For this Season

Today I applied for a job. I'm not unemployed. But I applied for a new job, one that involves moving over seas and has the potential to alter the direction of my life  - at least temporarily. As I sent off my resume with a little prayer that God's will be done I felt something unfamiliar.

I'm willing to admit that I've always struggled with singleness. It always seems like everyone around me is dating or engaged. Shoot, I even have friends younger than me who are already married with kids (that's right kids=plural).

My parents were married just a few months after they both turned 21. While I have dated before I now find myself staring "23" in the face, and I'm single. It's easy to cave into thoughts like, "well I just must not be good enough, or there must be something wrong with me. Or maybe it's that I'm just not pretty enough. My personality must be too boring. I'm just not mature enough to attract the right kind of guy"....along with whatever else we single girls let float through our minds as we try to reason through our single state.

Lies. All of them. And we know it. Still, it's hard not to think those things.

But today as I scanned through my resume updating parts here and there I realized that if I were at any other place in my life right now I probably would never have even considered this job in the first place.

I was legitimately thankful to be single - and it shocked me.

I began to realize how unique this time really is.

I am single, and for now I'm glad to be (still feels weird to say that). I truly am beginning to see singleness as a gift. I don't think that I have it for life. I do hope to get married someday and have a family - there is a quarter in my heart that desires that very deeply. However for now God has given me the this incredible gift - of independence and unparalleled 'mobility' if you will - cleverly disguised as singleness.

I am responsible for me and only me. If I want to pick up and move across the world I can, and it won't devastate anyone I leave behind.  I am free to dedicate my energy and time to pursuits of my choosing without the need to differ to someone else's desires or calling.

Now I remember at almost every gender segregated chapel I ever went to a message was given on singleness. And without fail that message would at least touch on the idea that we were the most "free" we would ever be due to our single status. Most of the time I rolled my eyes, while thinking to myself, "Hogwash! I don't know a single girl who wouldn't give up this supposed 'freedom' you speak of in an instant if it meant she could have a relationship based on mutual love and understanding."

Now I find myself so excited about the possibilities of this unparalleled independence. It makes me a little bit giddy inside. I want to travel. I want to write a book. I want to randomly drop everything and move to the other side of the world in order to serve someone in need. I want to give all my money away to missions. I want to go away for days at a time to visit friends and family around the country. I want to spend hours on end learning more about my Savior and drawing closer to him by deepening my understanding of His word. I want to be able to be able to fit everything I own into my car, and be able to live in any kind of space.

And I have the freedom to do that! I really could do all those things! That just thrills me!

I know I may not always feel this way, but for now I'm so thankful for this little window of time in life, and for God's graciousness in helping me to understand at least a part of why this is the best place for me to be now. I hope that I can take all this opportunity and maximize it for His glory. There will be other seasons in life when glorifying God with my actions and deeds will look a little bit - or a lot a bit - different, and when that time comes I pray that I'll be just as excited about those opportunities as I am about these. But until then, I think I'll live for today - for this season :)