Women's Wednesday - Being Single the Right Way

I have (recently) said that being single is not easy, and I stick to that claim.  However, there is a right way to be single and a wrong way.  Believe me, more often than not, I am the wrong kind of single.  So don't go calling my a hypocrite just because I can dish out advice that I'm not great at taking myself.  Like I said before, being single is not easy.

So even though I'm not great at taking my own advice, I am going to give it.  Hopefully, by writing this, it will sink in for me, too, and I will begin to take my own advice!  So, here are my Top Ten ways to be single:

10.  Be pure.  Ok, it seems like this is impossible these days.  It's difficult to not believe the lie that nobody will date you if you want to wait until marriage.  It's like, marriage might be my Vocation, but I'll never get married if I want to stay pure.  So if Vocations are supposed to lead us to holiness, and being impure is not holy, how do we win?  Well, have faith.  If you are going to marry that person, then they will be happy to wait for you.  If they are truly going to bring you to holiness in your marriage, than they should start now, before the marriage, by helping to protect your purity.  If, however, they aren't going to protect your holiness now, than what's going to be so different after those vows are taken?  Not much.  Not much at all.

9.  Have friends.  It sounds obvious, doesn't it?  But too often the reason that a person is single is because they are a work-aholic.  And then they don't have time for friends, either.  Work is good and important and necessary, but God told us to rest for a reason.  If you're lonely while you're single, friendship may not remove the longing for romance, but it will help you to be less lonely in general.  Surround yourself with loved ones.  Have girls who are your friends and guys who are your friends.  There is nothing more attractive than a person who loves. 

8.  Read the Bible.  If you ever start to despair that God won't answer your prayers for a relationship, or that He's forgotten you, than pick up your Bible and open it to pretty much any story with a woman involved (pretty much any story, but not all of them).  God's timing really isn't our timing, and it is obvious in Scripture.  BUT, just because God doesn't give us what we ask for the very second we ask for it, doesn't mean that He's not going to answer our prayers.  It doesn't mean that He has forgotten us.  Read, re-read, re-read again, memorize and remember those stories. 

7.  Pray for your spouse.  I frequently wonder what my spouse is doing "right now."  Where is he?  What is he thinking?  Is he happy?  Is he sad?  Whenever I have those thoughts, I pray for my husband.  I hope that he is praying for me, too.  Pray for your spouse regularly.  Ask God to bless him. 

6.  Pray about things besides your spouse.  Don't forget that there is more than one type of prayer.  And don't forget that there is more than one person who needs prayer.  Don't obsess with just that one prayer, but open your eyes to how good God is to you always.  Praise Him.  Thank Him.  Over prayers of petition for other people.  Ask for His advice for other areas in your life.  Ask God what you can be doing right now to best glorify Him.  Pray for your spouse, but don't limit your spiritual life to that one thing.

5.  Talk about other things than being single.  Like before, don't just talk about how difficult it is being single, how sad you are that you're single, what you're doing to do find someone else, or how nobody is ever going to love you because you're too (fat, stupid, annoying, ugly, pimply, sick, weird, etc).  Nobody wants to sit and listen to you complain about these things all the time.  And nobody wants to listen to you obsess about how great you are at being single.  There's got to be more to you than just the fact that you're single.  Prove it.  Talk about other things.

4.  Watch movies and TV shows, read books and listen to music that will inspire you.  Some movies and songs make me, personally, really sad.  I see these couples who are so cute and perfect (and, therefore, annoying) and I think about how I wish I had those things.  I become jealous of fictional characters.  Yikes!  How ridiculous!  If you finish watching romantic movies feeling sad, it's bad.  If you leave feeling inspired, hopeful, or good, than keep it in your collection!  If it makes you feel that way now, think how much greater it will be once you find your spouse! 

3.  Have an interesting life.  You don't want to meet a really great guy and have absolutely nothing to talk about with him.  I'm not saying that you should just live adventure after adventure after adventure.  It gets boring to listen to people only tell one type of story, or have opinions about one type of thing.  Learn new things.  Do new things.  Experience new things.  And you'll find that this not only makes it easier to meet your spouse, but that you are more fulfilled, too.

2.  Don't do things so that you can meet your spouse.  Do things for yourself.  Don't worry at every concert, lecture, hike, night out at the movies, etc., if you're going to meet someone there.  Go to have fun.  For yourself.  Consciously check yourself before you go, and occasionally while you're there, to see why you're behaving the way that you are.  You don't need a guy by your side to have fun.  That's not a good life.  Just have fun now.

