Let Me Rant
Forgive me, but I feel a RANT coming on and I just have to get it out! It’s not pretty, but maybe you can help me make sense of this? Or maybe we will find out that it makes no sense at all and we need to change our ways? I feel a change is in order. Either way, it will give us reason to pause and think, which is always a sensible thing to do.
Here goes…Why is it that we as a society, or even as individuals, feel justified in dismissing the pain and loneliness of single people today? I am not just asking married people this question. I am asking divorced people and even single people. Why is it that we turn on ourselves? It is not right. Let me explain what I mean.

Justified Judgment
If someone that we know and love is in a car accident and loses an arm, we don’t say to them, ”Well, you should be thankful that you still have one good arm. If God wanted you to have both arms you would still have them. Be thankful for what you have left and just try to get on with your life.”
NO!!! Thank God we DO NOT say things like that and even now I cringe at typing those words. Instead we say things like, “I can’t imagine your pain! You are the bravest person I know! I will be praying for you every day! If I can do ANYTHING to help, PLEASE let me know.”
Or how about this scenario: Someone that we know and love is struggling to care of their aging parents, we don’t say to them, “Well, you’re just lucky that your parents are still alive. It is your privilege and God’s plan for you to take care of them. After all, they took care of you for all those years. Isn’t it the least that you can do for them??”
Hopefully, we would NEVER say that! Even if we think those things, I pray that we would not say something that harsh out loud. On the contrary we choose to support them by seeing their struggle and responding with compassion. “I will be praying for you while you try to balance your own life and at the same time try to take care of your parents. I know this is hard on you and I care about you. You and your parents will be in my prayers. The world needs more people like you!!”
FORGIVE ME, but I must dig further. Imagine that someone that you know and love is going through a nasty divorce because his/her spouse suddenly decided to run off with someone new. Court dates are drawn out and child custody hearings are getting ugly. We don’t say to them… “Well, if you would have just taken better care of your marriage you wouldn’t be going through this right now. Honestly, I feel sorry for you, but evidently you are meant to live out the rest of your life alone.”
I hope no one is saying those kinds of things! I hope that we draw on our higher emotions of human empathy and spiritual humility and tell them things like this, “I know this has got to be killing you inside. I am so sorry you are going thru this awful time. I am praying for you and your family to make it through this. I am only a phone call away.”

Double Talk to Singles
So help me understand why is it that when someone we know and love is struggling to make peace with their singleness, we feel justified in shaming them for wrestling with those feelings? For instance, if a single person that you know and love feels like they are missing a “right arm” person in their life. They are longing for a travel companion, an equal partner, a spiritual helpmate, someone to grow old with, a spouse to raise kids and grandkids with, or someone to love and be loved by. Let’s say that they are tired of sleeping alone and done with just dreaming of passionate encounters. Tell me, why do we think it is ok to say to these people, “Well, you should be thankful that you still have family and friends. If God wanted you to have a mate you would have one. Be thankful for what you have left and just try to get on with your life.”
Or have you ever said this to a single Christian? “Well, you’re just lucky that you have a good job and friends who love you. It is your privilege and God’s plan for you to be single and devote all your time to God. After all, God has taken care of you for all these years. Isn’t it the least you can do for Him?”
Now, we are really going to get honest here. Have you ever thought things like this about a single person? “Well, if you would have just taken better care of yourself you wouldn’t be going through this right now. Honestly, I feel sorry for you, but evidently you are meant to live out the rest of your life alone.” I am ashamed to say that I have thought and said some of these things. It hurts my heart to confess such ugliness came from me. It’s sad, but true.

Empty Words
Things that we would NEVER think to say to anyone else going through ANY other trial just roll off our tongues like spun gold to the single person. We dip our hat to them like some twisted form of religious blessing. I am going to give us the benefit of the doubt that we don’t realize how condescending we appear. We may feel like we are helping the single person, and we may actually believe that we are encouraging them in their walk…but are we? I don’t think so. It may sound like sound advice, and in some rare cases it may be; but I will go out on a thin branch to be the first single to admit this to you…I don’t need your advice on how to suck it up and take it like a man or “It must be God’s plan” for me and “when the time is right it will all…” Blah, blah, blah.
What I do need is for you to see my struggle and not to fluff it off as silly. The last thing I need is for you to talk down to me with pat answers that have been handed down as wisdom from generation to generation and church to church without the least trace of spiritual discernment. I don’t need you to insist that I look on the bright side of life. I just need you to validate my pain. Maybe walk in my shoes for a mile. Sit on my side of the table for a few minutes and see what I have been staring at. And if you will do this, I will promise you this…

