One of the most difficult parts of being single is that I feel like I’m always fighting.
Photo Credit: Flickr User Travis Modisette, Creative Commons
Fighting to be content.
Fighting to remember my life is now, not if or when I walk down the aisle.
Fighting to not compare.
Fighting to know there is meaning and purpose in this, the here and now.
Fighting to not be mad at God.
It gets tiring, to be fighting all the time.
I want to hang up my boxing gloves, lie down on the mat, and just be.
If I knew how to do that, I would’ve done it by now.
But even my attempts to stop fighting are, themselves, the source of the fight–the fight to be content, to remember my life is now, to not be mad at God.
That last one is the biggest problem, of course.
It’s not, objectively speaking, God’s fault I am single.
But I do believe God is all-powerful, listens to prayers, and hates to see his children hurt.
Which I struggle to make jive with my reality, in which I am single, it hurts, and God has the power to change it but hasn’t.
I trust God and that he has a plan for me, for each part of my life.
But I don’t think trusting him takes away pain or hardship.
So I don’t know exactly where all this leaves me.
I’ve tried to stop fighting, to just be, and yet getting there is its own kind of fight.
Singleness seems to be an enduring kind of fight.
A refining, lesson-riddled, challenging, sometimes freeing and rewarding fight.
But a fight all the same.
Til next time…
~Brianna!~
p.s. Do you ever feel like you’re fighting to be content with where you are?
The Art of Becoming 
I can def relate. I spent most of my 20s as a single and most of it fighting discontentment. Now at 31 the battle still rages. The battle to walk out Gods will when it means having unmet desires. The battle to resist temptation and not settle. The battle to experience heartbreak after surrendering much wanted relationships. And then the battle of being ignored and overlooked by godly men and wondering if I am remotely desirable. Well it has been a battle. But it has also been a journey one that I can now look back on and see how much my character has developed throughout this walk of surrender. God has used this area of my life to refine me and refinement comes through the fire. He once told me that it wasn’t that I wanted marriage I just wanted the battle to stop. I just wanted life to be easier. But it won’t b bcuz this is the way of the cross. He will always use various areas of our lives to refine us. And from what I’m learning character, selflessness and maturity are vital for a healthy marriage. I did not have those qualities 10 yrs ago and so though its been hard, I’m learning to value the process and journey.
Being single can definitely be a struggle (especially when you never planned on staying single for so long, who does??) but I have found the greatest way for me to stay content with my life is to be too busy serving others and being involved in church/ministry to have time for self-pity and sleepless nights of worry. I have times when I get lonely and down, but they pass by quickly when I remember that I have everything I need in God and that my life has meaning and purpose, with or without a man next to me.
Brianna, my heart goes out to you! Thank you for bravely sharing what’s going on in your insides. I enjoy reading your posts. I walked the road you’re on, and I joined the “married” road not that long ago. I want to let you know that the fight not to compare—the fight to be content—to remember that life is in the here and now … marriage isn’t the cure for that. In fact, it may magnify it! Being married will not bring that battle for contentedness to an end. I think many of us can resonate with what you said about knowing God is all-powerful … and struggling to make that jive with reality, in which we are single (or fill any other struggle into that blank—depressed, infertile, anxious, etc.). It hurts, and God has the power to change it, but in his wisdom, he hasn’t. Keep fighting, Brianna. And I will, too. Keep trusting God to see you through. He will!
Man I know how this feels too. 99% of my friends are married or about to be married and I am going strong in the single-as-possible category. It’s a daily struggle to not worry about the future and to find the positives in my life right now, so you are not alone in that! I think one of the worst parts is that people expect things from me when it might not even be God’s plan – ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ ‘When you get married…’ ‘When you have kids…’ as if it’s a foregone conclusion – which I have absolutely no control over. It makes me feel like a failure and like I’m going to disappoint people, but I remind myself that this is my life and it’s not about them or their expectations. It’s not even about my expectations, really. It’s hard to just let go and trust that God knows what’s best for you regarding something that seems so important, and it’s something I’ve been trying to actively work on. Honestly, I’m tired of it all and I want things to just work out /now/, but that’s not how life works and that’s a hard thing to accept sometimes. Stay strong! And if you ever want someone to talk to, I’m here 🙂