1.  Be joyful.  It's obvious, and not obvious.  But joy is not a feeling.  It's a decision.  It's a lifestyle.  Be someone who sees the good in life.  And that might take practice at first, but if you do it enough, you'll form a habit and it'll come naturally.  Relax.  Don't take things too seriously that don't need to be taken seriously.  Live a life of love, peace and joy, and romance will find you. 

Being Single on St. Valentine's Day

Here's a humble confession for me to make:  I have never had a Valentine.  Not once.  And many people in my position would become very bitter about the holiday because of that fact.  However, in my opinion, Valentine's Day is one of the best holidays out there!  But I have heard it said SOOOOO many times that Valentine's Day is just a Hallmark Holiday and that we shouldn't need a holiday to help us to remember to tell people that we love them.



But so what?!  You're really going to let someone dictate to you how to celebrate Valentine's Day?  Are you really going to be one of those people?  If you don't like it, then do something else.  But don't NOT celebrate love just because Hallmark is making a pretty penny off the day.



Love should be celebrated every day, that's true.  So why would we purposefully not celebrate it on Valentine's Day?  You know who wins when you do that?  Satan!  That's right!  If he can get in your head and take your attention off of love, then he wins that battle. 



St. Valentine was a real human being, who truly believed in love (God is love), who truly believed in the Sacrament of Marriage (which is a Sacrament, not a legal institution), and he truly did die because he believed so strongly in the necessity of the Sacrament which had become illegal in Rome that he performed marriages in secret, was later caught and killed for performing marriages!  What a tragedy it is that we are so embittered by the holiday now-of-days.  I guarantee that St. Valentine would be heartbroken to know that his name was associated with such hatred.  He died for love.  And sometimes I feel like, when we "hate" Valentine's Day, we martyr him all over again.



I have a lot of love in my life.  I have friends, family, co-workers, teens, volunteers and parishioners at the church I attend/work at who love me and whom I love in return.  And it's good, necessary, and important to show them that love every day, even on St. Valentine's Day.



I refuse to let this holiday make me bitter.  I refuse to be sad simply because I do not have romantic love in my life at this moment in time.  I may not have romance, but I have love.  And I will celebrate that love on this very important day.



Will you be my Valentine?  Will you show me that I'm important to you, and that you love me?  I hope that I can do my best doing just that to everyone I meet today.  Please join me.

Being Single Isn't Easy

I love the line in the movie "The Princess Bride," when the Man in Black says, "Life is pain, Highness.  Anyone who says differently is selling something."  Well that's how I feel when people write blogs or act as if being single is so great, and that it's not difficult at all.  I always want to ask them, "What are you selling?"

Maybe it is easy for them.  Maybe it is fun for them.  But let me tell you what my experience of the single life is:  it's difficult.  It's lonely.  It's scary.

Now I'm not saying that the married life IS easy.  I can't comment on that because I have no experience being married.  I can tell you, though, what I've heard, and it's that being married is also difficult.  And lonely.  And scary.

So where does that leave us?  Well, quite plainly, it leaves us with the knowledge that life is just generally difficult.  And lonely.  And scary.  But that doesn't mean that it's bad.

Yes, it's true...I don't want to be single.  I would love to be in a romantic relationship, be swept off my feet and ride off in the sunset on a horse with the one I love.  Ok, maybe not that last part; that sounds a bit too cheesy for my taste (again, not that it's bad, just not my taste).  But in fact, I do want to be in a relationship.

But if being single is difficult for you, it's ok.  And just because some people find it easy, fun and exciting, doesn't mean that it has to be that way for everyone.  We are all different, and so we all experience singleness differently.  If you are single and long to be in a relationship, than I encourage you to pray about those feelings.  All challenging things in our lives can give glory to God.  I promise you that if you use those feelings to bring Him glory, that it will change you.  No, being single might not feel any better.  But at least it will have purpose.

Please don't let anyone make you feel bad for feeling bad about being single.  Hiding, suppressing or ignoring our feelings isn't what gives glory to God.  It's ok to feel what you feel.  It's not ok to let those feelings control you.  To wallow in them.  The sit in them.  To act out because of them.  All kinds of Saints have experienced sadness and loneliness and anger, and given that to God to give Him glory.  Think about Saint Therese of Lisieux who "smiles through her tears."  That doesn't mean she doesn't feel the sadness.  She does, though, smile through it.

Through all of the things in your life, happy things, sad things, frustrating things, scary things, lonely things and lovely things, one goal should you keep:  use it to give glory to God, and all will be well.