At nineteen, this is the first Valentine's Day that I've actually considered myself to be single.
All the previous years, I just considered myself too young for a relationship.
But this year it sort of hit me. When it did, I was surprised to discover that this fact doesn't devistate me. And it's not because I don't want to get married. No, not that at all. It's because I'm scared to death to get married if it's not God's timing. I assume that since I'm not in a relationship, it must not be His timing yet. His timing might be tomorrow, I don't know. But rather than concerning me, it makes me feel secure and evokes me to breathe a prayer of thanksgiving that I know I can trust the timing of my Father.
During this season of singleness, I do not see it as a burden. I see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to seize this time I have to serve God wholeheartedly, for I know not how long I have left.
Someday soon, if the Lord wills it, I will enter a new season. A season of having the privilege to be a picture to the world of Christ and his Bride, the church. A season of serving and caring for my husband and family. But now, while I anticipate and prepare and long for that day, God is teaching me that His timing is perfect and that when I trust Him, I will never be disappointed.
In contemplating these things, a certain scripture came to mind and I was inspired to post it here.
Ecclesiastes 3 1-14
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him."
