“You’re going to die an old maid"

I’ll never forget those words. I had just finished expressing to a family member why I ended a relationship, and why, in all honesty, I felt that I’d rather be single than have stayed.

What I wanted to say in that moment was that if dying an old maid means staying single and traveling the world, chasing my dreams, and living all the life God has for me then call me Ethel and sign me up because I am so. in.

But I knew that’s not what she meant.

Her words weren’t intended as ones of support of my singleness, or of my choice not to settle. They were instead words of ignorance, of misunderstanding, of a way of thinking born from an erroneous belief that only a man, a marriage, a romantic love can make life worth living, and it was the first time I came face to face with the fact that not everyone knows the truth that I know.

The truth that singleness is not a curse, or a problem to be fixed.

That it doesn’t make us less than, or doomed to a life of solitude and bitterness. That no person, whether we are single or married, will ever make us whole because only God can.

It was the first time that I realized there will always be people in our lives who don’t know, or choose not to know, the truth we’ve come to believe about singleness, and they’ll take the discomfort they feel when our lives challenge their tightly held misteachings and try to divert it back to us.

But dear friends, the thing about truth is that the amount of people who believe it isn’t what makes it true.

It remains, no matter who or how many choose to see it.

So though the sting of lies may come, dear sister, I pray that you’ll hold fast to what you know about who you are and this life you lead, and I beg you not to let yourself be lead away by those who are so blind to the truth that they’ve covered their own eyes.

Keep on this path, my friend. I promise you’re not walking it alone.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash