QUARANTINE AND SINGLENESS: THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOSPEL IN EVERY SEASON
*This post originally appeared on the HTC Blog
“I feel like you’re telling me to hug a cactus or embrace a boa constrictor,” I kept thinking after spending the morning reading and editing a blog post from my friend and pastor, Joel Miles. Through his study of Ecclesiastes 3, Joel concludes that instead of wishing away this time of quarantine, we need to embrace what God has called us to and live into it fully. The clear message is that though we might not know what God is doing or why he is doing it, we can trust that he is the one that has ordained this season we are in. Those thoughts rumbled around my heart all day and to be honest, I found myself feeling frustrated and even angry. I kept groaning, “BUT I DON’T LIKE THIS SEASON!” In fact, I hate it. I hate not seeing my friends and family. I hate the fear and anxiety it produces. I hate the loneliness it surfaces in my life. But most of all, I hate that it shines a terrifying spotlight on an area of my life that is already a struggle to embrace: singleness. A call to embrace this season feels like wrapping my arms around pain and heartache, and honestly, I’d prefer to hug a cactus.
As the time frame for social distancing and staying at home has continued to ratchet up, so too has my sadness and deep disappointment in being 44 and single. For me, this season has surfaced and accentuated many of the pains and fears that come with not having a husband or children. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a list just as long of pains and fears for those who are married and have a family. To debate whose list is worse or harder is a silly and fruitless rabbit trail. The point is that this season has had a way of amplifying the pain points for each one of us.
The last two months have allowed more space for dark imaginations and opened up the black hole of questions I try to keep at bay: What if I am alone for the rest of my life? What if there is no one to take care of me when I’m old? Will there ever be anyone whose life is so bound up with mine that we make big life decisions together or someone who considers me first when making those decisions? I know my roommates love me, but we have not committed our lives to one another, nor taken vows to remain in the same household, or the same state for that matter, regardless of what life holds. When I dig down deeper, I think the reason I don’t want to embrace this season is that it feels like if I do, I will be resigning myself to the loneliness, insecurity, and heartbreak that it brings. Does embracing mean giving up my desire for marriage and family? Does it mean putting on a happy face and shoving down the pain and fear that has been surfaced? I don’t think that is what it means.
As I’ve brought these questions to the Lord, he has been gracious to reveal to me the story I have once again unconsciously been living into. The truth is, I have found myself here many times as the years and decades have rolled on with no husband and no kids. The narrative that our culture tells us, the one that I tell myself and the one that even the church often reinforces, is that all of these desires can and will be met in marriage. It is easy for me to believe that my good desire for intimacy, for being taken care of, and for security are most readily found in a husband. When my unexamined thoughts lead me down that road, my dissatisfaction with the Lord grows, and I am quick to believe that he is withholding something from me. In this current season, I feel like he has withheld something from me that I need to be okay—a covenant relationship with a person who will always be there.
As I reflect on this, I realize that it’s possible that having a family around me would take away these fears and insecurities and halt the fury of questions about the future. A spouse and children are good desires and incredible gifts from the Lord, but their purpose is not to satisfy or meet all of my needs. When I presume that the Lord is withholding from me, I’m effectively saying that I need something else to meet my needs. Consequently, my hope is in something that I don’t have.
It’s a startling revelation, and so kind of the Lord to show me that I’ve lost my grip on the truth that I already have everything I need in Christ. Even without a husband or children, even if through this pandemic I were to lose my job, my home, my health, or people that I love, I can truly say that I lack nothing because God has given me everything. I will be okay. I will be more than okay because what I do have is a covenant relationship with the Author and Sustainer of life who has promised to never leave me nor forsake me. In Romans 8:32, Paul asks, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” The ultimate proof that God has not withheld anything from me, and has given me all I need is found at the cross.
The true story, the one I need to call to mind daily, is that the longing I have for intimacy, security, and being taken care of is not ultimately found in marriage or in another human being. Marriage does not ultimately satisfy those longings for married people either. Jesus Christ is the only answer for all of us. Jesus Christ crucified, raised to life, and returning again to make all things new is the only answer for the single and married person alike. He is the only one who satisfies. He is the only one who can meet every need we have. He is more desirable than any person and more intimately acquainted with the deepest parts of us. He is the only one who will not let us down and the only one who fulfills every promise He has ever made. No marriage can do that. No person can do that. My longings for a spouse and family are good longings for good gifts from the Lord. But that is all that they are. They are gifts. They do not give life, and they are not the ones he has given me right now. My heart’s deepest desire is most satisfied in the giver of those gifts.
So I can reject this season of life with its thorny reminders of a missing husband and children. I can feel sorry for myself and lean into the narrative that God has withheld something from me. Or I can embrace the longing that this season amplifies and be reminded that it is Christ that my heart is actually seeking after. Embracing this season does not mean tamping out the desire for marriage or glossing over the pain of loneliness. It means naming these painful things and crying out to the Lord to fill my longings in His ways and in His timing, knowing that may not be in this lifetime. I can embrace this season because I have the knowledge of the cross behind me, evidence that God the Father has withheld nothing from me. I can embrace this season because I am united to Christ now, through the Holy Spirit. And I can embrace this season because I have the hope of the new heavens and new earth in front of me. Only then will every longing for intimacy and every desire for love and security be fully satisfied in perfect, restored community with one another and in unveiled relationship with God himself.