Does Single Life Make Us Better or Bitter?

As a young Catholic single, Megan Mastroianni, speaker for the upcoming Encounter Milwaukee Steubenville Young Adult Conference, knows the temptation to feel like God has forgotten you. But in her speaking ministry and in her job as a Campus Minister at an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore, she works to spread the truth that you are not forgotten. When you haven’t found your spouse, you can feel like you are missing out on something. Mastroianni says, “It is absolutely a cross for people who desire their vocation for that one person that they can count on, their battle buddy and their best friend.” But she says, that cross can make you bitter or it can make you better.

Comparing yourself to other singles or even married couples is one way that you can become bitter. Mastroianni says, “What fuels my bitterness is the time I decide to spend on social media, comparing myself to everyone married, and everyone with their perfect little lives and their perfect little husbands. And now I obviously don’t believe that, but that’s the voice that goes through my head.” She says in those instances, she is choosing her bitterness, “It’s like my eyes are shut and I am refusing to open my eyes to what else could be there. I am so stubborn.” Those are the times when she feels forgotten and her cross is too much. She says, “I am insisting that the only way to happiness is this way or I refuse to believe that there can be something else, or something more.”

But instead through prayer and conviction, Mastroianni says we can choose to have our eyes open. Our cross can make us better. She says, “What makes me better during those times, and for all people striving for holiness, is expanding our hearts and our time spent even more to God. This is the time to go deeper.” It is important to focus on what you are able to do. She says, “I can go to daily Mass and I can go to holy hour because I have the time to do it.” By focusing on your blessings, you can see what God is giving you. Mastroianni says, “My eyes are open and my eyes see that He is not holding anything back from me. He’s holding things for me. And I can eat of the table scraps, but He has a banquet.”

We don’t see the truth that God has a plan for us. We can start to question our self-worth from comparing ourselves to others. So what can we do to strengthen our self-esteem?  Mastroianni says, “I think ultimately the more time we spend with God, the less we feel like we need to be validated by others.” She says that validation and affirmation are not wrong. We should be encouraging and affirming each other. But she says, “The deepest validation that we seek is from our Father. It really comes down to prayer time. And spending time before the body, before the body Himself.”

In a culture that emphasizes perfect bodies, these unrealistic expectations can affect both men and women. Mastroianni says, “The attack is on the body. It’s on our body. And when we spend time with the image of the body of Christ. We can see ourselves. It’s almost like a reflection. That we’re looking at Him and we’re seeing more clearly who He is and more clearly who we are.” So in the fight against the voices that say you are not good enough, Mastroianni says, “The most practical time we can spend is with God and the best thing we can do for our lives is get close to Him. And if that’s the only thing one does out of all else, He will provide the rest.”

But what if it is still a struggle? What if feelings of unworthiness keep cropping up? Mastroianni says, “Day to day I generally will go back to a moment where I remember God consoling me. And I remember what He said and I remember how I felt and I remember the clarity that I had. And when I’m in times of desolation, I do this. It’s very practical. We can do it walking into the grocery store, or cooking dinner. We can recall those moments and remember what God spoke to us in those moments.”

Mastroianni also suggests proclaiming the truth out loud or in our hearts whenever we have the temptation to give those voices space in our head. She says, “I think actually proclaiming either out loud or in our hearts, ‘Lord I claim you as my Father. I claim You as faithful. I claim that You see me as good. And that You love my body. And that You love my personality. And I know that that’s true. Right now I don’t feel it but I know it.’ This is what Jesus did in moments of temptation, when He was in the desert. He spoke the truth. He recalled God. He recalled the faithfulness of Him and He spoke out the truth.”

Mastroianni says “So in the moments of temptation, that’s a very pivotal point. When there is temptation to hate your body, or hate your situation in life, or who you are, it is such a pivotal point because it can turn us. It’s really like a crossroads there. We can go one way or we can go the other. And this goes for sin as well. Praying to overcome sin, in the moment is the hardest thing to do.”

This is extremely important especially for men. Mastroianni says, “Within every heart of a man is this desire to fight, to conquer,  and to protect and provide. And all of those desires are so good. But obviously the culture twists it, especially the desire to conquer.  The culture says, ‘well, you can conquer women. You can just tally up your body count. And that will boost your confidence. That will boost your self-esteem.’ But what men should want is to conquer themselves. They should want to conquer lust, and objectification. Because there is nothing more attractive than a guy on his knees, giving his heart to God, and he might not be perfect, but is striving to overcome this beast.”

So when we are tempted to sin, or to feel forgotten, or unloved, this is the pivotal moment where we can choose that cross to make us better or make us bitter. Mastroianni says that in those times, “We can’t pretend like that is not a moment that we need to bring to the Lord. I’ve let that happen in my life so many times, and I think a big part of overcoming this is realizing that that is a very crucial moment to pray. So in that moment, cast out the lies, in the name of Jesus. I cast out the lie that I am not good enough, that I am forgotten, that he doesn’t have a plan for me. Or that he doesn’t want me to be happy. Or that my thighs are too big. Anything. Just calling it out and becoming aware of it is half the battle. Just knowing that we are in a battle and we really need to pick up our cross and claim the truth.”

And that most important truth is that we are good. Mastroianni says, “We need to recognize that we are in a battle, but we are fighting from a place of victory. We’re not fighting for victory. The battle’s already been won. The truth is that I am good. But it’s a battle to know that we’re good. At the end of the day, we all want to know, we want to be told that we’re good. And we can only be affirmed by our Father.”

Mastroianni will be speaking at the upcoming Encounter Milwaukee Steubenville Young Adult Conference on Saturday, November 14th.