Being Single ... Still

I've been thinking about what I'm going to write here for a few days. I've been wanting to get my thoughts down, but can't figure out what I want to discuss. What I want to tell my future self about this time in my life. I watched the movie Spotlight on Friday and had some thoughts I wanted to share, but it's such a difficult topic that I'm not sure this is the place to discuss them or that I have them all worked out in my mind. Last night a friend and I watched War Room which was really great - and I thought about writing about that, but not really moved. I did listen to that book on the library Hoopla app a few months ago and it was just as good - I highly recommend that. In the past few weeks, I've been watching Friends on Netflix and I've had some thoughts about that as well, but doesn't seem like fuel for discussion here.

So this morning, I googled "writing prompts for single women" and found a blog by Mandy Hale, who sounds so familiar to me, but I can't place how I know her. Maybe I followed her on Instagram, but I cannot remember. Anyway... I read through them all, and didn't feel like writing about any of those things, but then I found this article of hers: Why I'm Still Single - The Ugly Truth. It's very excellently written. I felt like I was reading some of my own journal notes.

Mandy writes:

The truth is…I don’t know exactly why I’m still single. I think I’m starting to come to a better understanding of why…but for the moment, it’s still just shadowed and blurry truth that I’m struggling to make sense of. But the reasons I often convince myself that I’m still single aren’t pretty.

There are the reasons I tell people like her, as simple as "I haven't met someone who wants to marry me, that I also want to marry, yet." That's the objective truth. I almost wrote "someone who wants to marry me," but then I would have friends who tell me that isn't true - that I've rejected guys before who are interested in me, that I'm not interested in for one reason for another.

However, like Mandy - that's not the reason that I believe in the hard moments, in the difficult evenings when I'm alone, in the times when I'm a single gal in the middle of a ton of couples. During those times, it feels more like something's wrong with me or that I've done something wrong recently or in the past. 

This is the exact area where the devil digs in and destroys me. Right here in my singleness, in the times when I'm alone and it feels like there's no hope of it changing. What if I am single forever? That's the question that haunts me and the one that I don't know if I'm comfortable with. 

I wish I could end this with some piece of amazing wisdom, with some words of positive affirmation, with a solution. I can't.

I can only tell myself that there were many other times in my life when I didn't see what was at the end of the tunnel. I didn't see what was going to come next when I was struggling with my job as Office Manager. I had no idea how I was going to get out of there and move on to something better for me. I couldn't see that working at OSV was what was right around the corner.

I didn't see what was at the end of the tunnel when I had trouble with a roommate after my friend got married and moved out. This one took a little longer to resolve. I had two more roommates in that apartment before I ended up purchasing my townhouse. I had some great times with those ladies, but the years of renting and not knowing if I was going to have a roommate for the next year or not was difficult.

Although these things aren't decisions as big as a life partner and living our my vocation - they do remind me of the Lord and his faithfulness toward me. He's been faithful in the past and he will be again in the future.