Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a significant drop in the number of single men and women around me. 

 

In fact, it’s to the point where I’ve started to wonder if I missed the boat.

Like for real though. Did a group of single, Christian young men pull up, find wives, and sail off into the sunset together? Did I literally miss the boat?

Is it coming back?!

Do you know that feeling?

It feels like everyone around you is getting married or in a relationship, and you’re just over here still "deeply single", “waiting for your Boaz”...whatever people are calling it these days.

I know how it feels to look around and feel like you’re the only single person left in the room, and I know what it’s like to begin to question if maybe it’s because you’ve done something wrong:

What do these people have that I don’t?

Am I not good enough? Not pretty enough? Too awkward?

Should I have stayed with my ex boyfriend? 

Am I too damaged?

Was I too focused on my career?

Does God care for them more than he cares for me?

The thoughts begin to run rampant, searching for an answer.

And after years of swirling the questions around in my head, lying awake at night trying make sense of it all, I’ve come to three conclusions that I want to share with you today. Over time they’ve helped me to quiet my thoughts and reject the lies, and I pray they’ll help you do the same:

 

1. God has you on a different journey, and that’s ok (no really, it is!):

 

One of the most critical lessons I’ve learned throughout my years of singleness is that though my life may look different from someone else’s, or even from the way that I planned it, it doesn’t mean that I’ve done life “wrong”, that God doesn’t care about me, or that my life isn’t good.

God never said that He favors or only has good plans for those with a spouse, and though our culture may elevate marriage over singleness, God does not.

So while our life may look different from someone else’s because we’re single, it still has so much purpose and boy, does God have plans. There’s something else in store for us, and if we are willing to open our eyes to see it, it may be far better than we could have ever dreamed or imagined ourselves.

 

2. Later doesn’t equal never

 

This has taken my recovering pessimist heart a long time to wrap it’s mind around.

I used to believe that because something had already happened for someone else, and hadn’t happened for me, it meant that it would never happen for me. That it was too late.

Afterall, we spend so much of our early lives living life’s milestones in tandem with other people. We go through school with the same group of people, get our driver’s license around the same time, graduate together, and maybe even go off to college together.

When we’re finally out in the real world, suddenly there’s nothing that we have in common anymore. There’s nothing that seemingly makes our lives progress at the same rate, and we can’t make sense of it.

I remember shortly after college, when it felt like people had really started coupling off, I began to panic, and began to desperately pray that I wouldn’t be single past 25. By then, I thought it would have happened for everyone else, and be too late for me.

Well, I’m 31 years old as I write this post today, and I still believe there’s a chance. Though it may happen later than I planned, and later than many people I grew up with, there is no rational reason for why it cannot.

Later doesn’t mean never. It never has, never will.

 

3. You are not the only single girl left, and you're certainly not alone (Hi, I’m Laura, have we met?)

 

I get it. Sometimes you look around and you’re literally the only single person in the room, but it doesn’t mean you’re the only single person in the world.

Not only am I still out here, living that single life, but I can promise you that I’ve heard from so many other single women, just like us, and while they may not be in your inner circle, I guarantee they’re around you all the time.

You may not know them, but they’re there. We’re here. We’re all in this together, and none of us are actually alone.

You will never be the only single girl left.  

 

So have you missed the boat?

 

I can assure you that the answer to that question is absolutely not.

There was no boat to miss. It’s a fabricated lie drummed up by a culture that tells us that what happens to the majority and when is the right and only way. But the truth is that there is no God-defined time for when we are supposed to meet our spouse, and our time may still be coming.

In the meantime, there is so much life for you to be living. Not only you, but all the single women out there. And though it may feel at times like we are few, or even like you’re the only one left, I assure you that there’s a whole army of other single women out there cheering you on.

We’re in this together, girl. Please don’t forget it.