Single-For-Now

Being called to a single-for-now life has it’s struggles. Obviously. Have you ever tried living against the flow of culture?? Everywhere you go, there are messages telling you that where you’re at isn’t good enough.

You need him.

You need her.

You should feel like that.

You should do this.

Dress like that.

Flirt like this.

Sex. It. Up.

There’s magazine covers, posters, TV shows, movies, social media…even taxes tell you that if you are with someone, they’ll go easier on you. The world shouts that there is more benefits to being attached than there are to being an individual.

The world, and unfortunately a lot of the Christian community, tells the single person that they won’t be happy until they’re with someone (“we need to find you someone”). And then when they’re finally dating, they need to get married (“has he proposssssed yet?!”). And then when they’re married, they need to have kids (“so like, are you guys trying??”).

We’re told as singles that we will be more fulfilled when we have a partner.

But what about those that God is calling to be single, even if it is just for a season?

I am convinced that this is a stage I am in. I have my reasons, God breathed reasons (I’d change them if I could, trust me), but still, when I tell people this they have a worried look in their eyes. They still subtly hint at matching me with one of their friends. Or tell me that “*shrug* maybe you just need to heal”. Girl, it’s been seven years of working through healing, I’m pretty sure there’s more to this season than getting over past hurt.

I do believe that this is a stage. A, God willing, temporary stage. But if God continued to lead me to be single for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Often I wonder who would be the right fit to stand beside me in this journey God has given me.

What sort of man would be willing to accept that so much of my ministry revolves around my previous marriage?

No, it’s not fear of this that keeps me away from a relationship. But it’s a question that I often think about.

If the human life is created to have relationship with the Lord and to bring Glory to His name and an individual is doing this well without a romantic partner, why isn’t that our focus as a Church, instead of making sure they meet someone special?

Our focus as the Church body should be centered on relationship with our Saviour, not relationship between the sexes.

Are we living on fire for God’s word, striving towards obedience, communicating with Him and keeping our eyes on His prize?

Or are we frustrated with our relationship status, trying to rush a stage that isn’t there yet, or maybe forcing a single guy on a single girl because they both ‘need’ someone?

Singleness is a blessing! It’s a frustration in some ways, I understand that. Man, do I understand that!! It’s not easy when the entire world is telling you that your single status makes you incomplete. But it’s a blessing.

You are free to make choices for yourself. You have quiet time when you need it. Your issues are your issues. Life as a single person is simple. Your finances are your own, your time is your own, your body is your own, your bed is your own.

That’s not to say that I want it to stay this way for me my whole life, but if God lead me into that, I know that not only would He sustain me, but blessings would wait for me in that season too.

As a Christian community, let’s learn to support our singles where they are, not where we think they should be.

Let’s wrap our arms around them, encourage them, build them up, provide for their love languages, pray for them, pray with them, feed them, change the oil in their car, let them babysit (ok, seriously, are my friends getting these hints?!).

Let’s love on the singles in our community and encourage them in whatever stage they’re in. God has so much blessing in singleness, let’s not encourage them to rush through this part of the process. Their singleness may be where their breakthrough happens.

 

Emotions vs. Obedience

Live according to your beliefs, not your emotions.

I wasn’t feeling happy.

I wasn’t feeling in love.

I didn’t feel the butterflies, I wasn’t sure if I ever had.

So I left. The world told me that if I didn’t feel happy, I shouldn’t be in my marriage. I wasn’t walking in my beliefs, I was walking in my emotions. I was letting them dictate my decisions.

Are you being obedient regardless of what your emotions are telling you, or are you allowing your emotions to dictate your obedience?

I tell ya, being obedient at that point of my life would have taken everything I had. I was depressed, laying on the couch crying about nothing and everything, I felt like I was drowning and didn’t know how to help myself. My husband would ask what he could do to help and I wouldn’t know what to tell him. I could barely feel anything, let alone happiness.

Being obedient, regardless of my emotions, would have taken every ounce of energy and brain-space I had. It would have felt like I was hiking uphill in waist high mud. But I know, now that I have gotten to the other side and seen what it took to cure me, that it wasn’t impossible. That it would have ended and my marriage would have been stronger for it.

Now, my emotions try to dictate my thoughts in an entirely different way.

Being single in a world that tells you your completeness will come when you’re married, is a tough one especially when God has told me to remain single. My loneliness seeps in, my desire for intimacy and connection, and it whispers to me along with the mantras of the world, that God wouldn’t really ask me to be single for this long. He wants us to be happy, he wants us to be dating, married, childbearing women.

When I allow myself to enter into a dating relationship, am I allowing my emotions to dictate my actions? Or am I stepping forward in obedience, regardless of my feelings?

