What Am I Doing?

To blog or not to blog? That is the question. At its core, isn’t a blog a soliloquy? The longer I keep this blog, the more I ask myself what I am doing. I ask God that, too. Right around the first of the year, I knew that my WordPress subscription would be renewing, and I gave a lot of thought to whether or not I should continue.  I tried to be prayerful and seek what God wanted from me. Here I am still blogging weekly. I felt as though God wanted me to give it another year. I am approaching two years and one hundred posts, but in keeping with the traditions of my academy class, I would prefer to celebrate this 99th blog post.

I try to be prayerful about what I write and what survives multiple edits. My goal is to be edifying and thought-provoking, as I share this journey that I am on. As long as I continue in this endeavor, I want to give it my best. If at all possible, I want to glorify God with what I write. I want to bring up issues that I am passionate about, but I don’t want to point fingers. It can be a balancing act. I have made a conscious decision not to call out individual people or individual churches. There have been times that I have been tempted to bring up specific incidents that I experienced, which were particularly hurtful to me as a single person. I try to refrain from writing anything that might be hurtful to people involved in any given circumstance.

With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:6a,8

After last week’s blog, Jesus Was Single, even my sister asked whether I was happy at my church. I suppose I should have included a disclaimer; that blog was not about the church that I attend or about any one church. It was about a phenomena that I have experienced, observed, and heard about from other singles, over the past two decades. I wanted to shine a light on something that the majority of people probably don’t see. I also want other single people who have experienced similar situations, to know that it isn’t because of them. Finally, it wouldn’t hurt if we were all thinking about how we could do better.

Several years back, I had the privilege of traveling with others from my church to share in a week-long retreat with our partner church from Prishtine, Kosova (aka: Pristina, Kosovo). Never have I felt more like part of the family of God than when I worshipped alongside those brothers and sisters in Christ. In addition to worshipping and studying God’s word together, we were able to talk and share our testimonies of how God was working in our lives. I have never been so uplifted. While some people were on the lookout to find me a husband, my Kosovar sisters in Christ were encouraging me to follow God’s leading in my life. I think they understand something that is more difficult for us spoiled Americans to grasp: it isn’t about what we want for our lives, it is about what God wants for us.

I feel a need to battle the culture that makes it seem like a person needs to be married in order to be a “good Christian.” Intellectually, we know that is not true, but the traditions, assumptions, and inferences often reveal a different attitude. Being single has not been easy for me to accept, but I eventually learned to turn to God and use the struggle as a launching pad to deeper faith. My experience has taught me that seeking God and His will for my life, rather than chasing my own desires, leads to a happier, more satisfying life.

For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.

Proverbs 2:6-8

I often wonder why God rescued me and prevented me from marrying someone who wasn’t a follower of Christ. Perhaps He wants me to help others learn what He has taught me: you can be happy as a single person, just as you can be unhappy as a married person. Rushing in to marriage or marrying for the wrong reasons is a good way to become one of the latter. I have this crazy idea that maybe I could help other women and other believers make better decisions. I want to use Scripture as a guide for how we should live. I have made a lot of mistakes, and some of them took me years to recognize. Most were in the pursuit of being loved and ultimately wanting to be married. The bad choices may have been more obvious to me at the time, if only I had been seeking God rather than chasing men.

Why am I writing this blog? I have no reason to believe that anyone out there is hanging on my every word. Often, the blogs that I work the hardest on, that are closest to my heart, seem to be the ones that the fewest people read. Then, I will put something together that I am not quite satisfied with, only to find that it is more well received than average. There are times, like last week, when the people who know me best misunderstand the point I am trying to make. I suppose it proves that I really don’t know what I’m doing. I guess I just need to trust that God knows what He has me doing.