An Open Letter About My Ugly Heart.

I snapped today. I snapped last week, too. And days before that. I feel like I’ve been constantly at the end of my rope for the past year.

I always go ‘balls to the wall’ until I can’t anymore. And then I snap, I withdraw, I take ‘me time’ and veg out and do nothing for a day or a weekend.

Right now I’m struggling really, really hard with singleness. For the past decade of my life I’ve been mostly single. I’ve dated a few people, but nothing panned out, which I know is for the best. “God’s Plan.” I’ve just finished listening to a sermon series on Godly relationships – Godly dating, Godly marriage, and Godly singleness. My biggest takeaway on Godly singleness was that singleness is a gift and God gives it to us to use as a time to serve His ultimate purpose – going and making disciples. The last podcast I listened to talked about how much single people can bless others around them. How much they can be great employees and awesome aunts/uncles and whatnot. Easy for you to say, Mr. Preacher Man. You’ve been married for 12 years and have 3 kids. You haven’t had to deal with singleness since you were 19. You don’t know what it’s like to be on the edge of 30, with no promise or hope that anything will change, knowing that your life could ultimately be spent constantly serving others.

I know what you’re going to say, Married People: Marriage is hard. Marriage is nothing but dying to self and serving someone else every. single. day. Em, you obviously don’t ‘get’ marriage. Oh I know…as much as a never-married woman of almost 30 could know. But at least in marriage – a Godly marriage – that dying to self is done for someone who has pledged in covenant to do the same thing for you. There’s a comfort in knowing that in dying to yourself and serving others, you have a partner who has promised to love and cherish you til death do you part.

How do I reconcile seeing singleness as a gift and an opportunity to serve others with no promise of ever being thanked, valued, or (sometimes) served in return? I know, I know, but Em, you’re missing the point! You can’t have a servant’s heart and expect to get something in return! Exactly. EXACTLY. How do I live the next year, five years, 10 years, rest of my life seeing singleness as this awesome gift of serving God and his people without getting frustrated and burnt out? How do I keep giving of myself knowing full well I have no right to expect any sort of love or thanks or reciprocity in return?

I’ve been a Christian for awhile. Several years. I know the ‘answer.’ I know that God is the only One who can love me, value me, and desire me in the way my soul craves. But, if I’m being honest, right now He just isn’t good enough. He’s just not cutting it. I don’t trust Him. I don’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He’s a Good Father and wants good things for me. I don’t know that He loves me.

So what do I do? How do I seek out and press into the one thing I want nothing to do with at this moment? How do I stop wallowing in self-pity? How do I die to myself and not hold grudges against those who owe me nothing? How do I get to a place where I’m right with God?

I don’t have an inspirational answer to wrap all this up in a neat bow. I don’t know the answer. I mean, I “know” in the sense that I’ve been going to church my whole life and recite the answer I’m supposed to say in response to all of this frustration. But I don’t know. And that, dear friends, is the most open and honest this ugly heart has been in a good long while.