What Being Single Has Taught Me

When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with guys. And I mean obsessed. 2nd grade was when I had my first crush and boy, did I crush hard. He was the cutest boy I have ever laid my eyes on and he was popular. When we exchanged school pictures, I made sure I got a hold of one of his and I would kiss it every night before I went to bed. I realize there's a fine line between cute and creepy and I definitely crossed it. But I couldn't help it! For all I knew, I was in love. 

I was in love with him and my summer fling when I was in 7th grade, and my first boyfriend in 8th grade, and the hot senior when I was a freshman, and the gorgeous bad boy when I was a junior, and apparently every other guy I've ever spoken to. 

Ah, youth. Remember those days? I used to pray to God every night when I was in elementary/middle school asking for the "man of my dreams". I longed to be swept off my feet. But even more than that, I just wanted to feel loved. I always seemed to like a new guy every month or so. For once, I just wanted one of them to like me back.

Even back then I knew I was holding out for someone special someday. I broke up with my first boyfriend because I didn't think it was the guy God wanted me to end up with so I didn't want to waste my time. Literally, that was my reason! I knew God had a bigger, better plan...even in 8th grade. 

I kept this singleness mentality on through high school. Never dated, but always on the prowl. I was on an endless search for "the one" and I would kick the guys to the curb if they didn't reach my standards. I would barely give them a chance. I guess you could call me a tease. I would test out the waters, but if they messed up or if I wasn't "feeling it"..adios! Put a fork in them, they're done. 

I always told myself "college is when people get married anyways, so I don't even need to worry about it". My freshman year of college, I attended a Christian university where the motto was "ring by spring". I thought for sure  that'd be me. And I was ready. Unfortunately, no guys seem to make the cut there either. By the end of my freshman year, I was getting frustrated. It seemed like every guy was going for my friends but not me. I felt like I wasn't good enough for them. I wasn't "pretty" enough, "Christian" enough, or "fun" enough. Obviously there had to be something wrong with me if I was repulsing guys. I mean, why else would I have been single for so long? Maybe it wasn't by choice that I was single..maybe I was un-dateable. I had a strong desire to get married and I was going to see to it that it happened, no matter what. 

This feeling of not being good enough and striving to be perfect for my future husband was killing me inside and I didn't even realize it. My whole world has been rocked by this new found truth I've discovered while being here at UNI. I made marriage and men idols in my life. I cared more about what guys thought about me than what God thought about me. In my mind, marriage was the ultimate goal in life. I mean, I didn't directly believe that, but I lived as if I did. Everything I did was for my future husband. I would volunteer at church in hopes that a guy would see me doing that and be wow-ed at how good of a Christian I was. I would study the Bible and learn everything I could about being a Godly woman because that's the kind of woman Godly men want to marry. If I want to get married, I have to live up to the perfect "marryable" Christian standard. Man, it was exhausting. I was so busy "trying" that I wasn't truly living. 

Here are some hard core truths I have learned:

Although marriage is a wonderful, God-given thing. It's not the ultimate goal. It doesn't say in the Bible "then God created a man perfect for the woman and they lived happily ever after". God is a jealous God. Why would He create someone that would steal your affections away from Him? So often, we live as if our lives would be so much better if we just had a spouse to live it with. What we need to realize is that God is essentially our best friend and our only source of fulfillment. No man on Earth will ever satisfy. Only God can fill that lonely void in your heart and He will be "with us until the end of the age" Matthew 28:20. 

Love is a sacrificial choice

Ultimately, I believe God is concerned about your life after marriage more that your actual choice of spouse. Don't get me wrong, He cares about who you end up with, but very rarely does the Bible talk about choosing a mate. It talks about the roles men and women play in marriage. In Ephesians 5 it talks about wives submitting to their husbands and husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church (a sacrificial love). This is something I've talked about before. It's important to remember that love is more than just those good feelings you get when you're with someone. It's about choosing to commit all your time, affection and energy to someone else and to lay down your life every day for that person. It's about caring more about that person than yourself. 

God is my best friend

It's crazy how much my life has changed once I stopped living for man and started living for God. I asked myself 'If it was just me and God for the rest of my life, would I be okay with that?' Finally I'm able to say yes. I'm learning to be content with just me and God. Men will constantly fail us and let us down but God never will. God is our best friend. You can tell Him anything. He knows you inside and out. He cares more about you than anyone else will. He will hold your right hand and help you. He gives you strength, comfort, encouragement, and hope. If He's not the perfect man, I don't know who is! It took me a while to internalize this truth, but it's a truth that has forever changed the way I view my relationship with God. He's not someone I talk about like He isn't here in the room. He's with me at the gym, in class, when teachers piss me off, when I'm getting lunch with my family, when I'm sad and lonely, when I'm tempted to say something mean; He's literally always there. Which brings me to my next point...

I'm never truly alone

It's the worst feeling in the world to feel like no one cares about you. It hurts to feel like you've been abandoned. And it sucks when you see all your friends going on dates and hanging out with their boyfriends while you're stuck in your room watching reruns of Friends while eating chocolate you bought for yourself. This world can leave you lonely. But remember you are never truly alone. "I will not leave you without help as children without parents. I will come to you" John 14:18. He is always there and loves you more than you can imagine because, quite frankly, He is love!

