I just opened Facebook, and I deeply regret it.
Why? Because it’s February 14.
Valentine’s Day.
And I am single.
I’m well aware of my status as unattached and unattractive.
Why do we need an entire day to remind me?
I get that it’s all a made-up conspiracy by Hallmark and other greeting card companies, and it’s a sound financial move on their part to encourage one single day a year where buying just a measly card is perfectly acceptable.
No holes in that business plan.
But corporate conspiracy or not, it still messes with my head.
It probably shouldn’t… I know.
But it does, nonetheless.
It makes me wonder why I’m alone.
Why it’s just little old me against the world.
Why when I try to pick somebody for my team they simply smile and politely say “no, thank you.”
But I can push all of that out of my head.
It’s stinkin’ thinkin’, and I know it.
Until I make the ultimate lonely-single-person-on-valentine’s-day mistake:
I open social media.
Blam!
Couple after couple after happy stinkin’ couple…
“I’ve never loved you more”
“30 years! High school sweethearts!”
“OMG seventeen and a half hours with this amazing man! #blessed”
I get swept off my feet by a wave of sugary sweetness that was never intended for me, and it knocks me head over heels, until I’m battered and bruised.
I know I should stop scrolling. But they look so happy.
So in love.
A teen couple here…
Young parents there…
Octogenarians celebrating over a half century of Valentine’s Days together…
I want to be that 80-year-old man, able to celebrate 50 years with his wife.
But time is not on my side.
In fact, the math is getting less and less likely.
And I feel like the longer it takes, the less likely it becomes.
At almost 30, is there anybody out there for me?
I remember having the same thought at 18 when people were coupling up and I was just lonely at home.
Now, at 28, a whole decade has passed, and those couples are married with kids, and I’m still lonely at home.
And Facebook just sits there, bathing me in blue light, mocking me.
Maybe I’m just not worth any girl’s time.
Maybe I am just as bad and worthless a person as I’m prone to think.
Maybe I should just accept my fate that God wants me to be alone.
Isn’t that what’s best anyway? Submitting to God?
Of course it is… So… Am I doing it?
I tend to think I am, but perhaps I’m spending too much time feeling sorry for myself.
I’m pretty sure God doesn’t command that.
So, maybe I’m not properly submitting?
Maybe it’s not about my singleness nearly as much as it’s about my childishness.
And I don’t just mean acting like a child (though I often do) but being a child.
A child of God.
If I am His child, shouldn’t I be obeying in gladness and in hope?
Let me rephrase…
Since I am His child, shouldn’t I be obeying in gladness and in hope?
Absolutely, I should.
Am I doing that? Absolutely not.
So, where do I need to change?
I need to trust God that He truly is good.
If I end up getting to be the husband and father I so desire to be, then it is proof that God is good.
And if I remain single my entire life, and die alone, it is also proof that God is good.
Because God’s goodness is not determined by my opinion of what He has done in my life.
Rather, my opinion should be determined by rightly understanding God’s goodness in my life.
God has, is, and will bless me forever.
He’s promised me that.
He has already begun.
It may not be exactly what I tried to order off the menu, but then again… When did God ever take my order?
When did I know what was best?
Who am I?
And that’s the question I need to ruminate on this Valentine’s Day…
Who do I think I am?
And further still…
Who do I know God to be?
“Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:7-8)
As Christians, we have been promised an even greater land than Canaan.
We have been promised streets of gold and rivers of joy.
And we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of the Living God.
The same God who went before Israel, He goes before me.
He goes before you, too.
Single, married, widowed, divorced.
He will not leave you, nor forsake you.
Do not fear or be dismayed.
And maybe stay off Facebook today…
You know… just to be safe…
Beyond the Garden 