all the single ladies

Hey y’all I’m Carmen from This Lovely Life, where I blog about my love for Christ, my daily inspiration, and my weird 22-year-old perspective on life. I’m a little awkward and annoyingly optimistic, which makes for a very interesting combo. I’d like to think that you either love me or you really love me, no hate involved over here.  I’m flattered Blake asked me to guest post and excited I get to share my single girls take on Valentines Day with y’all. Enjoy!

So February is here, which means Valentines Day is near. You know Valentines Day, the one where all the couples get to have romantic, candlelit dinners, and the single girls brood darkly in corners, eat lots of chocolate from their Mom’s, and cry about how lonely they are. That’s sort of what we’re expected to do, right? Um, no thanks.  I think it’s time for us to stop feeling pressured to be ashamed, and to make the choice to celebrate in the blessing that this time of singleness will be for us.

You hear so many married or dating women looking back on the season of their lives, when they were single with fondness and great enthusiasm, or you read books about being single and women who’ve been married for 10 years are writing them. There’s nothing wrong with this, but I always think, Were you that excited about being single back then?  Okay I’m getting a little off track but when did being single become something to be ashamed of? I’m excited that God is using me for something special right now.  I’m glad that he has written a life story for me that includes me not having to get my heart broken but saving the words “I love you” for a truly special and God-chosen man. God has something wonderful planned for each of us. He knows the desires of our hearts and is a good and wonderful God. As long as us women, single, dating, or married, keep complaining about the place we’re at, we are probably not going to get the thing we most desire. Just like the Israelites.  The more they whined the longer God kept them in the desert.

There are lies that I used to believe about being single. Lies that Satan wanted to grow and lies he uses the world to reinforce as “truths”. He would rather me believe that deep down inside, there is something wrong with me, and that’s the reason why I’m still single. He wants us to believe that God is punishing us for not being ready, and that we have to “fix ourselves” then God will bring us our husbands. He wants us to question our uniqueness and our lovability. These ideas can so easily become the tapes we replay over and over in our heads. We so easily believe these lies so that finding a relationship to show that we aren’t some weird, anti-social miss-fits becomes a necessity. We forget that we already have a love, someone who laid down His life for us, and will truly love us “for better or worse”. Satan knows that right now, as single women, we are called to be the bride of Christ, his one and only. That we can have a season in our life where God pursues us with love and passion and delights in us. It is a unique time where we can truly, 100% be his bride. He does not want this to happen. He wants us to yearn for the love we don’t have, instead of appreciate and be absorbed by the eternal, glorious, perfect love of Christ.

I urge you not to rush God in what he has planned for you, and if you haven’t, to start trusting in his timing.  Look to him to have your needs met, not to another person. I pray that you take this valuable time and allow God to use you, so that when the time does come to say those vows you can keep them.  Our true joy should not come from men, but from glorifying the Lord and serving others. I’m not denying that it is hard to live in a world that promotes the exact same values as the ones we’re supposed to uphold. But I just want to encourage you not to give in, you will be thoroughly blessed because of your wait. I pray that God gives you a vision and purpose for whatever season you’re growing through. That you will be able to walk with confidence and a peace that only He can provide. Stop listening to the voice of fear in your heart, and start being confident in our protector, remember that we are provided for, and that God has got it covered.

So go ahead, celebrate Valentines Day!!! Put on your party dress, something pink and sparkly, grab a friend and celebrate that you have a God who’s every move is rooted and established in love!!

You are altogether beautiful, my darling; 
   there is no flaw in you.

-Song of Solomon 4:7