God will use my singleness for His glory

I believe there's a reason why I'm single. Some people say I'm picky. Some people think I'm scared. Some people think I should give every guy a chance. Some people think I don't want to date. Some people think I over think it. But I believe God wants to use my situation for His glory because I'm just one person in the bigger story He's writing. I'm so thankful to be single. I've been able to do so much more as a single person than if I had a boyfriend. Paul writes about this in 1st Corinthians, saying "I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs - how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, and his interests are divided" (7:32-33). It's true! Relationships are tough and time-consuming. It takes a lot of work to have a healthy relationship. Without this stress in my life, I'm able to focus more on God. Plus, I've had the privilege of helping other women who may be struggling with singleness. I can relate to them and it's been a blessing. 

I've grown up a lot since that day in 2nd grade when I found my first crush. I've seen successful relationships, harmful relationships and everything in between. I've learned so much in the course of 20 years as a single woman and I wouldn't change anything. Even though I still have the desire to get married some day, I'm content with where I am. God is good, my friends. He wants to use you and your situation for his greater purpose. He loves you more than any man ever could. He's your best friend. :)

Meaningless Toil to Meaningful Life

So I'm sitting in my journalism class listening to my professor rant and rave about all the great things she's done the past couple days as a reporter for our local newspaper. As she usually does, she spent about 45 minutes of the class period talking about her accomplishments, why she is amazing, and why we should take more initiative and generally be more like her. I'm only half-way listening at this point because, let's be honest, unless you're going to actually teach me something, I could care less. What you do does not impress me and if in fact you were as amazing as you make yourself out to be, then you would't be writing for a local newspaper and you'd be working for CNN by now. But then she did something that caught my attention. She raised her hand to the girl a couple seats down from me and said with a cocky smirk "Somebody high five me! Somebody praise me because I'm amazing! You all need to learn from me and be like me".

Um.. what?

Did that seriously just happen? At this point I am beyond frustrated. This was the moment that I realized how much I hate journalism. Which is ironic...because it's my minor. My teacher single-handily made me hate journalism in .2 seconds. This was hard to swallow for me because now I'm at a point where I don't know what else to do with my life. If I hate journalism (and even my communication major at times), then the life I originally planned for myself is now thrown off course and I need to find a new track. Don't get me wrong, this mid-college crisis was a long time coming, but her comment was the breaking point. I don't ever want to be like my professor. She is one of the thee most self-centered, self-absorbed, prideful people I have ever be taught by in my life. But the sad thing is, I don't think she even realizes it. She doesn't know any better. Her world revolves around journalism. She eats, sleeps, and breathes news. She thinks every aspiring reporter should be as committed to the job as she is because in her mind, that's all life is about. At least that's the vibe I get from her.

My feelings of frustration toward this professor quickly turned to sadness. Does she not know there's more to life than writing a story about two murdered babies? What's the point? What does it matter? You write a sensational story...then what? It goes into an archive and gets forgotten about. When you are 60 and retired, looking back on your life, what are you going to remember? "No children, no fun trips, no lasting memories...but boy that story I wrote back in 2012 sure was great".

I don't ever want to be like that. This experience with my professor made me realize something crucial.

Life is meaningless.

Like a friend pointed out to me, that statement sounds like something you hear from a depressed person. I don't mean this in a "my life is worthless, I want to die" way...It's more like a "there's more to life than meaningless toil".

I struggle to find meaning in my daily tasks anymore. Nothing really matters. Granted, there are things you need to do in order to survive in America (go to college, get a job) and they are good things. But ultimately, these things do not matter in the grand scheme of things. This new realization has changed the way I view the rest of my life. I always always thought I'd write for a magazine or PR/Advertising company someday, but I can't imagine doing that for the rest of my life anymore. I don't feel comfortable promoting vanity and products to people when there are more important things in life that I should be talking about instead! Nothing in this world will last and nothing of this world can satisfy.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.” - Ecclesiastes 1:2

Hurray! Just when I thought I was the only one, God brings me to Ecclesiastes. King Solomon had similar thoughts on this topic and his way of thinking is exactly like mine (amazing how God works). He talks about how he tried to find meaning in the pleasures of this life. He did everything he thought would make him happy and accomplished more than any other man in Jerusalem. He had thee life. Yet he wasn't satisfied. He couldn't be. 

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun." - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Like me, he was frustrated by this new found wisdom on the meaning of life because he simply could not be satisfied by anything. 

"So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.  I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 2:17-23

Now here's the part that got me the most and it's been the kicker that has rocked my world the past couple of weeks. 

"A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

Everything I do, if it's not with God in mind, is meaningless. Truth is, we spend so much of our life focusing on our grades, stressing over relationships, trying to find a spouse, getting a decent job; we forget that someday these things, although they are good things, are not going to matter in the end. They are not the ultimate goal in life. There's so much more! We are here on Earth to make His name known. To think you are here for any other reason would be deceiving yourself. Like Solomon said, this world won't satisfy us without God.  If I didn't have God, I would be restlessly working to the bone trying to make a life for myself and find satisfaction and happiness in something. But in the end I would ultimately be disappointed. 

With this new realization instilled in my heart, I want to do something that actually matters for the rest of my life. I want to do things that brings glory to God because honestly that's all that matters. It's funny how God can change your plans. I'm not surprised either. 

"Therefore, do not conform to the behaviors and customs of this world. Instead transform yourself by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do. And you will know how good, and pleasing and perfect his will really is" - Romans 12:2. 

I knew there was a reason this has been my life verse. God is changing the way I think. He's been changing my thought process for a long time now. And I'm finally realizing what God wants me to do and it's not journalism. It's not communications. It's not anything like I previously thought. 

God, go ahead and change my plans. Your ways are better than my ways. If Your will really is good, pleasing, and perfect...then I'm all in. Change my plans.