I can't speak for the guys on this, but as for girls, finding that partner to spend the rest of your life with is something we hope for and dream of and look forward to for majority of our lives. Even in the periods of my life where marriage seemed like the last thing I could  possibly ever want or desire, still deep down I knew that longing and that desire was there and very present.

But how do we know we're ready? How do we know if we're equipped for a relationship or if maybe the Lord is calling us to a time of singleness?

-----------

Over the past couple of months, I have found myself in a state of singleness.

A stage of actively taking a full break from guys completely.

And honestly all I can say about it...

is THANK GOD for that. 

To some of you that may not be hard at all, and for others of you, that may sound like a complete death sentence. But for me.. healing in my time of singleness was one of the greatest things to ever happen to me.

Because what I didn't realize before was that I was NOT ready for a relationship.

It took me 4 years and a lot of bad dating to notice it. But there were deeper things that the Lord needed to deal with in me before I could be ready. As a woman of God in her early 20's looking for a godly and pure relationship, I was not at all ready for or had become the woman of God that my future husband deserves. I was not at all ready for the kind of relationship that God has designed for us.

 

A few years ago, I fell in love and genuinely thought that I had found the man that I was going to marry and a man that would lead me in the Lord for the rest of my life. The Lord had other plans, and the pain of losing the person I had fully chosen to give my heart to and planned to continue to do for the rest of my life weighed heavily on me, as well as other deep pains and wounds that this relationship had brought me over the years.

As humans, we're really not very good at dealing with pain.

A lot of times we bury it. A lot of times we distract ourselves from it. A lot of times we find an outlet to attempt to fill the void that it leaves. A lot of times we inflict pain upon ourselves in other ways just to mask or forget the pain for a moment. 

Unfortunately, you're lookin' at a girl who did all of the above over the years. Majority of the time without even recognizing it. 

For some of you, the pain of past relationships or from a parent or a spouse can lead you to do things and become someone that you never wanted to be. Sometimes satan likes to use our pain to lie to us and tell us that it is too hard to deal with. That it will never end and that the pain will never go away. That our suffering is in vain and that somehow because we are in pain, that the Lord isn't there.

Well first off those are all LIES. 

(We'll get to the truth in a moment.)

As for me, instead of walking through the pain I was experiencing, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, with the Lord.. I buried it. As it felt like the pain was consuming me, I ran to anything to distract me. I ran to alcohol, I ran to partying, I ran to guys. When that didn't work, I started to partake in things that I knew hurt me deep down. I thought that just a moment of a different kind of pain would distracted me from what I was feeling at the time, but instead it left me in deeper pain and deeper in regret. I was convinced that it was too hard to handle. That it would never go away and that I wasn't strong enough to handle it. So I buried it so far deep inside of me that I didn't even realize it was there anymore.

I genuinely got the point of not realizing that I had pain and issues deep down which I hadn't dealt with from that initial relationship. I genuinely thought that the issues I was aware of from past relationships were ok to bring into a relationship, that the guy I would be with would somehow solve it, or get me through it..

So I continued to look for guys and seek relationships and look for someone to heal my wounds and take away my pain.

......

But that wasn't a guy's job. 

That was God's. 

 

Lemme tell ya....

The problems that you bring into a relationship, only increase when you get into a relationship. And the personal problems you don't deal with before hand in the Lord in your time of singleness, are later revealed in the kind of relationship you have. 

(now this is not every relationship and this is not an exact science, but for the majority of the time, from what I have studied, witnessed and seen, this is very true)

It's probably not a shock to you that the wounds that I had from past relationships weren't fixed from a relationship, if anything they were intensified.

It's probably also not a shock that I seemed to be choosing guys and seeking types of relationships that were not good for me and did not resemble what the Lord has for me.

It's probably not a shock that I continuously found myself in the exact same kinds of damaging and unhealthy relationships and choosing the same kind of guys who hurt me in the same kinds of ways as the previous ones did, EVEN as I was specifically trying not to. 

UN-DEALT WITH PAIN WILL ALWAYS REVEAL ITSELF

and it will reveal itself in ways that you probably would never want it to.

 

After finding myself in relationships filled with lies, filled with deception, filled with hurt, filled with manipulation, filled with pain, and filled with genuine disregard for my worth as a child of God and a daughter of the King, I finally recognized a pattern. And I finally recognized that there must be something going on deep down because, at the rate I was going, it was no longer a coincidence.

