Singleness. I’m not exactly quite sure why being single is something that has always felt entirely terrifying.
Maybe it was because we are constantly seeing people around us and all throughout social media sharing their relationship highlights, or maybe it was from the romantic movies growing up that always showed the princess or the girl so much happier once she met her prince or true love. For me I had always felt that being in relationship was a requirement of being my happiest self. Being in a relationship at one point became almost a goal of mine that I felt the need to accomplish. Which long story short once I was in a relationship, I unfortunately started to put all of my self-worth and emotions into that person other than giving that same attention and devotion to God like I knew I suppose to. I quickly found myself feeling like I was hard to love and that I was constantly needing validation in my relationship. I would try my best to make things work, even when it was time to move on with my life possibly without them. Looking back, I think I honestly was afraid of being single and alone.
It took me about a year to realize that although I wasn’t in a relationship with another person. I was forever going to be in a relationship with God and also myself. As I grew closer to God, I started to understand that singleness wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It actually made me realize that God has given us the gift of being alone to figure out who we are as individual people and to show us our potential in a life of Christ. That year I learned so much about myself and how to not only love others but be loved and be appreciated. With this being said, if you take anything away from this story I’m sharing, please know that you are NOT hard to love and that we have always had love in each of our lives even when we don’t feel like we have anyone.
Psalms 23:6, “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”
This verse makes me think about how we are never really single or alone, because at the end of the day God’s love is forever and he will always show us how we should be treated and appreciated. He also knows our true potential and will never make us feel alone.
I feel like sometimes we become so determined to be in relationships, that we can be quick to settle for someone that doesn’t have the best intentions for us or sometimes even date people that make us feel like we are asking for too much to be treated right and to be loved like we desire to be loved. Which in turn makes us feel like we are asking too much for the other person to treat us well or that we’re too hard to love, but that’s not true at all. God has made each of us so incredibly unique and beautiful. He wants us to find that love and to share that joy appreciation with the right person one day.
Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Let’s focus on that verse. God is literally telling us to trust in him and that we should submit to him to lead us to having our life paths straighten out. If we think about it, he is wanting the best for us and knows our potential; whether that is when we are single or in a relationship. God has given us the opportunity of being single to use as an effective tool in ministry. Which we can do by diving into scripture, spending time talking to God, developing closer relationships with our friends and family, and also learning about ourselves. He wants us to pursue Jesus throughout our entire life. When we’re in relationships and before then, when single. I think that by looking at singleness as a positive attribute to our life instead of a problem we can learn and grow so much more within ourselves.
-Diamond O
Reflection Questions:
Why does being single feel intimidating/fearful?
What are some ways that you can grow while not being in a relationship? Have you attempted any of these already?
Have your found ways to grow closer to God while being single? If not, can you list some ideas of ways to make your relationship stronger with him?
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