I always want to write something on singleness but I never seem to find the right words. I want to say something deep and meaningful, accessible and relatable, and maybe just a touch poetic. Maybe I’m trying too hard and I should just write what comes to mind.
I spend a lot of time reflecting because that’s just how I am. Reflecting, writing, pausing, thinking, praying—but there’s a gap between each of these, isn’t there? One can never fully translate one from the other, encapsulating the meaning perfectly. The bridge is only ever partway complete. I can’t put the fullness of my reflection into writing because the words fall short. Nor can my thoughts capture my pauses and my prayers tend to blabber about in circles. I’m limited in communicating effectively. That’s just it, isn’t it?
But then I know it isn’t because God knows all and comprehends all. Every word spoken and unspoken, thought and felt and yet to discover. Every prayer whispered, shouted, dripped through salty tears or locked at the back of your throat – He knows, He hears, He answers. And I feel safe knowing that the Word (Christ Jesus) holds all my words and all their fullness of meaning.
He gives me meaning.
So, to pen something on singleness. I hope that whatever I write would carry some meaning, in some small way, to whoever reads it. Talking and being truly open about it can feel embarrassing and it’s so tempting to brush it aside under the excuse that it pales in comparison to a million other issues. And that is very true in so many ways, but that doesn’t nullify the fact that singleness is real and potent, bearing a kind of gravitas that is a lived experience, and that it is full of trash and treasure, both real and invented.
There are so many words out there, many helpful, practical and encouraging, but often all blurring into platitudes whenever moodily recalled. (And I say “moodily” deliberately, because I find myself traversing the world of singleness—or at least, dwelling on its defining deficiencies—with great mental anguish when particularly moody, irritable and irrational.)
You don’t want to hear the same thing over and over and yet there are some things you do need to hear over and over, that is, when that thing is Biblical truth. So then, this creates a tension between not wanting but needing, which you hold alongside the ever-present tension of not needing but wanting.
It can feel like walking on a tightrope, trying to balance these paradoxical tensions in your hands, while being unapologetically sprayed with questions, advice, recommendations and opinions of all kinds—positive, negative, neutral, inquisitive, sympathetic, encouraging, degrading, reassuring, humoured. And trembling in mid-air, you notice that everything blends into a kind of bittersweet brew, a wildly hopeful but quietly disappointed drink that you force yourself to swallow as you tread along the never-ending wire.
That is not to say stop saying anything at all, for we must not shy away from speaking about difficult topics, checking in on each other and caring about what’s happening in their lives – especially within the family of God! This is just to be aware that there’s a lot going on for the one who finds herself here. And for anyone to speak honestly about their singleness is going to open some wounds. Talking about it means allowing yourself to be vulnerable. I suppose that’s the first step to being understood a little better by other broken, limited people who God has purposefully placed in our lives. He makes no errors.
Singleness is hard. The interesting thing that I’m discovering now about myself, having been single my whole life so far is that I never expected it to be hard. I never expected it to be hard because I naively expected romance to come easy, or at least, quickly. I had many false expectations that I unknowingly clung to (and from time to time knowingly cling to). Expectations. Wildly wrong expectations. There are patterns of life I had my heart and mind set on after I left school that both rapidly and gradually disintegrated (if that’s even possible for both to occur simultaneously) as I discovered this rather different* and unexpected path of singleness. Different from my imagination of how my life would turn out. Different from the paths of friends around me.
As a teenager, I had no expectations or plans specifically for the season of singleness, having given it little thought growing up, having no idea how long it would last. Perhaps if I did give it some thought, it was merely to consider it short and temporary, a preparation time for the next more superior stage of life. Indeed, I had many misconceptions about marriage and singleness. I started dwelling on singleness more as a young adult, keenly aware of how it seemed to eat away at my joy, as I viewed it solely with reference to marriage, like two sides of a coin, inseparable – one defined by the other. A coin that polarised my emotions into two camps, challenging my dreams, hopes and ideas about life and love. And though I lived many a day confused and lonely and still so mistaken in my thoughts, the single path pushed me to lean more into the love of Christ. And what treasures I began to discover.
As I have tackled with singleness, particularly in the last seven years, I have uncovered many precious things. Sometimes they are well hidden, sometimes they are right under my nose. Wherever and whatever they are, it takes work to embrace them. And it takes faith to do the new thing, the hard thing, the exciting thing. Perhaps I’ll list these treasures later on, but there are plenty of much more articulate and godly authors who have written about them.
I do want to say this: don’t let anything or anyone take first place in your heart or mind other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is only one who bled and hung on a cross for me and for you, died to wash us clean of every broken thought, sinful action and wicked turn of our heart, and rose victorious from the dead to walk with us until the end of time and then into forever if only we put our trust in Him.
And you know, Jesus was single too in His life on earth. He was obedient to the Father. He trusted God’s will perfectly. I pray that He would mould my weary heart after His.
Much more can be said, and maybe this is just the beginning, a fragment of some sort, a note, a scattering of the wild and bemused thoughts of a single girl who longs to know her Saviour more and serve Him with all my heart, my redeemed heart, and with all the gifts He’s given me in all the seasons I find myself in. A girl who’s just piecing together a few shattered thoughts along the road of hope.
27th December 2020
*I say “discovered” rather than “embarked” or “entered”, for it seemed to happen upon me and I realised this in retrospect rather than having sought out or chosen singleness for myself. All that time I was idolising and seeking marriage and consequently many disasters unfolded – but that is a long reflection for another day.
© Emily Seto 2020
