A Series on Singleness Suffering

Thanks to Sharon for passing this gem on to her readers.  The following are links to a series of blogs on singleness over at thoughts from fabs.  Fabs does something similar to Allender and Longman in their book The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God.  She takes several of the pains connected to being single and shows how they can be used to bless us with a deeper relationship with God.  This is highly recommended reading for all Christian singles.  She does a great job at putting words to struggles I've been feeling a lot lately and then challenging me to relook at the struggle in a way that reorients me off of myself and back to God.  Check them out.  I've even included quotes from the posts to whet your appetite.

Some Talk on Singleness

I get nervous talking about singleness because I feel like I’m supposed to not even notice that I’m single because I’m so content in Jesus, right?
And I hate talking about it because too often it contributes to the enemy’s plan to get us to miss the blessings of singleness by wallowing in self-pity or jealousy or bitterness.

Blessings of Singleness #1: Loneliness

Whatever your stage of life – be encouraged when you experience loneliness.  Press into it.  Learn not to look to your spouse or friends to make this feeling go away – but instead let the pain instruct you to long for what is not yet seen.

Blessings of Singleness #2: The Pain of Freedom

The pain I experience because no one cares where I go on a Friday night doesn’t exist because no one cares where I go on a Friday night.  That pain exists because the Person who cares about where I am on a Friday night isn’t as tangible as the person who cares about where my married friend is on a Friday night. I experience pain because I covet instead of trusting that my God has given me what is best.

Blessings of Singleness #3: Losing Control

I can’t change my facebook status to ‘married’ with a little hard work and will power, and each time I remember this there is a sobering pain that teaches me truth...

The pain of losing control reminds me that I actually never had control...

Blessings of Singleness #4: The Pain of Rejection

There is no person on earth that should have the power to speak into us value or worth in such a way that it secures our identity.

Blessings of Singleness #5: Lack of Physical Intimacy

Physical desires seemingly terminate on physical things.  And that’s the beauty of fasting.  God commands us to fast, not so that He can prove He is as good as a cheeseburger by making our hunger go away. God commands us to fast so that we learn to feel hungry and trust Him in the midst of that gnawing sense of need.

Blessings of Singleness #6: The Pain of Misplaced Shame

There are two types of shame.  One is good.  It’s shame for something that dishonors God.  This shame is the grace of God in our lives that leads us to repentance.  But there’s another shame that is misplaced.  This is shame for something that we feel dishonors us.  Shame for things that bring no dishonor to God.  Shame for things like noses that are too big or teeth that aren’t perfectly straight or singleness.