Earlier today I was talking to one of my best friends about the Lord and how cool He was in the fact that He meets us where we're at. Flaws and all, filth and all. No matter the baggage, no matter the sin, no matter the ugliness that you feel like you bring to the table, He is ALWAYS there when we call out to Him.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 says,

"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

So that's what I did.

I sat there knowing that there was obviously something wrong but I didn't know what at the time. I told the Lord flat out, word for word, "Look. Obviously you have something to show me but I don't know what it is. I don't know if I haven't dealt with something or if i'm believing a lie, but whatever it is Lord, show me!! Reveal it to me because I have no idea what in the world to do. But what I do know is that I love you and want to serve and obey you but i'm not with these relationships. I don't want to repeat this pattern anymore so help me."

"Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." John 14:13

Believe it or not..

For 6 days straight I had the most vidid and heart-wrenching dreams I have ever had.. But you know what. It was the Lord. And it was Him showing me EXACTLY what I had buried, and exactly what I hadn't dealt with.

After realizing I made mistakes and took part in relationships that were not good for me and left me in complete pain all because of pain I hadn't dealt with and buried deep down years ago, I realized I had some decisions to make.

It was then that I made the decision that I was going to stop running and stop dealing with my pain in any other way than placing it at the feet of the Lord. It was then I decided that I was going to embrace the pain fully, to feel it and to experience it, no matter how deeply, but this time be comforted, be supported and be healed by the LORD.

Not a boy, not alcohol, not a sport, not a job, not anything else other than just Jesus. 

It was then that I decided I was fed up with faulty relationships and worldly love and the hurt that came from them and that I was going to deal with everything I needed to, so that I would be able to walk into the relationship with my husband secure in the Lord and ready to sprint alongside him towards Him. 

------------

A lot of times in our world, we look at singleness like it's the plague or a stigma. But to me, I now look at singleness as an opportunity. An opportunity to prepare for a great marriage.

Not one of this world, not one built on a faulty foundation that is doomed to fail, not an average or selfish relationship. A great one. A godly one. One that is built on a rock. One that serves and that loves and cherishes. One that is storing up great things in the Kingdom of heaven and one that pushes each other to greater heights in the Lord.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27

Singleness is an opportunity to grow in the Lord in such a way that you do not have to be reliant on anything else what so ever. And guys.. WOW I cannot tell you the freedom you receive by knowing you are content with literally nothing but Jesus Christ.

Singleness is a time to heal.

------------

To my women out there, or even my men, who find themselves either in bad relationships or settling for average ones because of a fear of loneliness, or a need for attention, or are desperately looking for something to complete them..

Take a step back.

We were never made for a man or woman to complete us.

So if you notice these things in yourself, you may try to look deeper and see what might be going on.

We are absolutely created and designed to desire a spouse and someone to spend our lives with..

But they will never complete you. They will never heal you. They will never fully take away your pain, they will never satisfy the desire and yearning in your heart for love and for attention because that is only completely filled by JESUS. 

When we look to anything else other than the Lord to fill us and complete us, we will be left empty handed and broken every time.

"He heals the broken-hearted and bandages their wounds." Psalm 147:3

"Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light." Matthew 11:28-30

“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” C. S. Lewis

Maybe you're reading this right now and your heart is exhausted and done wasting time and adding pain from walking into relationships God didn't have planned for you. Maybe you're reading this tired of the brokenness that comes from ungodly relationships and un-dealt with pain. Maybe you're like me and you're just ready to do it right and absolutely ready to prepare yourself for something better than what you've had in the past.

Whatever it is, the answer is Jesus guys. And that may look like a time of healing in singleness. A time of dealing with old wounds or insecurities, or just finding your complete identity and worth in Jesus Christ. A time of laying down everything at the feet of Jesus and saying, "Lord, prepare me. Show me what you want me to see, mold me and shape me and help me to become the man/woman of God that you created me to be and the person that my future spouse deserves." 

----------

I sit here writing to you out of genuine joy.. because although the last couple of months have been hard ones of facing fears and learning patience and actively trusting the Lord, it has been so incredible. It's been a time of learning how to deal with pain, a time of learning to understand my complete worth and fullness in Jesus Christ and a time of learning to fall in love with the Lord even more deeply than before.

Although i've come a long way, I still have some ways to go and I cannot wait to see what the Lord does with it. And I am so genuinely excited to meet my husband one day and not only be able to walk with him in a blessed relationship, but be able to tell him that I fought for him..

And I fought for him by fighting for Jesus.