Everything glorious.

This afternoon I've been revelling in my first free day in a long time. When my evening plans fell through, I moved to the piano to play around, something that happens only occasionally these days. A rare afternoon off, a rare chance to play the piano just for the joy of it, and the rare opportunity to pull out a book of songs I probably haven't touched for two years. It felt like no accident then that today, Valentine's Day, I flipped the music book open to Everything Glorious, a song by David Crowder.

'The day is brighter here with you,' the lyrics begin, 'The night is lighter than its hue would lead me to believe, which leads me to believe that you make everything glorious.'

As a single thirty-something whose experience falls somewhere and everywhere between slightly crazy Austenesque old maid and the werkin'-it-Beyonce-style single lady, being a party of one in a world of pairs often feels less than glorious. When I started writing this post, I kind of got lost recounting the ungloriousness of extended singleness. It's a list that runs the gamut from petty, first-world annoyances -- never getting to take a plus one to a party, for example, or having to deal with car stuff on your own, or wishing food processors weren't only gifts for brides -- to the loneliness of being in a situation that 95% of your peers have not experienced, and then to the very real grief that comes when you realise the narrative you've always imagined for your future -- maybe one including children -- needs to be completely rewritten.

But none of us needs another list of why extended singleness can sometimes stink. We can come up with our own lists at the drop of a hat, and recounting these griefs leads nowhere (except, possibly, to the freezer for a tub of icecream).

What we do need are songs that remind us that glory is coming -- and not the beautiful but limited vision of glory that is romance and a white gown and to have and to hold. I mean a glory that takes a broken narrative and turns it into something wonderful, a message that now is not all there is, a promise that takes our ashes and gives us beauty.

Weeping may endure for a night, but the night is lighter than its hue would lead us to believe, and joy comes in the morning. Because someone is at work making everything glorious.

A hug for the third wheels:

One of the challenges of extended singleness that’s not often discussed is the idea that you are no one’s special person.

I realise, even as I write, that this seems glaringly obvious.

But there is a subtlety to this idea that I’ve not seen explored in the singleness discussions that I’ve encountered. There can be a loneliness to being alone, sure. That much is obvious. But there is a unique, entirely other kind of loneliness to being alone when everyone around you has their one person – that person who is their responsibility, their care, their focus. It's the one they check in with, the one whose opinion they will defer to, the one whose schedule they will shape their lives around.

It is lonely to have nobody, but it is another kind of loneliness to be nobody’s somebody.

As nobody’s somebody, you become the dispensable variable in relational equations. It is you who might have to change your intended meetup time to fit better with what your girlfriend’s boyfriend wants. Your sister might need to pause in the middle of a deep and meaningful conversation with you to take a call from her husband at work. Your plans with a friend will fall through because her toddler is teething. If you don’t know your guy friend’s new love interest, chances are you won’t know your guy friend for much longer, either. You will grow accustomed to being the third person, or fifth, or seventh in gatherings where all the other attendees are pairs.

All of this is good and fine. It’s healthy, even. It’s sanctifying and humanising to be reminded that our own needs are not paramount. It is good to be adaptable, and to learn to hold things loosely. It’s good to know that others’ lives don’t carry the same freedoms that singleness does.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt to be reminded that everybody you care about most is aligning their lives closely to another person’s, moulding their days and hours and moments to fit another’s, but that person is not you. You are loved by many but not at the top of anyone’s priority list.

Is it selfish to mourn that a little? Is it greedy to even notice? I don’t think so. It is a genuinely difficult thing to be nobody’s main priority and to have a multiplicity of primary priorities yourself. It’s even harder to talk or write about it without seeming small-minded and petulant. But the sorrow is real, I think, and it is okay to acknowledge its existence.

What’s more important, though, is to acknowledge how significantly you (me, we) are loved in spite of the fact that we aren’t anybody’s significant other. We are surrounded by people who care, and if their care must be broken into pieces and scheduled around parents and children and spouses, that does not make the love any less genuine; it just makes it real.

And in reverse, we can treasure the opportunity to pour our own unfettered love into the lives of others, with all the freedom and creativity that the unattached life gives. It brings its own challenges, this season, but there are also some very cool pluses. We need to remember those in the moments when the other stuff aches.

Group-smoosh:

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

I don't know. That simple sentence is frought with such an intensity of feeling. There are people in love who know that tomorrow will be merely an overflow of the togetherness they already possess. There are guys freaking out because they have no idea what they're meant to do to make it special. There are people complaining about commercialism and greed and "just another excuse to try and sell greeting cards and chocolates". Then there are the waiting few, the scattered band of soloists who -- whether they regard Valentine's Day as a ridiculous first-world rort to make people spend money, or as a rich celebration of romance -- scuff their toes in the dust and wish for their duet to start.