Promises
I promise: If you determine to see my pain, if you will briefly look into my eyes and you don’t try to walk on by as quick as possible with a stiff pat on my back and a goofy “the sun will come out tomorrow” grin…then I will shut up about my heartaches.
I promise: If you will pause and listen to my pain and talk gently to my hurting heart, I will quit complaining about it, because I will feel heard.
I promise: If you will walk a mile in my shoes and get blisters from the rough and lonely road, I will wash your feet and bandage them up.
And I promise: If you will sit on my side of the table for a few minutes and see what I have been staring at, my view will change. Your presence will change my view, because I won’t feel so all alone anymore. I believe that not only will my view be changed, but I will be changed just because you are beside me. Who knows, maybe we both will be changed? I feel a change is in order and it begins with me and you.

Challenge
Maybe this challenge goes out further than learning to see the single person struggling with loneliness. Who else am I not seeing God? Who else am I tossing prefab answers and cheesy grins? Who else needs me to walk in their shoes or sit on their side of the table? Who do I glance right by every day and choose to avoid making eye contact with? Who am I stubbornly refusing to forgive because I know they were wrong and I was right? Who am I dismissing in my own house as not as important as the next text? Which of my neighbors could stand a little more love and a lot less lawn talk? Who else is getting tired of my religious words and needs me to roll up my sleeves and roll out the welcome mat? Who am I dismissing, ignoring, or patronizing?

Dear God,
On this weekend as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day may we take a few minutes to think about our own actions. Lord, make us men and women who live with eyes and hearts open. May we choose to love bravely!!! We cannot do this on our own. We are double-blind. We are blind to each other’s needs and blind to our own faults. We need You to give us eyes of grace, hearts of compassion, and hands of service. May we honor You, Jesus, with soft eyes, gentle words and humble obedience. Before Martin Luther King had a dream, You had a dream. May we all DARE TO DREAM today. For Your glory and our highest good. Through the power of the greatest dreamer that ever lived we ask these things.
Amen.

Waiting is Hard
Waiting is hard…I know God has plans for me, but at times I feel stuck somewhere in the middle between my past and my future. It’s like I am in some kind of relationship limbo. No longer a wife, and certainly not your traditional widow; but I am not dating anyone yet either…Limbo! I keep waiting for the right man that God has picked out for me to come along and I know that he will come when the time is right, but I need to be honest with you about 2 things.
One: the waiting is hard. In fact, it is much more difficult than I ever gave my single friends credit for (before I joined their ranks), so encourage your single friends. Listen to them talk about the frustrations they may feel as a single person, and whatever you do don’t tell them that they have it easy…because they don’t. The struggle is real, and they really need your support.

Weary Wait-er
And two: waiting makes us weary. I am not making excuses for our behavior, but we all make decisions out of loneliness that we later regret – regardless of our marital status. A little too flirty at work, an innocent text here, or a quick peek there – and we are messing with fire. You have seen it. If truth be told, you’ve probably done it. I think we can all agree that it is a slippery slope. Standards get thrown out in the throes of passion and suddenly… “What in the world is she doing with him?” or “What does he even see in her?” It happens everyday.

Skipping Stones
Now I am not passing judgment. Believe me, I have made my own fair share of mistakes in life and I don’t want to be the first one to throw a stone (or even the last one). I have been in the middle of the circle of condemnation and nothing good ever comes from that. No, I can honestly say that I have more compassion now, because of the sins I have given in to and the glorious grace that I have received from God. His grace was amazing the first time I experienced it, and His grace has been just as amazing each and every time since then.
So what am I trying to say here? Simply said… I am asking for your prayers. Not for God to decrease the waiting period and send my new man quicker, although I wouldn’t stop you from praying for that if you feel so motivated. Instead, pray for me to really trust God and keep waiting on His plan for me. Pray for me not to get too weary in the waiting and make decisions out of loneliness that I will later regret. Pray that I will be strengthened in the waiting.

Dear God, I thank you that You are a loving and forgiving God. That You are slow to anger and abounding in mercy. You have been so faithful to me through this long journey and I trust that You will continue to be faithful to me. Help me to be faithful to You. Lord. Sometimes, it is hard for me to ask for Your help. And even though I have experienced your grace before, somehow it is still hard for me to humble myself and admit that I need You so much. Father, help me to be bolder in asking for your grace and strength. You will surely not turn me away when I ask for your help.
Great God, I know the power of praying friends and I thank you for the people you have placed in my life that I can feel comfortable with enough to ask for their help now. Thank you that I have friends that I can be open and honest with about my struggles, and that I can count on their continued love and support.
Gracious God, I feel better already confessing my weaknesses to You and to my friends, because confession is good for the soul and I have needed to ask for help with this struggle for a while. Thank You for your goodness and grace,
I ask all these things in the name of the one who died for me, Jesus, who through His great sacrifice has completely covered my sins and His grace has set me free. May I walk in the freedom of His great love for me. Amen.

