Singleness

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately, but I have been very hesitant to speak about my own beliefs and experiences with singleness because it can be such a shame-filled area for me. For a long time, I clung to strength and independence out of fear of my own desires for a relationship, and I denied that those desires even existed. I almost resented the broad American Christian college culture that glorified relationships. I felt like every other week, another podcast came out about how to have a God-glorifying relationship, but I didn’t understand why the church spent so much time talking about relationships when so many Christian college students, including me, remained single.

I noticed that while the church talked a lot about Christian dating relationships, and some about singleness too, not a lot of people spoke publicly about their own personal experiences with these things. I confess that I even judged those who did publicly address their singleness, thinking pridefully that I would never admit that I desire a relationship. Due to old wounds, I had learned to embrace the painful messages as truth: I am both too much and not enough at the same time for a relationship. I am too much emotionally to handle, and not beautiful or worthy enough to fight for or be understood and pursued. Because of these painful messages, I vowed to never allow myself to be vulnerable again. I would never trust someone with my heart. I carried a lot of shame when it came to my femininity, my beauty, and my singleness, so I decided to hide all three of those things as best I could with tall walls of strength–emotionally, relationally, and behaviorally. I felt like if I affirmed and embraced my femininity and beauty, I would have to address the fact that I was single. How could I affirm my own feminine nature and beauty when no Christian man was doing the same for me?

There was so much shame wrapped up in all this, that I forfeited my femininity for masculine strength because that felt safer than acknowledging my feminine features, desires, and gifts. But I don’t want to become a masculine version of myself just because I live in a man’s world that glorifies men and their unique aspects of God’s image. I want to learn to live as the woman God created me to be, free of shame.

In reading John and Stasi Eldridge’s book, “Captivating” I realized for the first time that God created me specifically with feminine features, desires, and gifts for a reason and instead of hating these parts of myself, I can learn to love them because they point me back to God. The book begins by proposing that God made man and woman in His image, and each carry distinct and different features of His character. Women are created in the distinct image of God, and a specific characteristic we “inherited” was this intense desire to be desired. We crave being wanted, chosen and pursued. We want to be someone’s first and only love. We are by nature jealous; we do not want to share love, attention, or affection. And these are qualities that God shares! “He (God) wants us to love Him. To seek Him with all our hearts. A woman longs to be sought after, too, with the whole heart of her pursuer…this is not some weakness or insecurity on the part of a woman, that same yearning to be desired!”

This book has dignified my deep desire to be desired by showing me that this is a characteristic God gave me, and He has it as well! I have freedom to love the vulnerable parts of my heart that crave pursuit, being wanted, feeling beautiful, and wanting love, because they point me back to God and His nature. Every time I feel that desire to be pursued, I want to allow myself to feel it–to ache for it–because it reminds me that God feels that desire about me. He wants me to pursue Him, and He gave me this ache to remind me of that. “Stay awake to the unmet longing,” reminds the Eldridges.

This topic of singleness and craving a relationship has been extra difficult to process as I approached graduation and the possibility of long-term missions. I always expected to graduate as an engaged woman, and the idea of going overseas alone sounds terrifying and lonely. I have even had people discourage me from doing missions because I’m single, telling me that as a single woman I won’t be able to do overseas missions at all, let alone well. Yet I don’t want my relationship status to stop me from being obedient to where the Lord is calling, and I trust that if I am unable to do that alone, God will provide the community and relationships I need in His timing.

So I am free to admit now that, yes, I am a single woman, and yes I desire a romantic relationship, and that is not a weakness, but rather speaks to the glory of the God in whose image I’m made. I am releasing the shame I carried around these desires and embracing the security that comes when I can rest in His arms. I am enough for Him, and that is enough for me.