you ask a guy to help you move, and then treat him to dinner afterwards, it is not a date, and he is not pursuing you. If you ask a girl to help you study for something and you take her for a drink to thank her, it is not a date. If you position something as a group outing and then other people drop out, but it just ends with you and your dream (wo)man... IT IS NOT A DATE.
• Just a quick note, because a lot of girls have said "but I really like having guy friends"... I still have some really great guy friends. We hang out in groups and a lot of them have married my friends, and they are great inputs in my life.
• Don't fantasize. I've been guilty of this. You have a great encounter with someone, and you leave walking on the clouds and you're just so happy. And then after a day or two, that happiness fades. And then you're left with a vacuum where you desperately want to feel that way again... so you start to imagine and create stories. This will always end badly. Life is never going to match your fantasy.
• If (s)he says "no, this isn't happening, we're just friends"... that's it. Move on. The worst thing to do at this point is to continue to pine for someone and hold out hope for things to change.
• Don't settle for a dysfunctional friendship that takes the place of a dating relationship. I've been there. It's so nice to have someone. But you are just driving yourself deeper into disappointment and heartache when you settle for this. Eventually (s)he will find someone and then it will all be gone. Dear friend... we do not deserve anything. I am not entitled to a best friend husband who will be there for me the rest of my days. BUT... you ARE a child of the King. And you need to treat yourself with that level of dignity and not settle for someone who's going to use what they can of you without providing any level of commitment on their part.

And finally... know that you can't protect your heart with a set of rules. At the end of the day, while it's good to walk in wisdom, it is God who is in control and leading you down a path that will ultimately lead to your good and his glory (Romans 8:28). Getting hurt happens. But we have a God who is there in the hurt and is enough in our hurt as he is enough in our singleness. You can't move forward in any relationship without taking wise risks, and you can do that because you can trust that you don't face anything that can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:38).

Delighted In

"So ease up, but also walk in this. He delights in you. Not a better version of you... you. Right now you're sons and daughters. When my son stumbles about, I don't just lose my mind over that. If you think about all of the little pictures... Remember when kids start to walk? They only take like two steps and then fall down, but don't you just freak out and act like they won the Olympics?"
- Matt Chandler, Recovering Redemption; The Result: Justification, Sanctification and Adoption

It's taken me a long time to write this post. For a long while, I have thought that I was alone in my fears of being not good enough, not lovely enough, not skinny enough, not bubbly enough to ever warrant finding a husband... or a boyfriend... or even a second date. If I'm truly honest, there have been relationships that I have stayed away from because I thought that if he got to know me, that I would disappoint him and couldn't meet his expectations.

I think, though, that it's possible that I am not the only one who feels this way. From listening to a podcast with Brene Brown to opening up to trusted friends to reading multiple books, it seems that "the negative radio inside the head" may be more universal than I thought. If you also struggle with this, read on...

Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters in Christ: you are dearly loved and delighted in.

Chances are, you've heard the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). But stop and savor the end of the story. The son is walking home, dejected. He is ready to beg his father to simply make him a servant in his home.

The father sees him coming from a long way off. Wait. Why does the father see him from a long way off? Was he watching for the son to come home?

The father abandons all decorum and picks up his robe and runs to the son. And then he throws a big party!

This is the picture of God's love for us. This is how much you're delighted in.

Okay, so that's great, but I've been singing "Jesus Loves Me" since I was 4 and it still hasn't sunk in. And just because God loves me, doesn't mean that a spouse would ever delight in me.

So, a few thoughts... but all with the caveat that I am not so much an expert as a fellow sojourner along the way.

1. Really, truly understanding that God delights in us frees us up from needing to find that from someone else. We are free to pursue relationships because they bring glory to God and not to fill the need to be delighted in.
2. There is no man in the world who's got remotely anything on God. If God delights in me, there's no man who's too good for me. Not every man will be interested in me, but it's not because I'm not good enough... it's because God has another plan. Oh, and by the way, God promises that he "works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28), so you can trust that plan.

I know. That's still not enough. Here are a few things that I've been doing to let those things really take root:

• Stop the negative self talk. If you're anything like me, you might just have a voice in your head that is rooting for your failure. You smile at a man, and the voice says "careful, he'll never like you." You have a great conversation, and the voice says "you've seen how this worked out in the past. It never ends well." You have to silence that voice and refuse to listen to it. "Take captive every thought to obey Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)
• Meditate on the truth of who you are and how much you are delighted in. My company started getting obsessed with mindfulness and meditation as a part of their wellness program, so I decided to do some research on what meditation looks like as part of the Christian context and the biblical mandate. What I found is that meditation involves memorizing portions of Scripture, and then "chewing" on them. Recite the words in your head, go through each verse and emphasize different words and phrases. Repeat and savor the phrases that are especially meaningful to you. Some passages that especially speak to how much we are loved: Romans 8, Psalm 139, 1 John 3:1-3.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16-21 that we will "know this love that surpasses knowledge". Give yourself grace. The process of sanctification and understanding our adoption as children of God is a lifelong process.