I love this cup. But it makes me struggle. I struggle with being between Joel’s wife and the woman I am in this season of waiting and the future wife I know I am meant to be. It’s in the “becoming” where I have to really drown out the noise of life, turn down the audio dial, and tune my ear to God’s truth and His Word and promises about my life.
This hasn’t been a journey to find a good man. No. No. No. This is a journey to the heart of God where THE man God has created to be my husband will recognize me fully, know that I am his, choose me, and love me. But, it’s also about fulfilling a calling for which is bigger than “us”. It’s for the greater glory of making Jesus’ love known and felt to others. And, that takes heart, guts, and a whole lot of selfless surrender.
It also means that I am in the midst of a spiritual battle that is NOT mine to fight. You see, God desires to be the hero of this story. And, as much as I love to control things in my womanly nature, to be a helper, I cannot interfere. This is NOT my battle. The victory is the Lord’s, and He wants the glory. And though, we get to share in it, He longs to come to our rescue and to give us His best that we choose building a relationship with him during a season of singleness over finding a placeholder.
Don't feel like you're stuck this season between who you used to be and who you aren't quite yet. Don’t forget who you are… dear friend. That you’re in the process of BECOMING!
Singleness isn’t about how cruel God is or how big the hole and the ache in our heart is, where fickle feelings make us run into temptation; however, it is about intentionally becoming His. It’s about us choosing to spend time with God and choosing to put Him above everything else, so He can share His heart and desires with us.
Did you know the ache in your heart is a reflection of how God aches to spend time with YOU? Perhaps, you should press into that today and figure out why God is giving you the opportunity to choose time with Him before moving you into the role of being someone’s spouse. If you’re not there yet, there is a purpose, if only you choose to unwrap that gift!
That's right... singleness is a gift that we must choose to unwrap. And we usually get what expect. We can rush to unwrap it and jump into a pile of mess, settling before we realize part of the goodness is savoring the process. We get frustrated when folks are further down the road… with kids or families or settled like we picture our lives turning out in the distant future. We get frustrated when we end up with the wrong person too long or someone who doesn’t end up having the same aspirations in life. All because we rush, rush, rush. We don't "enjoy the journey" because we are too busy eyeing someone else's gift.
Singleness is meant to be a time of discovery. It’s meant to help you seek your heart and find what treasures God has placed inside YOU- your calling, your gifts, your hopes and your dreams.
And, this may seem completely naive and fairytale-ish to you, but I believe that when you’re intentional about finding the RIGHT person, you’ll find that God will make the pieces of your life fit together just right, like the pieces have been there all along, just placed in different boxes until just the right time- Until His divine time. You see, while you were working your puzzle and they were working on theirs, you didn’t realize that you had to have certain pieces already in place to build off of when your spouse enters your life. God is holding the box with a picture so beautiful you can't even handle it. If He showed you in its entirety you'd be scared! So, He holds the box while you focus on the pieces of your life. When it all comes together, He isn't surprised because He was the one who planned it all.
You were never meant to be the end-all-be-all to fill someone's void or whole or ache. No! You were meant to be who God created you to be all along. No person can fill the void God was meant to hold. When God gives you the gift of a spouse, they were meant to come alongside you for His glory, not your needs or lack. Sometimes, they may even enter your life at different seasons to lay some ground-work of trust on your relationship before you’re able to commit before God.
Wherever you are in your season of singleness, search the heart of God to find what He’s got for you. Someone once told me that the Holy Spirit is the worst secret keeper, and He loves to share things God is nudging us towards and the things we were made for. There is nothing better than when your desires align with God’s for your life. And there, even in the toughest storms, it’s smooth sailing because you’ll remember who controls the wind and the sea! And there in His arms, embraced so tightly, you’ll find peace. And each step you take, will be taken with purpose and on purpose. That friends, is what it means to guard your heart. To let God have it and lead it, not your feelings leading you down the wrong path.
Let's get a little personal
In January, I went in my deep rabbit hole of hiding from my life and getting sucked into the political world. It got dark. But, I was avoiding real life relationship. God broke my heart for the world and it broke me. February was my breaking month. I was not where I am today. I can only say I had lost who I was in that relationship. It was a slow fade. I look at pictures of myself at that time and I see a very weak, exhausted girl who needed Jesus. I was putting him in a place that was never meant to be filled by him. My friend Emily describes that season of my life as sticking a square peg in a round hole.
I just wanted my life to have meaning again. I started getting hungry again for the first time in a very long time. I started doing live devotionals on Facebook and digging into the Word for the first time since I don't remember when. I was always watching church, always listening talking to God, but I was just sick of my boring, no growth life. I wanted to feel as though it wasn't all for me to simply live life to pay the bills and be comfortable. I've always known I wasn't made for that but MORE! And I lost that motivation. I so desperately needed to be broken.
It hurt and I felt empty in places I had tried to fill with other things, but I felt something coming and so, I pressed in. God told me what to strip back, and I wanted nothing more than to walk in obedience in with every single step. Little by little He did it in me, revealing parts of me that were me trying to make something of my life just to fill it.
I am so grateful for all the things He revealed to me in that time, because in comparison they showed me how little I loved myself and how much effort it took from me to feel anything but satisfied and fulfilled. I'm now in a place in my life that I can tell you that God is in every single detail, showing out in only ways He knows speak to ME!!! It's like God has His own special language just for me. And, what I thought was good... man... they do NOT compare. That whole "Lord your thoughts are higher than my thoughts and your ways higher than my ways" has never been soooo true!
All that to say I was NOT the woman you see today. I just had to press in. No more just filling a void. No more thinking that waiting means you're wasting away, but learning how God wants to use me right where I am, in the middle of becoming to call me into the life He has always had planned for me in His timing!
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