Speak
My word for 2015 is “SPEAK.” When I pray and ask God what He would have me do this year, I only hear one word…SPEAK. But in order to know what to SPEAK, God wants me to first LISTEN to Him. How else will I know what to SPEAK unless I LISTEN? So although this year is about SPEAKing, my primary preparation for this role is to LISTEN. You would think God would have me practice speaking…He has not asked me to do that yet.
This first month of the year is a month of purposeful silence. Not complete silence, but no TV, no radio (except occasionally Christian stations), no computer (except for encouraging and praying for others thru social media and listening to online sermons); and, in general, not a lot of unnecessary conversations or idle chatting. God does not want me to fill the air with noise, but to be intentional at creating a still space where I can hear His voice. The Bible speaks louder when we turn down the noise. So for the month of January I have entered a forced quiet, so that I can get in tune with the Spirit and align my heart, mind, body, and spirit with God’s plans for me. I would have thought this quiet time would be refreshing and peaceful…what I am experiencing is the exact opposite. The silence is deafening.

Sort
In the absence of outside noise, I can more clearly hear my internal chatter – and it ain’t pretty. My mind is full of doubts, fears, confusion, rebellion, and stubbornness. It will take an act of God to clear my mind, and that is exactly what I am counting on. You see, I will never be able to untangle the strands of emotions and old tapes and misdirected thought patterns that have accumulated over the years. I am powerless to reprogram my mind. Let’s think about this…Isn’t it my own thought patterns that have created this mess in the first place? Can I trust my mind to heal itself? No. It can’t. So what do I do?
I ask for help from outside of my own mind. I ask for clarity. I ask for wisdom. I ask for God to clean up this mess that I have made and He is happy to do it. In fact, He has already placed a part of Himself in my soul to help redirect my mind. The Holy Spirit. As these miscellaneous thoughts and random ideas come to my mind, I ask the Spirit to sort them for me. It is similar to the process I went through when I sorted through clothes and household items, preparing to leave my bigger house in Dayton and move to my new apartment in Charlotte. I had to divide things into piles. 3 piles to be exact.

1.) Optimal and Useful …things I use or wear every day and I actually need to keep my life running smoothly. Items I would have to later replace if I were to get rid of them now.

2.) Outdated and Useless…things I have not used or worn for over a year (or a decade) that are just taking up valuable space, but not adding any value to my life.

3.) Obsolete and Unsure…things that I may have an ancient emotional attachment to, but are no longer purposeful in my life. Things that I know I need to let go of, but I am not quite ready to do so. This pile is full of items that I don’t have the energy to sort through quickly and decisively and will be revisited later when I have more clarity. (Sometimes emotions cloud what the Spirit is trying to do. Be aware of this.)

Thought Piles
I have realized that my thoughts also fall into one of these 3 categories, and sorting them will be a major undertaking. There is some serious sorting to do. Spirit, do your thing!

1.) What thoughts are Optimal and Useful? These are thoughts I need on a daily basis to maintain a vibrant life. Deep values, character builders, relationship enhancers, and spiritually invigorating ideas. The Spirit is quick to esteem these thoughts, and I determine to take them with me wherever I go. These thoughts are set apart and quickly labeled “handle with care”.

2.) What thoughts are Outdated and Useless? Old thought patterns and routines that may have served me at one time, but are no longer needed. For example: family of origin roles, past relationship hang-ups, religious routines, or negative habits. These thoughts are flagged by the Spirit to be destroyed. These may be hard to get rid of, but, truth be told, we know that most of the things in this category eventually need to go in the trash.

3.) What thoughts are Obsolete and Unsure? These are the “8 track tape” thoughts that at one time rocked your world, but are not even able to be used now. They are the “fat jeans and skinny pants” that just take up closet space and give you false hope. The Spirit says to be thankful for them and what they used to mean to me, but to let them go as quickly as possible, because the “old” is taking up valuable space for the “new” that is on its way. I choose to give these thoughts away to someone who can fit into them, to collectors of antiques, or in some cases I simply return them back to the people who gave them to me originally.

So I am sorting and the Spirit is leading and I am listening…when will I get to speak?! And I hear God say, “I think you just did!!”