Sunday, January 3, 2016

Single for the Holidays

Starting off the holidays this year, I was a wreck.  I felt so drained from all the major life changes I had gone through the past few months (moving to a new city, finding a place to live, new job, teaching a new grade, finding a new church, making new friends, plus some failed relationship attempts), was under the weather, and to top it off, the holidays always seems to increase the desire for a relationship.  Plain and simple, the thought of being single yet again for another Christmas and New Year's sucked.  

I have always been someone who tries to enjoy each season of life that I find myself in and to make the most of the time that I have left being single.  However, this year, I really struggled.  There's been an intense desire in my heart for marriage that has only continued to grow over the years, particularly this last year.  

I reached a place of utter brokenness a few weeks ago.  I sobbed like I have never sobbed before in my life.  The grief was intense! To long for something so intensely, to feel called to marriage, to have taken the time to prepare my heart and mind so that I will be a blessing to my future husband, but despite my best efforts, not having that opportunity in my life yet felt heart-wrenching.  

Hope still resided in my heart in the midst of the grief, but the grief remained.  As I cried out to God, I felt Him caress my heart with His truth, altering my perspective.  I was not a single woman forced to tread through another holiday season without a significant other.  Instead, I was a strong, victorious, captivating, beautiful, loving, honouring woman of God who just happens to be having a "single experience."  

I am not defined by my single status.  I may wish for new experiences in my life, but I am never defined by those experiences.  How limiting would that be to reduce my identity to whether or not I am married?!  God has created me to be so much more!  

So on this last day of Christmas break and the beginning of a brand new year, my challenge is to stop defining myself by factors that are not God's truth.  Whatever my experience may be now, it will not last.  Circumstances will change and grow.  Even if I remain single for a few more years, other factors in my life will change.  

I choose to embrace who God says I am and trust that my season of singleness will come to an end at the right time.  I still have my moments of grief and intense longing, but I am growing stronger with each day.  I may have have had the experience of being single for the holidays another year in a row, but with God's grace and my identity firmly aligned with His truth, I can honestly say that this was a victorious holiday season indeed!

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