Embrace Your Season of Singleness!

Hello lovely people!

So as we all know, Valentine's day is around the corner and I know some of my single ladies out there are already beginning to feel the "single woman's blues" so the purpose of my post today is to encourage us. First of, can I just say that as Christians, we are to show love to every and anyone we come in contact with the 365/366 days of the year so let's not get all worked up about one single day in the year dedicated by the world for couples to get all mushy. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong in celebrating Valentine's day. However, the point I'm trying to make here is that as Christians, love should be our lifestyle and that we're not supposed to show love to only a select group of people in our lives but to everyone. Romans 5:5 says that God's love has been "poured out into our hearts" so we ought to be generous with our love!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven". This leads to my next point which is that being single is a SEASON! (newsflash lol). And what do we know about seasons? They are TEMPORARY. Sometimes we single ladies just don't get this, we feel like there's something wrong with us because we haven't yet found the right man and we even start to wonder if we'll ever find the love of our lives. So we start to put pressure on ourselves and we allow our friends and family members to also do the same and so we begin to re-evaluate the criteria we have for the "one" and we think to ourselves, some of these things are not really that important, like "does it really matter whether he is christian or not?" "does it really matter whether he reads his bible and goes to church regularly or not?" hmm I don't think these things are really necessary as long as he really loves me and cares for me. And this is how we let our standards go from 100 to 0 real quick so we settle for any Tom, Dick or Harry that comes our way. And in the process of settling we get hurt and broken, we give so much of ourselves to these undeserving guys and we're left feeling used/empty. 

Songs of Solomon 8:4 says "Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, not to awaken love until the time is right". I've read through the whole of Songs of Solomon and what I noticed is that this verse is repeated consistently through out the book so it must be very important. What does it mean "not to awaken love until the time is right"? Basically what this means is that we shouldn't settle, we should trust God's timing and wait for God's best for us. Whenever we awaken love before the right time, we end up feeling broken and hurt like I mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

So what should we be doing during our season of singleness? The first and most important thing we should be doing during this period is building our relationship with God and growing in our walk with Him. You may be thinking "well I can be doing this with my man when he comes" and yes this is good but you don't have to wait till then. Secondly, a relationship is about getting to know someone and how can we get to know someone else if we don't even know ourselves? And how can we get to know ourselves if we don't know God? God is our source and it is in Him that we find our identities. Your identity doesn't come from your career, hobbies or even what people say about you but from God so get to know Him! Rather than waste your season of singleness wailing and worrying about when Mr. Right would come, let's spend time praying, studying the word, fellowshipping with believers, and serving in church. When we focus on Jesus, we would experience true peace (Isaiah 26:3) and he would grant us our heart desires (Psalm 37:4-6). You don't need a man to be happy or to feel complete, you're already complete in Jesus (Colossians 2:10).

Being single is a time of preparation- preparing to be a wife. Yes, a wife not a girlfriend. As Christians, we ought to date with purpose and not for fun or just to pass time. It doesn't matter how young you may be, time is very precious (Psalm 90:12). Before going into a relationship with a guy, we must ask ourselves whether the guy in question is a potential husband. It's not like dating a guy who is a potential husband guarantees marriage but it at least shows that you're being purposeful about your dating and that you know how valuable time is so you're not just going to waste it with anyone. Ladies, let's take a few minutes to meditate on the following scriptures: 

"Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies" (Proverbs 31:10). 

"The man who finds a wife finds a treasure, and he receives favor from the Lord" (Proverbs 18:22).  

I'm sure your head was swelling as you read those bible verses, well at least mine was :). Ladies, the bible tells us that we're more precious than rubies, that we're treasures, and that the man who finds us will obtain favor from the Lord! Wow! This brings me to my next point which is that we must know our worth. What do we know about rubies and treasures? We know that they are not easy to find. To find a ruby, you'll have to dig deep into the earth. To find a treasure, you'll have to search and search; I'm sure we've all played the game "treasure hunt" before so we know how hard it is to find treasures. So Ladies, we must know that we are valuable! Let's not be easy! It's not every guy who tells us they like us that we have to consider being with. There are some guys who shouldn't make it passed "Hello" so let's not even bother giving out numbers and all what not. Our single season isn't to be spent going out on dates with randoms. We must ask God for the spirit of discernment and let Him lead us. We must become more spirit-led and less feelings-led.

One last thing I'd like to leave with us especially when we find ourselves worrying about when "Mr. Right"would come is this: If Mr. Right meets me now, would I be ready? Would he be proud of the level I am at spiritually? emotionally? career-wise? academically?...you fill in the blanks. The reason I say this is that sometimes we ladies have a list of 101 things we want our guys to be yet we ourselves are far from achieving those things. E.g you want him to be buff and have a six-pack, do you yourself workout? you want him to know the bible and live out the bible, do you read your bible and do what it says? In other words, what I'm saying is that we should be the men we desire. Let's not go around setting expectations that we ourselves don't meet.

In summary ladies, being single isn't a curse, it's a season of preparation. There's never going to be another time in your life where you'll have such a great opportunity to focus on developing yourself not only spiritually but also in other areas of life. Don't spend your single season worrying and dating around because time is precious and most importantly, you don't want to miss out on God's best having a Mr.Wrong occupying the space of Mr. Right. One last word, God loves and you don't need a man to complete you. If you needed a man to be whole, God would have created you with a man right from your mother's womb. So in the mean time, embrace your season singleness! spend plenty of time with God and with friends! Trust God's timing! You'll someday look back and be glad you waited on God!