The Struggle of an Older Single

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How do you respond when life doesn't go the way you planned?

I always knew I wanted to get married and have a family. And I always thought it would naturally happen. One goes through school, gets a job, and one usually marries. Or, so I thought.

I graduated from college and law school, joining the ranks of the workforce. I was optimistic that I would meet someone and date, marry, and have children. Who wouldn’t be hopeful as I was in my mid-twenties? When I approached thirty, however, some of my hope started to wane.

All my friends were marrying and starting families. I would date, have a relationship that would not work out for one reason or another, and then be right back to where I had started. I consistently wrestled with the question of whether it was God’s will for me to marry or to live a single life. Relationships just seemed to work out for other people. But not for me.

By the time I turned thirty-five, I had begun to ask the people around me for advice regarding the marriage-less circumstances in which I had found myself in. Some people were supportive, offering assurances I would indeed meet someone and marry; I would just do so later in life. Most people offered counsel that severed my hope for a spouse, rather than bolstering my faith that God could deliver me and fulfill the desire for marriage that was deeply planted within my heart.

I realized, however, that what I needed to do was go directly to God for His word on the subject!

I began my search in the scriptures, specifically the creation account in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. In Genesis 2:18-25 it states: 

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him.” So, he took some soil from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and that is how they all got their names. So the man named all the birds and all the animals; but not one of them was a suitable companion to help him. Then the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh. He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. Then the man said,

“At last, here is one of my own kind—Bone taken from my bone, 

and flesh from my flesh. ‘Woman’ is her name because she was 

taken out of man.” 

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one. The man and woman were both naked, but they were not embarrassed.” 

In my contemplation of these verses, I realized marriage was God’s answer for the aloneness I was experiencing. I had been created to share my life with another person, my spouse. Although I had a career, friends, and hobbies, they did not take away the solitariness. This was a need that could only be answered through marriage, just as God had intended it.

As I entered my forties still single, I clung to these verses in Genesis.

I continued to fortify my faith and hope with prayer and the scriptures. I also relied on several trusted friends to pray for and encourage me. There were days, however, where I cried out to God and grappled with doubt that He would ever bring about marriage for me. 

Then something happened. I agreed to meet up with a man with whom an acquaintance thought I would hit it off. We truly connected. I married my husband, Seth, at the age of 42, and it showed me that God really can work miracles.

Looking back, it is hard to believe Seth and I have been married over nine years. Once I did marry, I no longer encountered the aloneness I battled my entire adulthood. I can see now why I sought marriage for so long: God chose marriage as my vocation. It is God who gave me the desire to marry and the perseverance to seek Him for it. 

Do you desire to marry, and do you struggle with doubt regarding God’s will? I encourage you to read Genesis chapters 1 and 2. What hope and encouragement does Genesis 2:18-25 bring to you? Can you take this scripture to prayer? 

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