Single Women, Don't Forget You're a Gift

"What are You doing?"

I said it out loud on a kneeler across from the tabernacle in an otherwise empty, tiny chapel at a church in Virginia Beach.

A few days earlier, a man I'd been dating had made his decision: He couldn't commit to me. 

I was still what I didn't want to be: single.

So I gave it to God. And I don't mean I offered it up or laid it at his feet. I mean I drove to the church, marched into the chapel, and confronted Him—loudly.

Then, He confronted me. Do you really want to be what you want to be, or do you want to be what I've called you to be?

I don't remember how long I sat in silence after that, but I do remember what I learned: that God can handle it when what we say to Him is unedited; that if a guy doesn't want to date or marry me, I'm not meant to date or marry him; and that if God is OK with my still being single, I can be OK with it, too.

And so can you.

I'm not telling you to pretend you're happy that you aren't married yet. And I'm not telling you to give up. I'm not even telling you not to wallow. Go ahead; wallow when you have to. Tell God how you really feel. 

But don't let what you're not—married—overshadow who you are. Your life is already in progress. You're making an impact, even if you're not a wife and mom yet but you want to be. You're already a gift. The world around you sees it in your motherhood—yes, your motherhood.

You were born maternal.

I didn't fully grasp what it means that women without kids can be maternal until my mom and I walked in the dark from a restaurant back to our apartment near 51st and 9th during a December trip to Midtown Manhattan a few years ago.

A toddler who'd been waddling along the sidewalk behind us ran ahead between us and some passersby. I expected somebody from his family to run ahead of us, too, to catch him, but nobody did. Confused, I watched, until he did exactly what I hoped he wouldn't—ran into the street.

A few feet from the cars traveling in the cross street, the boy stood right in front of the first car at the red light. From the sidewalk, we could see him, but we weren't sure whether the driver could.

My heart pounded.

I held eye contact with the boy and I don't think I blinked. I didn't even think. On instinct, I pointed both my index fingers toward my feet and shouted louder than all the noise around us on the street: "YOU COME HERE NOW!" 

And I couldn't believe it, but he did. He ran to me and I lifted him into my arms, also instinctively.

"Is he yours?" I shouted at a guy nearby. "No! I thought he was yours!" the guy shouted back.

"What's your name? How old are you? Where's your family?" No matter what I asked, the boy didn't answer. He only smiled. After the police showed up, so did his parents, who'd lost him at a shop blocks away. This is how we learned the little boy doesn't speak English. 

But while he ran into traffic, he didn't need my words. He needed my "motherhood"—my nature, my innate tendency to notice and to care, my maternal instinct, which, until that night, I didn't even know I had.

But I do, even as a single woman.

And you do, too. And the world needs it.

Your "motherhood" is in your intuition. It's in listening to your gut when other people tell you to ignore it. It's in cooperating with God when He needs you to do something outside your comfort zone. It's in actually praying for people when you say you will.

It's in going to the funeral and crying with the friend who's lost a loved one. It's in your work—you show up for your patients, your students, your customers, your colleagues in a way that only you can.

And your virtue is also a gift to the world.

Your virtue makes you protective, just like a mom should be. When you meet a guy who won't date you because you're saving sex for marriage, it's normal to feel rejected. But your virtue protects the world from sin.

Every time you choose to practice chastity, or to be patient, or to be prudent, or to love, or to live out any virtue instead of choosing the alternative, you stop another sin from getting in.

And the gift you are is also in your purpose.

It's in the reason you're here, the work God is doing in and through you, despite your relationship status. And that might seem useless to you if you're single but you'd really rather be married.

Becoming what you want to be might feel urgent to you. Figuring out what God has planned might feel urgent to you, too.

But more urgent than figuring out what God's plan is for your life is trusting that He actually has one—that He knows what He's doing.

And that still being single doesn't change that.