The life lessons never cease. Today's women's seminar at church was a healthy reminder of that. In fact, today was a really good reminder of those questions and subjects which I struggle with but often choose to push to the back of my mind.
The primary topic that was brought to the forefront today was that of singleness. I was hoping that the subject of contentment would be close behind, and frankly, it was supposed to. I attended a session called, "Single, Content, and Loving It!" It was presented by a wonderfully content and beautiful thirty-two year old single woman who was perfectly content with her singleness. We discussed a lot of things in the session, but the one thing that struck me (not as something new, but as something prevalent nonetheless) was the view of singleness to society.
Society looks at singleness as if there is something that is lacking, something missing, incomplete, or wrong. And although I know in my head that that is surely not true, I can't somehow get past that fact that I still feel like there is something missing.
How can I go about finding contentment despite of these unshakable thoughts? Do I merely fill my time as to distract myself from desires of finding my perfect someone? If that were any sort of logic, surely by now I would be thoroughly distracted enough to never notice my singleness. Between work, travel, grad school, spending time with close friends and family, and, oh I don't know...sleep, I am busy enough to miss a fairly major natural disaster or cosmic event.
Do I pour myself into close non-romantic relationships as to fulfill the basic human need to be relational? This could help, but I may need to find a few new friends. I have a few close wonderful friends, but they are as busy as I am, and we rarely get to spend a lot of quality time together.
Do I get a pet? No can do...too much travel and a historic apartment seem to prohibit that. Do I give up altogether and stop looking completely? The logic there is that once you give up, Mr. Perfect shows up at your door. And although I know that that has been known to happen, I can't say at this point that it makes any sense.
All I can figure is that what I need to do for now is continue to pray as I have fervently for years now and remember that God makes the plans and probably giggles at mine. And I've got to figure He probably knows better that I what I need in my life, now, ten years from now, and forever. So although I have still not reconciled my feelings of unfulfillment and general lack of something, I at least have pondered it rather that bottled it.
"...I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation..." (Phil 4:12) Now I only need to learn to apply it.
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