Both Are Gifts

"There are no leftovers with a sovreign God who purposefully plans our futures and who graciously gives us good gifts like singleness." ~Carolyn McCulley

Before I write this, I have to tell you that any time I read a book that is in any way self help-ish, I think of Charlotte on SATC. After she got divorced and was sort of a mess, she went to a book store and to the self help section. There, she finds this pathetic looking lady in sweats, crying, eating donuts or something, who tells Charlotte that the book Charlotte was looking at really helped her. Charlotte throws the book down and looks lost repeatedly saying, "Travel? Travel?" to make clear that she was not needing any self help!

No one wants to be THAT lady in the bookstore....but, I thought that there might be other people who are in my same boat that need to hear this, so I wanted to share.

I am reading a book called "Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?" One of the points that the author makes is that she views being single as a gift, just like being married is a gift. "Singleness ought not be viewed as a problem, nor marriage as a right. God in His wisdom and love grants either as a gift." While they are both different gifts with different purposes and benefits, both are gifts just the same.

As soon as I read this, I knew I had to adjust my attitude. Have I gotten it all figured out? Not hardly. But am I really trying to focus on this idea of both being gifts? You bet.

Don’t get me wrong here—I want to get married. I want the ring and the wedding cake and the honeymoon to Europe. And then I want the his and her sinks, the fights over the remote control, and weekend afternoons curled up together on a front porch swing. And because I want that, but don’t have it yet, it’s easy to feel like I am being left out. Like everyone around me is being given this gift that is being withheld from me.

But if I look at my single life as a gift too, my outlook is greatly improved. There are benefits to not having to share a bathroom with a boy. And to being able to spend my money on whatever I (not we, but I) want. There are benefits to having the time to volunteer with organizations that are important to me, to go on a 4 mile run after work, to be able to hop on plane for a birthday celebration, a bucket list football game, a race full of naked people or a steeplechase.

Like I said before, I'm am not even close to having this all figured out. It’s not like I see someone with a ring on their finger and think, “Wow, that poor girl didn’t get my gift.” Usually I think, “Lucky (curse word), I want one of those rings!!” But I feel like if I can make a conscious effort to focus on the gift of being single right now—on the experiences I am having and the lessons I am learning and the person I am becoming—I can see the value in that.

And I think one day, I’ll be sitting on my porch swing wearing my ring watching some stupid tv show that only boys like and I’ll realize that it took these single years, that gift, to make me into the right person for the boy sitting next to me.