My good friend Steve Halliday, single for forty-plus years before he married, once called singleness “the gift nobody wants,” likening it to a pair of really bad pajamas from an aunt who doesn’t know your size. I understand just what he means. Glenn thought this excerpt from a book I never meant to write, Moments for Singles, might encourage some of you who are wondering how many more Christmases you’ll be getting this particular, not-so-welcome gift. I hope it helps.

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Most of my single friends would like to be married. A few say they could be content to remain single for life; even fewer claim to have the gift of singleness. On the contrary, under the right circumstances, almost every single adult I know would choose the gift of marriage. But by definition, a gift is something chosen for us, not something we choose.

If God has chosen for you – today – the gift of singleness, will you gratefully receive it? Will I? And beyond receiving it, will we actively seek His design, not just for our lives in general, but for our present, unmarried state?

When my sister and I were young, she had an unusual way of receiving gifts she didn’t particularly like. I admired it, actually. While I would dutifully smile at the odd-gift giver and (insincerely) say, “Thank you very much,” Lynn would eye the unwanted gift, look at the giver, and say, “What did you give me this for?” (It drove my mother crazy.)

Looking back, I think she was on to something. God is the least fooled of anyone when we pretend to be pleased with another day or week or year of being single – and we are not. He couldn’t possibly be honored when we offer thanks for a thing for which we are not only not thankful, but secretly resentful. But I believe He actually welcomes an honest question like, “Why did you give me this, God? What is your purpose in it?”

Are you honest enough (and brave enough) to ask God what His purposes might be for your singleness?

Is it such a stretch to think He might use your longing, your struggle, your hurt (or mine) to show His glory and advance His cause? Writer Nancy Guthrie says in her beautiful book, Holding on to Hope, “For me, submission has meant a quiet, though sorrowful, acceptance of God’s plan and God’s timing. But because I believe God’s plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path He has set before me, I want to run toward it.”

A few years back one of my single friends gave me the following words, which we both posted on our screensavers at work: “Were there anyplace better for you than the one in which you find yourself, Divine Love would have placed you there.” (Thank you, Charles Spurgeon.)  Although she is now married and has a small daughter – and I am still single – it’s hard to argue with that thought. If this is, in fact, the best place for me, I want to seize and celebrate it, and not miss whatever purpose God might have in placing me here.

Don’t you want the same thing?

God, I didn’t choose this, and I won’t pretend I did. I never thought I’d be alone, and certainly not for this long. Looking back, I can see that great good has come from my single life. Thank You for travel and teaching and time carved out to go where I’ve felt called and needed. Thank You for the precious crazy quilt of friends I’ve made and the memorable moments we’ve shared together. Thank you for one gloriously illuminating trip to Brazil , for another sad and bittersweet one to Canada , and for the life lessons I learned in both places. Thanks for the times when it was only You and me, and for what those focused hours have yielded. Show me what to say “yes” to tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Let me be single on purpose, and let that purpose be Yours.  Amen.  

From Moments for Singles by Leigh McLeroy, © 2004, NavPress. Used by permission of the author.