waiting

So...

I knew at some point in this 30 days of thanksgiving, this would come back up.

I'll just say it.

Today, I am supposed to write that I am grateful for my singleness.

I'll be honest, entering the 30 days of gratitude I KNEW the Lord would as me to write this. I had resigned myself to it. I knew what I would say. I know all the reasons to be grateful that I am 33 and single.

This prospect of writing this, however, became infinitely more difficult when just a day or two into these 30 days that Lord placed on my heart a new request. It is not something that I have told a lot of people about because, I'll be honest, its something I have really struggled to commit to.

I heard these words pretty clearly from the Lord.

"Linda, as you walk through this journey, I am going to be doing a lot of work on you. As you change not only physically but being filled with my joy as well, men are going to start to notice you more...(At this point I liked where He was going)...But, this journey is about you and about me. For this year, I want you to offer your heart to no one, except for me."

I sputtered slightly. I couldn't have understood Him right. Could He possibly be saying to take the entire concept of getting married off the table completely for a full year?

Now, this may seem like not that big of a deal. Let's be honest, I'm not really out there playing the field as it is. I don't go on dates...well ever. I haven't spent time in that way with a man in a long time.

It shouldn't be that different from life as it currently is. Yet, somehow, the idea of removing it from the table even seemed like a difficult and horrible suggestion.

Sure, I don't go on dates, but if a man asked me out tomorrow...I COULD. It may not have been taking something that was already happening, but it was asking me to give up the possibility that it might happen...for a whole year.

I don't know if I have mentioned this but I am 33.

That whole biological clock thing, totally real.

Five years ago, when my brother and sister in-law announced that she was pregnant for my nephew, an insensitive family member's response to the news was to look at me and say, "Well you aren't getting any younger are you."

I am not.

Everyday, the shot at having a child of my own seems less and less possible.

Saying that I won't even consider opening my heart to a man for a full year, seemed like a gigantic sacrifice. I wept real tears as I made the commitment. A commitment that seemed like no big deal really to the very few people I told, while I felt like Abraham placing Isaac on the altar.

Even now writing these words, after having a few weeks to get used to the idea, I still have tears pouring from my eyes.

So why, if it still stings, did I decide today that I am grateful for my singleness.

Somehow I felt the Lord nudging at my heart all day that this was what He wanted me to write tonight. Then this evening I heard a quote that brought it all together.

"Waiting is not wasted, when it is waiting with the Lord."

If I am completely honest, when the Lord asked this of me, I felt like I was wasting a year. I knew that the Lord was going to do all kinds of great things, but I felt like giving up a year was a lot to ask because it's true, I am not getting any younger.

I have no idea what the Lord is trying to do.

I am walking this journey in broken, blind, crazy faith.

I am glad for the place in scripture that says,

"Even when we are faithless, He is faithful still for he cannot deny Himself." 

My heart is struggling to be faithful, but I am grateful that He calls me to try. I am grateful that He is taking me deeper. I am grateful for my singleness because the Lord is revealing it is a season of waiting on Him. It is a season of waiting WITH Him.

Once, as I was driving home from visiting friends I had spent some time crying out to the Lord about how forgotten I feel sometimes. After I had let it go and was not even thinking about it I felt the Lord say to me out of the blue,

"Oh Linda, my daughter, you are NOT forgotten. It just takes time to write a story like yours." 

I have no clue where this story is going, or where this journey ends. I have no clue how long the Lord will ask me to wait with Him.

But He is slowly but surely, teaching me to be grateful for the process.