Single for Life.

There have been a lot of posts flying around the internet lately on being a single Christian (some of my favorites can be found here and here) so I thought I'd add my two cents from a single young Christian women's point of view. 

I think that our society, and our Christian society especially, has come to see singleness as some kind of curse. I've definitely felt that way before, and at times I still do. It's easy to get caught up into thinking that you need to be with someone, or interested in someone, or flirting with someone, in order to be the person that your friends see you as or even the person that you see yourself as. Even as I write this, I'm listening to some country music which is a genre that is focused as much on relationships as it is with beer sometimes. Sure, you hear songs about guys and girls, and flirting, and dancing, and all of that good stuff, but who has ever heard of a song for singles? Yeah, I don't think that would sell well. Of course, there are songs in every genre talking about when you meet the right girl/guy (a favorite of mine is this one), but that's just it... the songs always focus on a relationship coming around. But what if it never does? What if you never end up with anyone?

For YEARS I struggled with this. I knew that God calls us to be content in every situation and to trust that He has a perfect plan for my life, but how could life be good without a husband? 

This is where I think that we as a Church have failed. Instead of teaching contentment, we are taught to pray about our future relationships and to think about what we want in a future mate. Don't get me wrong, these are extremely important things, but when they become the focus of someone who is single - when looking into the future to a time when the right guy/girl might come along is our focus - then it blurs our vision to the plans that God has for us right now. Because, who knows? Maybe the perfect plan that God has for you does mean that you'll end up with someone and maybe it doesn't, but that should affect how we live out our relationship with God in this moment right now.

I joke about being "single for life" a lot these days but what I really mean by that is that I am content with being single in this moment. Sure, a great guy might come along, but that isn't my focus. It's a possibility but not a driving force as I walk through each day. So when I say "single for life" that could mean that I'm single for another four months, four years or for the rest of my life, but what I mean is that I'm going to try and not get caught up in the relationship craze that happens so easily these days and try and focus on the one relationship that will last for a lifetime and beyond - my relationship with God.