Can I just start by saying being single is pretty much the worst!!! Sorry but I really had to get that out there and off my chest. I get all these people telling me it is the greatest time of my life. Well guess what... You are a bunch of liars. Maybe they aren't, maybe they really do believe that but it is not the reality for me.
Have you ever desired something so much and are completely at a loss on how to achieve it? It's really how I feel right now. I feel as though God placed a desire in my heart young, a desire to be a wife and a mother, but nothing is happening. It's just sitting there growing, getting stronger. Slowly, I'm becoming fixated on how to fulfill that desire.
I thought I met the man I was to marry in college, praise God that didn't happen, but now what. I'll be honest, it's very hard to be in your thirties and single in Wichita. It's not like the bigger cities where there are a plethora of single people. People get married young here, a lot right out of college. (Let me pause here and say I am glad I didn't get married right our of college because I am no where near the same person as I was then.) Most of my friends met their future spouses in college. If they didn't meet them them it wasn't very long after that. I'm now at the stage in my life where friends don't have single friends anymore, and I'm way too old for the bar scene. So what is a girl to do?
When you add being a strong Christian into the mix it makes things about a million times more difficult. I don't want to lower my standards but in dark times it seems like that may be the only option. Even though in my heart I know it isn't. Many nights I have been in tears praying, asking what more am I suppose to be doing? I attend church regularly, I serve faithfully within my church, I pray constantly, I read my Bible, and I have placed my trust for my future in you. What else is there?
No, really what else is there? It's not a formula. You can't take all these things add them up and get 6, or in my case a boy. It doesn't work like that, God doesn't work like that. I begin to really question and examine if I am truly grateful for what he has given me. I have a good job, a roof over my head, food in my stomach, my health, a great family and amazing friends. These are things many people in the world don't have. Am I just hung up on this one thing. While to me it is a VERY big thing, but to God it may just be a small part of my journey, a small part of my story. A story that he has been writing long before I was thought of by my parents, a story that maybe one day will be used to help someone else.
It is very easy to become fixated on the things we don't have, the things we desire, but in doing so we over look the amazing things we do have. I have have this desire in my heart to be a wife and mother, and if it's truly from God then it will come to pass one day. My days need to be praising him and thanking him for the things he has given me. I've been reading in Job a lot the last few days and this reminds me of his story a little. Although, he had way worse things happen to him then I have! Fortunately for me. Job who in his darkest days, when everything had been taken from him, he remained faithful. He questioned why, he looked to his friends for counsel, but ultimately his faith was what got him through. A faith that God later rewarded.
So maybe the question shouldn't be what do I have to do for God to give me what I desire, but rather how do I have faith like Job? How in this time of feeling like my greatest desire isn't being answered, do I continue to be faithful? It's an on going process one that I don't pretend to be perfect at and
one I will continue to falter with, but the good news is that I'm not doing it alone!
Tegan
