Day #142 in A Year of Thanks:
I’m thankful for my season of singleness.

For a while, I was bitter about learning that almost every one of my exes was getting married right after being with me. I’m happy they found the one they truly wanted to marry and settle down with, but it hurt my heart and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for marriage. I closed my heart off and allowed it to get selfish and cold. Eventually, the bitterness turned into exhaustion, and I reached a point where I wanted to give my heart to the Lord to keep and protect. I actually prayed, more than once in fact, for the Lord to remove the dream of marriage from my heart because now I refuse to give my heart to anyone whose only intention is to keep me as a placeholder in their life until they find someone better.

This season of singleness has been really eye-opening. For example, I used to be a people pleaser and allowed everyone to walk all over me. Not anymore. I’ve since discovered the value of boundaries with romantic bonds, though the more I thought about it, the more generalized my interest in boundaries became. I now have what I like to call a “10 Levels of Trust” system in place, where I rate romantic interests and every person in my life on this scale.

Most people don’t know I have a 10-level trust system, though it’s been an incredibly valuable tool. It has given me a lot of insight about the people I observe, shown me how to improve those relationships, and shown me what needed to be removed to keep my peace and sanity intact. But perhaps the most significant lesson it has taught me is the importance of self-respect and care. It’s shown me I shouldn’t always put others before my feelings, and that my well-being is just as important as anyone else’s. I want to be better at loving people, but I also need to choose and love myself.

I also learned other lessons in this season of singleness, but those are more related to intimate matters than love in general, like what real love is and how sacred it is. The Lord has been working on my heart, softening me up to the idea of intimate love again, but I’m still not interested in putting my heart back on the market. I’ve worked too hard to rebuild my heart and its view on this kind of love for it to be used, abused, and discarded like trash. If the Lord has it in His will that I should be married, I wholeheartedly believe He will open that door when my future spouse and I are ready for each other, and it will be someone who sees me and understands my value. If that’s not His will, then it’s just me and the Lord, and I’m just as happy to live with that, because the Lord is enough for me and so is this beautiful life.

Day 141 | Day 142 | Day 143
Year of Thanks