Singleness is such a difficult subject. Sometimes, when rising to the platform of proclaiming my contentment and the sufficiency of Jesus, I feel although I'm the person with some kind of "disability" that everyone is compelled to encourage me in and give me equal respect despite its presence, but in the end everyone secretly "knows" that I have been cut short. I feel like the blind man crying out that eyes were never necessary anyway. Maybe they're not, but you're missing out on a lot and for that we pity you. We'll give you our well wishes and words of encouragement that it's probably better for you to be in this condition now anyways, and with that they send me along with a sympathetic pat on the head and an awkward silence.

I know they mean well, but there is a strange chasm that forms when you start rolling through the twenties. When I was in high school, being single was kind of noble. It almost felt heroic to hold Joshua Harris's book in hand while my silver True Love Waits ring shone in the light. A boy sitting next to me could be expressing a form of flirtation by his choice of reclination, and that was exciting enough to giggle over. My friends dated and broke up, then many of us went in different directions in life. Suddenly the age of possibility came along at eighteen years, and I wondered at the sudden seriousness of it. Granted, eighteen is still young, but to me all of a sudden it seemed strange to go from constantly running away from dating to the beginnings of even the possibility for an actual serious relationship to take place through this new age. When the twenties began, friends were no longer just passing love notes and giggling over games of MASH. They were talking of rings.
I recently re-discovered that Joshua Harris was married at 22. I know I'm not old yet, but I've almost kissed dating goodbye for longer than he has. It's funny how ages sound so much older than when you suddenly step into their skin and zipper them up. You expect to be much fitter. You expect to be a little more buoyant.

There is all of this. And yet there is joy. Yes, there is joy. Or there can be. When I can forget the world, I can listen to the Holy Spirit, and it is precious. Painfully precious. Lonely. And precious. I am not going through depression. I don't cry myself to sleep every night. I have single friends who I can share life with and be understood with without having to make it a party of pity party-ers. But there are times when it hurts to be "alone". There are times when the yearning turns into an ache and it feels like you got hit in the gut. These are the times of beauty, the kind of times that make me feel blessed to be single, because then I get to cry out to God. I can testify to at least one memory of when God vividly flooded my heart with his love in a place where I felt that aching pain. It was wondrous, because he did not remove the throbbing wound, but instead he filled me with his love, a gesture of reassurance that he was sitting with me through it--and that was more lovely and wonderful than his removing the pain. God does not always remove suffering, and that does not mean we are sinning. Sometimes we suffer when we are obeying. Sometimes there is a blessing in the suffering.

There have been times when a part of me has almost wondered that it is not better for me to be single, because of the ways the Lord uses it so beautifully. But I know that there are also blessings that come with marriage. Marriage is not an end to itself. Life is not one big romance novel. It is all a part of God's plan to show his glory to us. And that makes marriage far more exciting, because Jesus is far more satisfying than any spouse will ever be. I have been holding onto Psalm 84:11 for some time now in this season---



For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
(Psalm 84:11 ESV)

No good thing does he withhold. He is not withholding good from me in singleness, and he will not withhold good from me after I am married. Praise Him!