It happened on a day like any other. I was having dinner with friends at a restaurant when a beautiful woman approached our group, walking with an air of quiet confidence.
She was beautiful.
“Hi, Jessica. How are you?” she said to one of my friends. “Thanks for inviting me.” Her voice was warm and friendly.
When we sat down for dinner, I made sure to sit next to her and greatly enjoyed speaking with her and listening to her conversations with others.
As we ate our meals, I thought, “She’s funny, has a fabulous sense of style, is well-educated, and she follows Jesus!”
I believed my sad existence as a single was about to end.
I announced to friends, “I’ve met my dream wife. She’s mind-blowing.”
When I texted her, I was shocked.
She responded, “No thank you. I don’t date strangers.”
I was crushed. Once again, a woman I was in love with chose not to become my life partner.
I would have to continue my life as a single person, waiting to find the right woman to spend my life with. I believed I had been single for far too long — much longer than I had planned.
After my encounter with that beautiful lady, I was confused and asked myself many painful questions:
“Why didn’t she like me?”
“Is something wrong with me?”
I searched for answers, talked to my pastor and friends, and read books on the subject. And then I found this passage in the Bible:
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. — Ecclesiastes 3:1
This gave me hope because it means that seasons are part of God’s nature and part of our lives, too.
We don’t need to spend our lives waiting for the season of marriage because a different season has already arrived.
“To everything there is a season” means there is a season to be single, too, and at this time in our lives, our “purpose under the heaven” is to be single.
I also discovered that God has a definite purpose for us in our single season: He wants us to thrive.
As singles, we have a choice: we can either await relief from our unmarried lives, or we can find our God-given unique purpose in this season of being single.
Which one do you choose?
I chose the latter.
Before my attitude adjustment, I was upset and dissatisfied.
Afterward, I felt peaceful and content.
Why?
I realized my only viable option was living my single life now instead of simply passing the time and waiting for my married life to begin.
Although I am still looking forward to finding my soulmate, I have become a fulfilled single.
And you know what? You can! Right now. Yes, you can thrive while being single.
But before we can do that, we need to understand why we sometimes feel miserable and desperate.
As singles, we believe many myths that leave us confused. Have you noticed that when you hear a myth many times, you start to believe it?
Let me tell you upfront, “You are normal!” Nothing is wrong with you because you are still single.
By saying, “I’m normal,” I am not trying to justify my behavior and choices.
I mean that, like the many sublime singles I’ve met throughout my life, I am not weird just because I’m single.
If you are still single, nothing is wrong with you either. No relationship status defines whether you are weird, conventional, brilliant, or any other attribute you want to add.
But please understand that nothing is wrong with us simply because we are single.
Never forget you are normal. You are more than normal; you are unique or even extraordinary.
And that is the clarity I wish for you: that you know you are a great person. You have jaw-dropping gifts, impressive dreams, and a determination to be your best self.
Never buy into the myth that you are weird just because you have not yet met your Princess or Prince Charming. It’s a lie.
You are awesome.
Rather than focusing on looking for “the one,” I now focus on God, and I wait to see what the future has in store for me, confident that it will be the future I am meant to have.
What is the source of my confidence?
I know God has everything under control. My marital status no longer determines the state of my mind. If God is taking care of my situation, there is hope, even if I don’t see it.
This quote by self-help guru Dale Carnegie illustrates what focusing on God does for me: “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
My life feels joyful when I focus on the stars instead of the mud. And because of this attitude adjustment, I now am more likely to meet singles who also are fulfilled and overflowing with joy and hope.
What would your friend or pastor say if you asked them, “Is being married better than being single?”
The apostle Paul would give you a definite answer: “No.” He understood the benefits of his singleness: that it enabled him to live his dream.
Paul considered his relationship status as an extraordinary privilege. He wrote:
Now, as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I am. But each has his gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. — 1 Corinthians 7:6–8 (ESV)
Paul, the founder of the vast majority of the early churches and the one who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament was pro-single and encouraged singles to follow his examples.
Soak that in for a minute: being single is not inferior to being married, nor anything evil to avoid.
Being single is good.
Enjoy it.
Believing that single people are not whole individuals sets us up for disappointments and profound emotional hardships. I often dated women, thinking they’d be able to identify and fix what was missing in me.
I was convinced I couldn’t be a whole person without a partner in my life.
Then I realized no spouse could complete me. And you won’t find a soulmate who will fill all your voids, either. It is like a man buying an amazing sports car or a woman buying the most beautiful dress to make up for some deficit in their characters: it doesn’t work.
As human beings — no matter if we are single, married, or divorced — we are never complete. We are flawed, and none of us is perfect. The only way to find completeness is in God. As Paul wrote:
So you also are complete through your union with Christ. — Colossians 2:10 (NLT)
You do not need a relationship with another person to be a whole person yourself. To quote Mel Robbins, “No other person can complete you. You are not a puzzle with a missing piece.”
If you let Jesus fill you, He will make you complete now, in your single season. In Him, nothing is missing. We are 100% while we are single. Isn’t that great news? Remember, one is a whole number. This means you have everything to live a happy and fulfilled life this season.
And — as a bonus — your completeness will be a blessing for your future partner.
