Seasons of Singleness--Part one

          Several years ago I sat near the top of Wembley Auditorium at the Hillsong Colour Conference for women.  A panel of guest speakers sat on the stage discussing singleness.  A question had been posed to the panel, and a couple of the women had given their respective responses.  Then the leader/hostess of the session looked down the row and said, “Does anyone else have something to say about being single?”

 My hand shot up.  Okay, I was near the “nose-bleed” section in the back of the facility, and the question was not directed to me.  But, at that time I’d only been married a couple of years—so I had a lot more to say about singleness than about being married.

          In November 2002 I had my forty-fourth (44) birthday.  I was weeks away from getting married for the first time (18 January 2003).  I had spent twenty-six years of my adulthood single.  At different points in those 26 years I’d had plenty of time to ask myself what it meant to be single. 

In the Cambridge dictionary, it defines single as:

·       (SEPARATE)  considered on its own and ​separate from other things:

·       (NOT MARRIED) or not having a ​romantic ​relationship with someone:

There are many ways of being single (separate):

·       Being the only boy in a family of girls or vice-versa

·       Being the only girl in a group (of girls) who hates pink

·       Being the only person at a party who doesn’t like beer/alcohol

·       Being the only Caucasian person in a group of blacks, Asians or indigenous people.

·       Being the only short person in a group of giants

·       Being the only one who speaks more than one language

·       Being the only hearing person in a group of deaf people using sign language.

The list goes one.  In all of those circumstances, the “single” person always feels the difference, to one degree or another.  Communication can be a problem.  Prejudges can affect the mood of the group.  Or the “Single person” provides the opportunity to laugh at misunderstandings while learning how we are all the same.  For example, all of us need oxygen to breath.  Every person needs water to drink, food to eat and clothing to feel protected from the elements. 

Over the next couple of days I want to share some of my insights about living a single life, things I learned from walking the road myself. 

One point I would like to make is that you can have moments or days of singleness even when you are married.  But I will expound on that in a different post. 

Whether a person is the only “Goth” in a group of “Valley Girls” or a solitary sould standing alone on a beach, the feeling of singleness carries with it the desire to belong, to find like-minded folk.  Unless, of course, one is a hermit!  Even so, we long for connection, connection to each other and even more so, connection to God.  We were created that way. 

Singleness is a fact of life for all of us during different seasons of our lives.  I didn’t have the opportunity to share at the Colour Conference.  However, at the right time and the right place (my own blog) I am finally taking the time to share about my seasons of singleness.

Serving Jesus, Author of our faith

"Lady Helene"

PS.  Happy Pancake Day