To these few, these treasured superheroes of going it alone, I want to say something magical and wonderful and perfect. Only there isn't one thing that's magical and wonderful and perfect to be said, because to say it -- to try to say it -- would be to diminish how hard it can be sometimes to eke out life singly in a world that's made for pairs. There are many excellent things about travelling solo, and I hope that you experience all the best of them. But if the balance for you is weighing more heavily to the side of heartbreak than hallelujah, I want to smush you into a big group hug and let you know that you're not alone in being alone. And you're not ignored, either.

So, I wrote a thing. And it's messy and raw because love and lovelessness are messy and raw. But it's for people like you and me who might be waiting for something but don't ever have to wait for grace. SMOOSH.

Oh, Valentine's Day.

If I wrote a history of my love life, it wouldn’t be long enough for a novella.

I’m talking flash fiction here: less than a handful of kind and very quiet guys who paid some small measure of attention to me (sometimes without my knowledge). There was also the occasional bushman-bearded oddball who waxed lyrical about his model train set and offered to buy me Kentucky Fried Chicken, or the rural firefighter with a not-so-secret double identity as a blacksmith. But that’s not even a love life, really. It’d be more accurate to call it Varying Degrees of Interest.

Nevertheless, I love love.

I know that, for single people, Valentine's Day is supposed to be about tears and loneliness. I've had my share of both, but that's not all singleness is about. There's much more to it than that. Call me an incurable optimist, but for me Valentine's Day signals hope. Even at its worst, it's merely bittersweet. This day may remind me of a hope deferred, but it also points me toward the future -- a future that, whether there's a man in it or not, is drenched in love, because God is love.

I wrote some words about this very topic over at YLCF.org. I cried while I was writing this piece (a new first!), only a little bit because I grieved what could have been. Mostly, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for what is, and the half-aching, half-rejoicing hope found in excellent promises. Dear awesome friends who are on your own today, there is SO MUCH GOOD.

Happy Valentine's Day. I mean it.

Everything's okay.

I can't work out how life can be so strange and yet so normal all at once. My sister -- my baby sister -- is getting married next year. This is crazy. Bizarre. Absurd. Beyond comprehension.

And yet it's also not any of those things. Because... it didn't come about with a clap of thunder and a puff of smoke. It came slowly (okay, sort of slowly) and by the time it was all happening, it seemed the most usual thing in the world. Life's like that.

Being the eldest of five kids and the only remaining single girl is another of those things that should be strange, but isn't. People keep saying, quietly, gently, "And how is Danielle doing?" Mostly I hear about it afterwards, as if the subject is too delicate to broach in front of me. But several of my precious friends have asked, "And -- are you okay?"

I feel so loved when they ask it, but I've begun to shy away from the question. There is no real way to answer it properly. To do it justice. Even saying "I really am okay" sounds slightly defensive.

But this is the marvellous thing: I mean it. I am okay with this. I am okay with not being married yet. I am okay with my little sisters being wives and mamas before me. I am so okay.

I also know that I know that I know that I'm still fighting keen to end up with the man God has in mind for me. I am not oblivious to that subtle ticking of the thing they call a biological clock. Sometimes I ache with loneliness, but don't we all -- married or no?

In the meantime, however, I am content. And, while this contentment might last for just a season, I'm going to enjoy the strange normality of it. It looks a lot like grace, to me. God is good.

PS. And I meant to say: THANK YOU all times a billion for sharing my writerly excitement. You're all awesome.

PPS. How did it get to be the end of October? I heard carols playing on the radio today. I kid you not.

P.S. I Love You[r Comments]

A big shout-out thanks to Beth, Sarah, Staish, Abbie, Caitlin, and Meaghan for joining the Wednesday discussion about causing love to happen vs. loving others and then seeing what happens. Go read their comments because they make for good thinking matter.

I wouldn't have minded if some of you disagreed with me, but it was strangely heartening to find that all of those who took time to comment are essentially on the same side of the fence; heartening in a purely personal way because it's usually in trepidation that I send my little thoughts out into the world of interwebishness -- (does anyone even believe the same things any more?) It's encouraging to know that there are a few who do -- just as it keeps us on our toes to be in discussion with those who don't. That way, we continue learning.

This whole concept of trusting in God for love rather than trying to crash into it ourselves is a pretty precious one to me. As a single woman in my late[r] twenties, it's tempting to look over the past and think, "What have I done wrong?" Others ask the same questions. Am I too fat? Too skinny? Too small-town-girl? Not assertive enough? Not holy enough? Not Proverbs-31-Jennifer-Hawkins enough?

Every now and then, the insecurities can become overwhelming. Are the in-your-face girls the only ones who become brides? Perhaps we're hanging too hard on to old-fashioned mindsets?

