The Crossroads of My Singleness

I was transitioning from 2020 to 2021, in between the roughest college semester I had experienced and the final semester of my bachelor’s degree. Everyone knows what 2020 brought with it for much of the world’s population. It was no different for me, the loss, the pain, the loneliness, the irritation, and the desire to just see things change were all there. In the midst of 2020 God had allowed yet another “special someone” to come into my life, and for about four or five months, man, we thought this was it. 

You know? “The one.” Finally! Prayers are answered! The wait is over! Everything fits the mold perfectly! The facts and feelings both seemed to be pointing in the direction that God was truly in this pursuit that we were in together. Until an unfolding of fleshliness, impatience, selfishness, and stubbornness came to fruition on both our ends. It was over. It hurt, deeply, like always. But God was doing something in my heart. He was beginning to unveil a deeper level of my heart’s depravity than what I had endeavored into before. 

You see, this wasn’t the first heartbreak I had experienced. It was certainly different and harder for a lot of reasons, but it wasn’t the first. And like always, you begin to deal with and sort through the emotions and thoughts that are flooding your soul. You try to blame them on the great tempter, Satan, but the truth is you know where those thoughts and feelings are originating from—your own heart. If you are an honest Christian, you eventually admit this in the heartbreak cycle and probably apologize to the person for a lot of things and repent to God for a lot of other things. But I had a minuscule sense of what God was truly toiling the soil of my heart for.

Like a giant combine (a monstrous piece of farming machinery) being driven by a master-farmer in a field with arduous soil; my heart was being beaten and ravaged as the Lord was trying to get more useless and unhealthy tendencies out of the soil so that fresh life could grow. Rocks of bitterness and weeds of cynicism with their roots woven penetratingly deep into the soil of my heart were being exposed and excavated out for my naïve eyes to behold. Roots that were producing harvests of unhealthy and withering crops and fruit in my life were being upheaved as the soil was being tilled and thoroughly but tenderly prepared.

Then.

BOOM.

A boulder.

Stop the machine! Work had to be put in on this one… Out of the soil of my heart came a truth that I did not want to face. Honestly? I had probably been the one who buried that boulder in the field, hoping that it would never surface, never be seen, and never get in the way. After every pursuit, every breakup, every heartbreak, every letdown; I had taken my shovel out to the field and thrown more dirt on it. I expertly molded the terrain around it so that it was unnoticeable to the average person; making sure that the soil masterfully appeared cohesive and natural in its formation. (We often want our heart’s wickedness to appear as if it is normal, natural, and not something that needs to be removed.) They would have never known it was there. I didn’t want to see it either, I certainly didn’t want to think about it, and I didn’t want to address it, nor admit to it…

So, what was this monstrosity of an issue? 

I was bitter. But not toward a person, and certainly not toward someone I had been through a relationship with. I was bitter at God.

Wait! How could you!? Who do you think you are!?

I’m just being honest.

This massive issue that I had in my heart was deeply rooted in my relational history. I was bitter at God for my parent’s divorcing. I was bitter at God for an alcoholic stepfather. I was bitter at God for a relationship of three years ending when I was 18. I was bitter at God for “letting” me make stupid decisions in the Army (secretly a disguised way to blame Him for my choices.) I was bitter at God for not delivering to me a wife. After all, I had been seeking Him legitimately for years now and had repented of a lot of my youthful mistakes. I was bitter at God for the decisions that some of the people I had dated made. I blamed Him for them abandoning me. I was simply bitter at God that I was single. To be clear, I’ve read the books. I knew the answers. “You’re single because that’s where God wants you”; “God is in control”; “You’re not single, you’re just not yet married.” On my bookshelf is 15-20 books revolving around relationships with people in general and dating/marriage specifically. The head knowledge of God’s desire and delivering ability was there, but where were these promises in my life?

This brought me to the crossroads of my singleness.

I want to be honestly clear that I did not realize this was something as real as it truly was in my heart. The sovereignty of God had metamorphosed into a belief that allowed me to blame God in this area of my life. (I fear that we often blame the sovereignty of God for much of the slack concerning the responsibility of man that God has delegated to His creation, but that’s for another post.) Honestly, I had nothing else to complain about. God had been abundantly good to me and lavished grace and blessings into my life. Finances were comfortable, health was great, vehicles were of good quality, my house was beyond what I needed or deserved, ministry was flourishing, and education was progressing; but this one area, man, I couldn’t take. “I would give up all of these material things just for a wife and family, God,” I would say. I thought this was a noble prayer and I truly meant it…

Amidst that transition into 2021 that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I got back into my strong reading routine. I can go through one to two average-sized books in a week if I really want to. While I was getting back into that routine, God was using those books and my personal time with Him to answer the prayer that I just mentioned. The response that He was teaching my soul was something like this, “I know you may be willing to give up all of those things for a wife and family, but that’s not what I’ve called you to and that’s not good enough. I’ve called you to be willing to give up all of those things for Me.”

…

…

…

Yup. That struck me like a lightning bolt. 

What God had accomplished in my heart in those winter months was amazing. He showed me the deepest-rooted issue in my heart pertaining to my relationships. It was the same issue that would have been at the top of my list for anyone that came to me for counseling in this area of life. That person, that significant other, that wife, whoever she may be could not be the driving factor of what I was doing. It had to be God. 

Man, I wish I would’ve grasped that on a real, heart level and not just known those words intellectually. I am convinced that it would have saved me and other’s very much heartbreak. 

I’m not an expert on dating. I’m not an expert on singleness, but I did come to a crossroads in my singleness. This crossroads presented me with a choice—you can either keep going through the cycle that you are because of the current motivation of your heart, or you can once and for all, truly give it to Me and watch what I can do. In the book “When God Writes Your Love Story”, they refer to this as “giving God the pen of your life.” It is essentially submitting to Him truly writing what He knows is best for your life. Which in effect applies to your relational pursuits. 

You see, God had exhausted my stubbornness. I was tired of wrestling with God over this. I felt like the Israelites as Psalm 78:34 records that they related to God, “When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God.” I had been slain. Why must we be slain in order to seek God? Why do we not just hear or read and follow? Why must we find ourselves in the modern-day sackcloth and ashes—loneliness and depression? Why must we be emptied rather than emptying ourselves? Why must we be humbled rather than humbling ourselves? Why must He bring us, like Job, to the end of ourselves in order to portray His greatness, awesomeness, and magnificence in a way that leaves us speechless? 

…

{Genesis 32:22-30; Psalm 78:34}

———-

I wish I had all of the answers, but I am not the One who holds all wisdom. I wish I had the best advice, but I am not the Mighty Counselor. I do know Him though, and you can too. I have found His wisdom, counsel, and direction to be faultless and indisputable, and it can be for you too. I pray that this crossroads in my own singleness may be used by His masterful hand to aid you in seeing any issues that you too may have in your heart. Hopefully, this will prevent much heartbreak from being cased and received for you. Thank you for reading. I love you all, and God is good.

Until we write again…..

                                    In, for, and because of Christ,

                                                               Hunter V.S. See