Oh boy, well I've been dragging my feet on this post for awhile now, and for good reason, it's a little too personal, and a little too vulnerable for my liking, but King of Glory have your Glory. Here goes nothing...







Little girls dream about their futures'. They dream about what they are going to be when they grow up, which school they want to go to (or maybe this was just me), and due to a spike in the popularity of a game called MASH when I was in elementary/junior high school(if you don't know what this is, email me I'll explain it to you) who you are going to marry, where you are going to live, what your wedding colors are going to be and who was going to be in your wedding. Most of us have an expectation of marriage when we are young and one that we bring into adulthood.

I was no exception to the above rule, I played MASH willingly throughout my elementary/junior high years (and maybe for fun a couple times since then) inserting my crushes' names into the husband spot, I dreamed of my "prince charming", I prayed for my husband, and I wondered when he would come sweeping into my life and rescue me from ho-dum singleness. I remember half heartedly "giving" my desire for marriage to the Lord, but secretly winking inside as if to say, this is just a formality, a part of the formula to finding my perfect mate, right God? I mean after-all according to my 12 year old self I was supposed to be married by 22 and on my way to starting a family.

I did everything right, I didn't date around, and I was convinced, or maybe the word is determined that the first man I dated seriously, AKA the first man I called my "boyfriend" was going to be my husband. I just needed to wait for the "right one" to come around. The thing is while I waited I saw my friends start getting into serious relationships and/or getting married, and the rose colored glasses came off. I started to see how hard relationships really were, I started to see how much time they took up, I started to see how distracting they were, and I started to see how they changed people or how people lost who they were in the relationship. Relationships started looking less desirable to me.

Then a couple years ago I had a friend go through a tough divorce. It was a couple I never would have guessed would split a part, and he wasn't the type of guy I would ever guess to change as drastically as he did. My concept of marriage was shaken, to the core. I'm not a person that trusts easily, and I had a hard time trusting men as it was and this only added to that. Now I was battling in my mind; how could I ever trust someone so much as to allow them in so intimately as marriage allows, how will I ever know that they won't betray me, that they won't change years down the road? Satan was having a hay-day in my head, and I was allowing him to burrow lies deep in my heart.

Then I had my first relationship and experienced first hand all of the disenchanting things as listed above. That sealed it in my heart that marriage was not for me. After all I had given it a chance and surprise, surprise, everything that I thought would happen, happened. The thing is looking back on it all now, I had no business being in a relationship when I hadn't dealt with the issues brewing in my heart. Of course I experienced all the negative things in that first relationship because I had a tape inside my head that played the lies about marriage and men over and over and over again. Words are powerful things and they bring one of two things: life or death. There is no grey area here, just life or death. When you speak lies even if they are just inside your head they bring death, and I'm convinced that because I had that track of lies in my head I prophesied those negative things into my relationship and over that guy. No wonder they came to fruition!

After that relationship I found a deeper more intimate relationship with the Lord and was fixated on the concept of the marriage relationship between God and His church the bride. I had no problem getting on board with that type of marriage, after all God was dependable and unchanging. Perfect, no problems there. Unfortunately, during this time of intense depth and closeness with the Father, my fear of commitment and hatred of marriage also deepened. During this time I was definitely at the place of "Oh Lord I surrender marriage to you and I don't want to ever see it again, give me a release from marriage". Gone were the days of tight fisting my desire for marriage I was at the other extreme of "You're gonna have to pry singleness from my cold dead hands."

The thing was during this whole time I never felt a "release" from marriage. In fact God wouldn't let marriage go, and every year around Fall he would seem to bring it up in some way. I came to the point of drawing up lists of things that he would have to give me in a man before I would consider marriage, and they weren't easy lists, I mean they had great detail. I would have yelling matches in the car with the Lord and would throw a lot of "Paul says that singleness is better anyway, so lets move on from this marriage sillyness", "lets be honest singleness is way more fun than marriage" and "think of the freedom singleness offers a missionary!." Oh yes I played the missionary card. I was trying to convince God that I was right to desire singleness and I was justified in my dislike for marriage. I was trying to convince Him to get on board with granting me "single" status for life and a "release" from marriage forever.

I started this past year out with 2 prayers: 1. To be committed to an organization for a significant amount of time by the end of the year, and 2. Be done with the marriage status thing either way by the end of the year, because I'm sick of dealing with it! Plus for a person who never enjoyed "playing the field" the idea of being off the market by either being in a relationship or having the excuse of "Oh I'm sorry I can't go on a date with you, because I'm never getting married" was very attractive to me. Wow, I had no idea that that prayer would fuel God's enthusiasm for this topic. I have to say as of November neither of those prayers have been answered in the way I was expecting, but God is working on them both I honestly believe, it just might not be my timing and the way I thought it would look.

God went into marriage over drive with me this past year, the sheer number of weddings I was invited to should have given me a clue that God was going to deal with me on this issue (15 in all thank you very much!). Then my pastor decided to do a series on 1Corinthians. Oh I thought the Sunday on 1Corinthians 7 was going to validate me and my view on my singleness. I thought for sure the only interpretation of this passage was to say singleness is better than marriage. I had a smug smile on my face that sunday sitting in the pew, waiting for the words I knew were coming. But then my validation never came, and my pastor didn't commend the single for staying single, and I was a little disappointed, but God had been working on me and the timing of this particular slap on the face was spot on. I was able to receive the revelation my pastor was offering on this subject because God had already done the work to make me ready for it. I never noticed before that Paul actually says in verse 25 "I have no word from the Lord about women or men who have never been married". The Lord never says that singleness is better than marriage or marriage better than singleness. The fact is God loves marriage, that's why he uses it to describe His relationship with us. What my pastor did stress about this passage is that life is a gift and how we live it determines if it is a blessing or a curse. I walked away slightly stunned, but desiring to live my life as a blessing. I came away with a new thought: Honor Marriage, marriage is a blessing, just as much as singleness (don't laugh seriously this is break through for me).

I am still a work in progress, but here are some things I have learned so far:




  • It is possible to be on the other extreme and hold tightly onto singleness. This was a concept that was hard for me to grasp at first. I thought that it was a good thing because I was content in my singleness, but God wants complete surrender and trust in all things including our marriage status and that means holding loosely onto our life situation and trusting that the Lord knows what he's doing when he changes it or if he doesn't. Of course, it is important to be content with your "status" but really that content comes when you are content in Him, and trust Him fully. I have to admit I'm not there, yet. I can't say with all conviction that I hold my singleness loosely and am willing and trust the Lord if he decides marriage is right for me, but I'm getting there and feel close. I cherish my singleness, but I now realize there is a fine line between cherish and idolize and I try to remember the line.


  • I'm learning to love marriage, and this will be a continuing journey for me, but I'm stomping out one lie at a time. My hope is to be completely pro marriage for myself and for all that are around me, and if the Lord decides to change my "status" that I will be able to fully be present in that status, just as content, but just as willing to trust and hold it loosely, surrendering it to the Lord.


  • Lastly, I can't say this universally, but for me there will probably never be a "release from marriage", that being said I am called to be single right now and so I will live fully in that calling. I think this is what the Lord asks from all of us, he doesn't want us living in the future or the past and I think that's exactly what 1Cor 7 is all about. He asks us to be present in our calling for today and not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself (Mtt 6:34).
My hope in sharing this on such a public space is to bless or offer insight to someone who might be struggling through something similar. I pray that God opens the eyes of each of our hearts to hear what He is saying to us today. Thanks for reading, God Bless!