YVALIKS

Happy Valentine’s day

Today most of the world will tell you to celebrate love. A saint famous for allowing certain people to get married was canonised and given a day on February the 14th by the Catholic Church and ever since, we consider that day to be day of love.

It is essentially the day for romantic love, but it has recently been embraced as the day for love simply. So you can now celebrate Galentines’ day with your females friends. Yes some single people decide to flip the script and change it into a carefree day be to enjoy with friends and family. I don’t think there is nothing wrong with that. But the day is mostly focused on couples and therefore can still leave some single people feel left out a certain…but should it?

I am single and I have been for a while. I do date but I am not currently in a committed relationship.

Let me tell you about singleness

Ooh all this time and freedom I have: what a blessing right!
Time is probably one of the biggest treasure we have in our busy modern life. It’s here a moment and then it’s gone….And once it’s gone and it will never come back.

This is one true thing, as a single woman, I have a lot of time on my hands. Although, I keep myself busy. I work full time as an assistant manager in a large law firm. I am also youth leader and an aspiring author/artist. But I still have much more  time than a woman who is married and have children.

And that is one of the main great thing about singleness.  In the Bible, Paul say that the unmarried person can be more devoted to the Lord and see singleness is actually a great gift.  Paul was single and actually never got married. He use his time preaching the gospel. He travels to many places to teach, preach others Christians. He writes letters to church that have now becomes most of the New Testament. Paul loves his singleness. He sees it as great benefit to his ministry and to his life. He invites others actually to aspire to singleness. He believes that being tied up makes you mind, your desires and most importantly your focus divided.

But most importantly he points out that both singleness and coupledom are equal. He said that God view them the same.
You are blessed if you single and you are blessed in a relationship. They are just both different type of blessings.
I believe we should view them the same.
But do we?

Unfortunately, the world tend to to view single people as second type citizen.  There is this unwritten notion that being in a relationship is better than being single. We are sold romance everywhere, whether it’s in movies, music, advertising, media etc… The dating industry is a multi-million dollar industry and Valentines’s day is one of the most commercialised day in the year. Do not get me started about the wedding industry. and all its monetisation. Additionally, gender norms have been telling us for years that the most amazing thing that can happen to you as a woman is ‘a prince charming that will come save you. He will change your life and you will live happily ever after’ . Yes, you will only be happy if you have a man.

One of the most popular romantic comedy is Jerry Maguire. In the closing scene of the movie and yet one of the most popular one, Tom Cruise’s character tell his love interest played by Renee Zellweger tell her that she completes him. Now one thing I know is that most women want to hear a man say that to them.  A great majority of women believe they need a men to complete them or their life.

Now I am not saying that love is not a beautiful thing God and we should hate the idea of love. I am not against love. God who himself is love want us to love. God created marriage when he saw that Adam will be better off with someone than alone. He made Eve and created marriage and sex. For God this type of relationship is important It symbolise his union with the church.  Christ is our bridegroom and the church is the bride he died for because he love her so much. Essentially, the Bible story is a beautiful romance movie. So there nothing wrong with romance.

Inside us we have all the desired to be loved for who we are and to be desired. We love love and we all dreams to have someone do some great gestures  like the ones we see in the movies.

But we have to stop the rhetoric that our happiness and our value is to be found in relationship or even in men. Yes a lot of women latches onto men to feed their self worth and their purpose. That is not right.

At time I have seen so many female friends become so in love with the idea of being in love, that they forget who they really are or what God called them to be.

Relationships and marriage are part of journey, they are not a destination.

Your life doesn’t start when you get married.

You have skills and talents and a purpose. You are a vessel and God can use you a lot during this season. So do not waste this gift thinking that you are on hold or like people says ‘in waiting’. You are not really in waiting. One of my favourite says it the best: we wait for bus not for men. You are in a season of your journey where God surely is working on you and preparing you for more and this why he wants you to be particularly  focus on him and less distracted. Maybe he is refining things, laying a new foundation, healing some part of your heart that needs healing. This a great opportunity to learn and to grow. It is also an opportunity to travel, to have fun and why not to invest in other relationships like with your friends and your family. It is an opportunity to know God more.

We should cherish this time and glorify God in this season. I think it is very important that we need to learn to be satisfied in God. Only him can filled the deepest part of our heart. True contentment and joy comes from him only, not from another human being.

And I can testify that it is easy. It is not always happy all the times. Some of the reasons why we struggle with singleness is that it can create some not so nice feelings. Truth is there are good days and bad days. There are days when I enjoyed the freedom to the max. Then there are other day where I can feel the loneliness and it does feel like some clock is ticking somewhere. People have been saying to me much more these days: you are not getting any younger. I am very much aware of that. I know they mean well, they do not mean no harm. They care about me and are just looking out for me.

I get that…But I cannot settle with just anyone just for the sake of having someone or to cure moments of loneliness. Loneliness is actually just a feeling, a perception of reality. Even people who are in relationship can feel loneliness though. I think it is okay thought if you are single to feel these things. It’s okay to be sad sometimes. It’s okay to feel anxious and have millions of questions that may or may not be answered. It’s okay to sometimes feel like this doesn’t feel right or this is not what you imagined your life to be like.

You are allowed it to cry it out, talked it, scream it out, laughed it out and prayed it out.

In the end, I trust it’s going to be okay. You are going to be okay. I am going to be okay. Because my father in Heaven is taking care of me. He always has and he always is. Delay is not denial. And even if it doesn’t happen, I trust that is plans for me are good and will benefit me always.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be according to his plans. God has made everything beautiful for its own time, even this season of singleness.

There is a time for everything…and now is the time to be single.

Happy Valentines’ Day

xxx