Yesterday I was pondering this subject some more. There are all sorts of answers from all sorts of perspectives. But, ultimately, I ask: how does grace fit into the picture?

Everything God has done for us in the realm of eternity is flooded over and dripping with grace. If He chose to bestow the dual gifts of eternal life and fellowship with Him in one gigantic act of unconditional grace, how can we assume that lesser gifts will be characterised by lesser grace? He did not call us to be "good enough" for salvation, or to work our way to its end. Is He going to hold out on offering the gift of marriage because we're not "good enough" or not working hard enough, either? Our Lord is one of grace.

Looking for love in all the right places?

If you've been reading my blog for a little while now, you'll understand that I love Boundless. So the following jumble of thoughts is in no way a bagging out of a ministry I respect just about as hugely as is possible. I may respect John Piper a little more than the folks at Boundless. Yes, yes. I believe I do. But Boundless is definitely tops.

However: I am a little disappointed by Thomas Jeffries' recent blog post, Delivery Not Included.

He addresses an issue he calls a variation of the "Yeah, but..." syndrome, a concept that puts the blame for the high percentage of single young Christians fair and square on the singles themselves. Jeffries speaks of God's sovereignty,

Yes, it's true that God is in control of your destiny. Yes, it's true that God can cause that special someone to happen across your path. Yes, it's even true that God can have Mr. Right parachute into the remote jungle village in Borneo where you've been serving as the only English-speaking missionary for the last 10 years. Yes, it's true that God can do anything He wants.

But then says:

That said, how likely is it that He will make sure every Christian who wants to get married will experience an unscripted meeting with just the right spousal candidate at just the right time?

He follows with an analogy from his own life:

I'm reminded of my (slightly) younger days, back when I dreamed of success as a rock musician. The bands I played in were for the most part filled with talented musicians, singers and songwriters, but we never experienced the success that leads to lucrative record contracts or nationwide tours. At least one reason for this is obvious: We didn't make ourselves available to the right people. Sure, we played at a few local clubs and recorded a decent-sounding demo, but we never performed our songs for well-connected promoters or music industry executives.

Mr. Jeffries goes on to say that many single Christians are approaching their search for a mate in the same way by not putting themselves in the right places for romantic success:

You may have lots to offer as a spouse, but if the only times you leave your home involve work and the grocery store, then your odds of meeting a potential mate are greatly reduced. If you've never been willing to be "set up" by friends and family, then perhaps it's time to make yourself available. If you live in a rural community where the only single man at church is a World War II veteran, then you might want to reassess whether it's the right place to be if marriage is important to you.

My biggest concern with this post is the underlying attitude it seems to imply. I believe Thomas Jeffries to be a godly and faithful servant of Christ. However, read on its own, his post seems to suggest that finding a marriage partner is the one single goal of life. The implication is, that if you spend too much time in your own company, you'd better get out more to increase your chances of finding a spouse. If you live in a small community populated mainly by elderly folk, maybe you should move.

This has it all backward.

We should get out more not because we want a husband but because Jesus told us to shine like stars in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:15). We move to a community (or church) not because of the vast numbers of eligibles there but because this is where God has called us to show love and service.

The New Testament has little to say, specifically, about finding a mate. It has a lot to say about pursuing love from a pure heart and loving people as Jesus did. This has less to do with creating a blissful romance with a special someone and more to do with laying down our lives for the people we are surrounded by now.

Moving from church to church, social group to social group, and town to town in pursuit of a mate seems to me to be desperate at best and self-serving at worst. Ultimately, a marriage is for here and now only, just a portion of our three score years and ten or maybe more. Relationships founded on the love of Jesus endure for eternity.

And it's not a proven fact, but I tend to think that anyone who is pouring their life out in selflessness is bound to "get noticed" by a person of awesomeness somewhere along the way.

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conversations:

Beth -- oh do, do enter!

Meaghan -- well said!! We could never cram all our many conversations onto the page! Oh, and I'll bring the Twitter updates back, just for you :).

Staish -- :D

Sarah -- commenting on blogs most certainly counts!

Encouragement for those 'there in love and longing'

This could have been written for the single heart...

Thou hast not that, My child, but thou hast Me,

And am I not alone enough for thee?

I know it all, know how thy heart was set

Upon this joy which is not given yet.

And well I know how through the wistful days

Thou walkest all the dear familiar ways,

As unregarded as a breath of air,

But there in love and longing, always there.

I know it all; but from thy brier shall blow

A rose for others. If it were not so

I would have told thee. Come, then, say to Me,

My Lord, my Love, I am content with Thee.

Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier

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conversations:

Caitlin -- I am so glad to have a comrade-in-arms! Yes, driving is horrid. :)