Life is constantly changing. There’s ebbs and flows, ins and outs. I believe our God can hold us to something today and release us from it tomorrow. But His commands and Word stay the same throughout time. Are we allowing our emotions to change what He has told us or what the Bible commands…that is the question.

Obedience takes bravery. Sometimes the Lord asks us to do something that is counter-culture.

It’s staying in the marriage when it doesn’t make sense.

It’s remaining single when everyone just wishes we would date.

It’s guarding our virginity when everyone else has given theirs up.

It’s somtimes saying No to the cute guy that asks you out.

It’s saying Yes to committing to that missions trip.

It’s being ok with not taking the better paying job.

Obedience is an act of worship. It is a sacrifice we lay at God’s feet telling Him that He has control and we will surrender our plan to His will, regardless of our emotions.

God honors our worship, He sees our human struggles and knows the heart-hurt it can cause us. He desires to give us what our hearts need, which is often very different than what we want. What we want is usually a short-term fix to a long-term desire.

When we can lay aside our emotions, knowing that God will look after us even when it feels like He is distant, that is when we will see God and feel His presence and perhaps even see a miracle.

 

Calling

I feel like God has a special calling on my life. It’s a big calling, a scary one, but the more I live within that calling the more it fuels the fire inside of me to continue in it.

I look back on my life and I see where I have felt God leading me to this point. I also see those times where I’ve had Mission Drift.

I know what God is asking of me. I know what He wants me to be speaking about. I know what part of my story is to become my testimony. But isn’t it just so easy to become distracted?

We are so lucky to have such a gentle and patient God that allows us to make mistakes and quietly leads us back to where He wants us to be.

There’s so many things that I love and that I want to be involved in. So many good things that can take my time and focus. Yes, they are good things. They are time with friends, education, helping others, volunteering etc. But what is it that God wants for me? There is good and then there is great.

When I was younger I was working full time from home selling a body-care product. I loved this product and where I saw it taking me. I loved the work I was putting into it, the women I was surrounded with, the passion I felt.

At a training conference with this company, I looked over the stadium filled with over 8,000 women and a thought crossed my mind. If I spent just as much time and dedication on God, what would my faith look like? If we were all here for the Lord, how powerful would that be?

Of course, at that time, I didn’t go further with that thought. It was just an interesting moment that crossed my mind. But now, hindsight tells me if I had acted on it, my marriage most likely wouldn’t have failed.

Now, every time a good opportunity comes across my path, I balance it with my relationship with the Lord. Will this further my faith-walk? Is this what God wants for me? Is this within my calling?

I need extra money and I could sell products again. But what if God wants to show me that I can rely on Him for the extras and to spend that time on Him instead? He has taught me that every moment doesn’t have to be filled but that I can rest and let Him look after me.

I often feel myself easily flowing towards Mission Drift and I catch myself. I don’t want do fall off my path only to realize later I’m way off course. I want to keep my eyes firmly focused, with stubborn faith, on my Jesus. I know that His journey for me not only is better for me, but that it follows my personal passions, the ones that were built inside of me. I know that sometimes He will ask that I put things aside because He has something better in store up ahead.

His mission for my life will fill my soul and quench my thirst for purpose and meaning, which I think the world is desperately searching for. I continue to be reminded of this lesson and continue to balance myself with Jesus as my focus. And I hope that by being obedient to Him I can help lead others around me to God’s calling in their lives and help their souls feel the peace I’ve been blessed with.

Focus on Him and everything else blurs on the sidelines.

 

Position

Continue to put yourself in a position where you can watch God do something through you or around you that blows your mind.

– Lisa Whittle

I was married before. Have I told you that? Girl, I’m going to tell you that every chance I have.

I was 22 when I married, just a baby, and at that point I just assumed that life happened and you went along with the flow. You tried, you put in some effort, but if something wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be. Either you were successful or you weren’t. Either you were happy or you weren’t. At the time I wasn’t conscious of this type of thinking. Hindsight is 20/20.

So I left this marriage. I ran, sprinted, away from the Lord and my husband. I lived how I wanted to live and did what I wanted to do. At the end of two years of living this way, I was exhausted. I was empty, confused, and completely exhausted.

I truly believe that God allows us to go down the wrong road in order to show us that everything we thought we wanted wasn’t at all what we needed.

When I left my marriage, I had a list of things I was searching for. A physical list. And at the end of two Rebel Years of achieving this list, I realized that none of it mattered. Not one of those items filled my soul.

