Single Seasons and God's Love
I once believed the only stories worth reading boasted of intriguing romantic plot lines.
Over the past few years, though, the Lord has shown me what love truly is – and what it is not.
I’ve watched the love my parents have for each other. The way my dad takes care of my sister, the way my parents hold hands and joke with each other. Seen the way they forgive and carve out time in their days to talk to each other. They simply walk together, confide in each other, and trust each other. Their love is palpable and evident, weaving through every area of their lives: through a thoughtful word, discipline of a child, providing wisdom and guidance, giving encouragement or correction when it was due. My parent’s love showered me in ways I’d never deserved or anticipated.
I’ve listened to my grandma talk about the love she had for my grandpa. They met in Hershey, Pennsylvania when she cleaned my grandpa’s teeth. I heard how they loved each other over the years. Saw my grandma take care of my grandpa while he was dying of cancer. I don’t remember thinking it that much then –mostly because I was only in high school and barely understood it – but I know now that their love was real.
It wasn’t because of the fireworks, the passion, and the vibrancy that I’d read about in the romance novels I pored over as a young girl, but it was the kind of love that sacrificed. The kind of love that sees someone suffering and in the midst of that suffering determines to help them even as they face the last stages of their life.
A genuine old friend I’ve had since high school reminded me of another form of love. The kind one has for a true friend. As her eyes sparkled, she talked about the running book she’d given me. We shared about our lives over the past two years and I realized that love listens, gives, and pours into another person. Love isn’t selfish or rude, but patient.
Love manifests itself in other ways, but these have stood out because lately I’ve navigated an intense season of unanticipated isolation. Rather than clinging to the positive past memories of how love has truly flooded my life, I’ve focused on how forgotten, abandoned, and completely alone I have felt. It’s felt like a free fall because of how helpless I have felt living and working alone while watching other people’s lives march along.
Sometimes I feel like a spectator and a fool. I’ve been invited to parties overflowing with couples only to sit by myself, uncomfortably slouched on my friend’s couch in a sequined gold dress, wishing for the time to speed by so I could leave. I’ve never felt more like I’ve entered foreign territory than when I entered the past few years, especially this past one.
Twenty nine has been so hard and yet the Lord has been so faithful. I have had so many goals, asked so many questions of the Lord. Yet through all of it, He has displayed His love - in the love of my parents, my grandparents, and friends.
Most importantly, He has shown me that the most poignant depiction of love has always been His death and resurrection for me.
His love for me is strong. It doesn’t ever fail. Love that has been there through relationships that have ended almost as quickly as they began. Steady through friendships that fizzled and faded out, while some have starkly dropped off. Still through it all God knew that it was the best way to portray his faithfulness in my life.
I vividly remember walking down a sidewalk at Liberty University one night my freshman year, and I was talking to my mom about being single. Through tears, I remember telling her I didn’t feel called to singleness. I felt so overwhelmed by how alone I was.
It’s so ironic that now, ten years later, I am still unmarried and not dating anyone. Despite the sting, it’s been such a season of grace to remember all the ways the Lord has loved me.
In more ways than one, without this season, I could easily have made the mistake of only thinking that romance was the only type of love that mattered. I would have been wrong. For so many years I bought the lie that I needed a man to complete me, but I was very wrong. I needed to walk through a season of having a shattered, broken heart over a relationship that ended.
Sometimes, hearts can shatter more than once, and not just over guys walking away. I’m so glad I could learn through all of it that the Lord’s love never fails. That even in the darkness, I am more loved in an instant by God than I could ever be loved in a lifetime by one man. I know that will always be true. For some reason I just feel like I have to say it. I know that several days will come between this one and the next day I write. By then, I have no idea what will happen.
Rather than living in constant fear of being single forever, I’m learning to accept that this waiting season is purposed by Him. That His timing, while perfect, is not in any sense predictable.
I am confident in the grace of God that has led me my whole life. I am so sure that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, so that He could set me free from sin and receive glory for my life - whether or not romance steals the central stage. But I’m so excited for what He will do with this next year.
I hope that wherever you are, whatever season you are walking through, that you know, single, dating, married or engaged - the Lord still weaves His loves into your life.
He weaves when you are alone and your prayers go unanswered. He gave His life on the cross for you and today lives to make intercession for his people. I hope that you will know and believe in Jesus as your Savior - that you will come to experience His great, unfailing love.
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”
- 1 John 3:1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aimee manages the internal communications for a government office in Washington, DC. On the weekends, you can find her hiking with friends at Great Falls National Park, exploring quaint old beach towns and finding new coffee shops. She is passionate about encouraging young women in their walk with Christ, urging them to trust and follow Him, even in the unknown and chaos of life.