Sister friends, these words are for you –
It’s what I have been dying to tell you along the way and all that I have learned over the past year or more of dating and waiting for a husband. Truly I have waited much longer than a year, but God did some work since 2018 and what He taught me was an anchor to my soul in the hard moments. I’ll be honest and say I have not wanted to write this post as I was afraid that it would come off as preaching and weird, but last week I read an old journal entry from last November and I felt like this was the exact message I wanted to share. So I hope my words serve as encouragement to those of you who may be in the waiting season. Cling to Hope and know that you lack no good thing.
“Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.”
Nehemiah 9:19-21
Ladies, let me tell you. My go to scripture in singleness never led me to Nehemiah. However, one lucky day in November it did. In my journal I wrote about Nehemiah’s verse, “Lord thank you that I can rest in today that I LACK NOTHING. Just like the Israelites lacked nothing in the desert and you provided all things, I lack nothing now. Thank you Jesus that I can trust your Spirit to instruct me. Father, would your mercies be my hope and would they restore where doubt has chipped away at my rock of hope. Lord, this is where you have been merciful to me….” Guys, I read that scripture after being engaged and just cried my eyes out because I remember clinging to the truth that I lack nothing. I lack nothing. And it’s true, you and I lack no good thing whether single or married.
A huge relief to me about this topic came from the book The Meaning of Marriage. There is a chapter at the end of the book on singleness and what he said in one section completely changed the way I viewed it. To sum it up, he stated that because we are single it does not mean that 1) we have a lesson still to learn 2) its a punishment for past actions or 3) I am missing some character trait that is needed before getting married. Nope, none of that is it. The Lord promises that He will always provide us his best. Always. So today, if you are single, that is the Lord’s best for you. But guess what? Tomorrow, His best could be that you meet someone. And if so, He will bring you there. The main point is – where God has you today is His best for you. He will never withhold a good thing.
Moving on… Next step, letting go of pride! Eeks I did not want to do that one. You know what was letting go of pride for me? Being okay with meeting someone on a dating app. It is crazy the shame we feel as Christians of meeting someone on a dating app. I have felt all of the things from “I should be better than this” to “they will think I am desperate” and 1000 more. Gal pals – It is 100% okay to go on dates or potentially meet your husband on a dating app. Sweet ole Corbin Taylor came from a dating app and I will promise you, once you realize you met your husband, you will give zero shits about how you met him. You will just be praising the good ole Lord that you did! So I really do encourage you to give a dating app a try. Amongst all of the weirdos, there really are some great people trying to meet other great people. Even if you don’t meet the one, you will have some hilarious stories to come out of it! Promise you, my dating tales gave my friends and I MANY laughs that I will remember forever.
Since I am a success story to the dating app game, (hahahah I’m laughing at myself writing that), let me give you some practical tips I learned along the way –
- Try Hinge. I’ve seen a lot of success there :)
- Stick to your guns. I tried going on dates with a lot of different “types” and realized that I really only have one type – southern. Ooo La La! Sooo if you know you are not going to like the creative musician, don’t waste your time to go on a date with him. It likely won’t work in the end.
- However, if you are in a rut, try to switch it up slightly. I will be 100% honest, Sara Miller told me to connect with Corbin. I was on the fence and other dates had me feeling more critical :# Sometimes, you have to give a profile the benefit of the doubt if you see some good in there. In Corbin’s case, I knew he loved Jesus. Risk it if it feels right and know that a profile does not define the person! You may just find your future hubby :)
- Let your profile do the work for you. Let your answers show your personality and allow guys something to work off of when starting the conversation. For example, one of the questions I asked was “Outside of work, what is your must do thing throughout the week?”. The answers always showed what was a big priority to the guy and let you filter through the weeds.
- A big priority to me was letting them know I loved Jesus. I didn’t want to do it in a blunt way that just said “MUST LOVE JESUS” so I took another spin on it. I chose to use the the question “What is the way to win me over?” and answered “Love Jesus and tacos – life is incomplete without them both”. A little humor, a little Jesus. I thought, and still think, I nailed it. And I must have because that is the question that Corbin commented on and look at us now! (High-five to Corbin! … and obligatory high-five to Sara for again encouraging me to match :D)
Third thing the Lord taught me was about confidence and seeing the value I had to offer. I won’t say much about this except own who you are. The Lord has made you and your personality unique so lean into those traits and gifts. For some reason I always feared that we would have nothing to talk about and would just sit there as awkward ducks. So so silly! To jedi-mind trick myself in those moments, I always went into every date pretending that we were already best friends so I would feel comfortable to talk about anything like friends would. This helped me go into every experience much more relaxed which allowed the guys to feel relaxed in return. I realized that I could learn a lot more about someone and their personality if my mind was calm. So have confidence in who you are and know that God is with you and will bring those special traits to life – especially to the right person! One more go-to move for confidence, listen to hype music. Betty Who was my jam before every date and gave me the courage, power and confidence to feel like I was going to rock every date I went on. Give her a listen!!
Last but not least, pray and find prayer warriors to pray with you. At the beginning of this year, I felt called to BOLDLY pray for five future husbands, my own and four of my friends’. Last year, I felt so apathetic to the hope that I would meet my husband so this year I thought I would do the exact opposite. Not one of the five of us gals were dating someone at the time, so I started the prayer that we would all meet and know our husbands this year in 2019. Now, I want to say that if that did not happen, I wouldn’t trust the Lord any less, though I might have been angry; however, it was key to keeping my hope alive in the Lord and His deliverance for us. It has been SO much easier to pray for my future husband knowing that I am also praying for the husbands of four of my greatest friends. It can feel burdensome and tired only thinking of yourself, but throw some friends in the mix, and your passion will be much more alive. And do not go on this journey alone! I told those four girls I was praying for them in hopes that they would pray for me in return. My mom and my sister were my biggest prayer warriors having complete confidence in my future when my own was lacking. Prayer is powerful – run to it and allow your friends to take part in it with you.
There is so much more I could say, but I will stop there and hope that this has been helpful and encouraging. I am obviously the most grateful I have ever been now that I have Corbin in my life, but a friend told me this while I was single and I think it is completely true – the depth you experience with the Lord in singleness is likely different than any other time. So while you are there, cling to Him and learn from it. It will be one of the sweetest seasons of your life that IS temporary. Live in it with hope.
The following verse is my prayer for you, as it was for myself. Cling to hope. Trust His faithfulness. Wait upon Him. The perfect gem of a husband is coming for you and you do not want to settle upon anything less. Wait wait wait. The Lord will deliver and it will be sweeter than you can ever imagine.
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
Lamentations 3:22-24
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
xx
Han
Vigor & The Vine 