When I finally stopped running, I looked at God, who had been walking patiently beside me the whole time. This gentle, Loving Giant had watched all my sin and all my wrong turns and had allowed me to mess up. He had tolerated me calling the shots and watched as I realized the results didn’t lead to the fulfillment or success I thought they would. When I finally looked at him and asked “Lord, what do you want? What do I do?” he was there. Ready with another list, one would fill my soul.

God had allowed me to get to brokenness in order to make me a willing participant in his plan for my life. 

I was now eager to follow his commands. Whatever he wanted, I was willing to do. Because I had run so far from him and seen the emptiness of chasing after my own unsuccessful definition of happiness, I was willing to do whatever he asked me, knowing that it would lead to more fulfillment than I had found so far.

I know that putting yourself in a position to see God work can be hard.

Sometimes we are scared of what it will mean. How hard will he actually allow it to get? What will change because of these prayers? How far out of my comfort zone will I have to go?

Praying these prayers can be difficult, challenging, angering…I have felt all of these emotions while I pray to be put in a place to see God work. Even after God has brought me so far, often because God has brought me so far, I struggle to pray those words.

I’ve often prayed these prayers even when I’m not feeling able to surrender, because I know that being in a place of surrender is the best place for my soul.

I have lived a life where my own plan fell flat. Where all I wanted was nothing that satisfied. Because of that lesson being so painfully etched into my heart, I am willing to go through whatever God wants for me, knowing that will ultimately lead to a fullness and wholeness that nothing else can compare to.

The trials are worth it, the discomfort is worth it, the brokenness is worth it. It will all lead to what we were built to crave: intimacy with our saviour. Enter heart emoji here. Continue to put yourself in a position where you see God Work. Continue to push through the fear and doubt and trust that he’s asking you to do this for a reason. He’s got this.

 

Happiness

“But are you happy?”

“Do what makes you happy!”

“As long as you’re happy!”

There’s nothing that gets under my skin faster than one of these cliché happiness comments. Ok, I say that a lot, but this is one of my biggest pet-peeves. When my friends hear a comments like this they just look at me and roll their eyes “Uh oh, here goes Katie on her pedestal.” They know what comes next. Keeping my mouth shut is sometimes an issue. But that’s why I have a blog, right?

What is happiness? It’s a fleeting emotion. It comes just as fast as it disappears. Yet, so many of us base our lives on it. Our marriages. Our living situations. Our success. Our feelings of importance and self-acceptance. Our acceptance of others. “Are they happy? Ah, then that’s all that matters.”

One of the biggest reasons (excuses) for marriages falling apart is the lie that if it doesn’t make you happy, you shouldn’t be involved in it. Think of how many times you’ve seen a couple struggling and heard someone say “Well, if you aren’t happy, maybe you need to consider leaving”. This was definitely one of the reasons I used to justify leaving my marriage. As I listen to others in struggling marriages or those that have been through a divorce, this is one of the repeating lines.

Happiness comes and goes. If I’m not feeling happy with my husband or marriage one minute, the next minute it might change completely. It causes even more confusion to rely on happiness as a deciding factor. One minute I feel happy and content, the next I’m crying, depressed and empty. If I’m relying on the happiness to be there continually, when the sadness comes over me, I start to question if my marriage is right.

Happiness is never continually present. The feeling depends on our situations and our momentary experiences. Our marriages cannot possibly rely on the something that is so temperamental and instantaneous. Yes, it’s an important factor and feeling happy is good. But relying on to define what is right and wrong, especially something as important as a marriage, isn’t wise.

You’ll hear me mention my Rebellious Years many times in my writing. These are the two years that I lived a wild life outside of my marriage. During these years I did everything I could to feel “happy”. I was finally living my life the way I wanted to, not the way I had been told that I should. I drank, slept around, swore like a trucker. And apparently, I was happy. Or so I would have claimed throughout years. What I didn’t acknowledge, or even realize during this time, was how empty my soul was feeling. None of the things that I thought were making me happy, were actually making me feel joyful. Happiness flittered away within moments and I was left feeling empty.

I think that’s the lesson here. Joy is what we need to be pursuing. Something that is solid, can hold us during the storms, is unchanging. Something we can look to when times get tough and know that we will get through. Something that will fill our soul, not disappear as soon as the moment is complete.

And that’s where my relationship with the Lord comes in.

He is unchanging, he fills me soul with contentedness, he comforts and sooths me. He provides joy and encouragement even when I can’t seem to see the end of the struggle. If I focus on being happy, I will be tossed around, changing my mind constantly, wondering where I belong. I’ll always be pursuing the next best thing and wondering why I don’t feel complete. But if I chase after joy, I’ll be satisfied and know that the next best thing could never have satisfied my soul anyways.