How To Be A Single Christian Woman 101

This is a tongue in cheek blog title. There is no perfect 101 to being a Single Christian Woman…because everyone’s story is different, we are all on journeys of our own and we all have our own bends and twists and turns.

However, there are things I am learning as an “SCW” that wouldn’t have learned if I was an MCW. (Married Christian Woman).
Life isn’t taking the twists and turns I expected.
I turned 28 this September.
In my life plan I laid out for myself back between 12-15 years of age I would be married for about five years and we would have 2.5 kiddos a.k.a. expecting number 3…but at least have two kids. But there would be a house in the country or suburbs and cuddles and story time, kisses and dreams all coming true.
Instead, I am 28, blissfully single, living at home, doing odd jobs, despite the fact that I’ve held down successful part-time jobs that I could have turned into full. I turned down the best full-time job I’ve ever been offered, and I am looking at returning to Taiwan for the second year of full-time ministry and teaching. I don’t have a college degree and people keep asking me.

(Slight update: I am now living in Taiwan, but…I still want to say everything I wrote so thus…this post as it is.)

“What on earth are you doing with your life?”

It’s a question, I feel like I asking myself often enough. Because my 12-15-year-old formula certainly didn’t work out. I didn’t meet the boy of my dreams during a ministry trip or at my church. No one has ever asked my dad if he could court me, no one has asked me for my phone number. I didn’t graduate high school and have a boy come knocking at the door because I was now of an eligible age, and the frog I kissed when I was 5 certainly hasn’t come hopping out of the pond….but that would just be weird.

I am learning things…

1. Contentment.
Content with who I am, where I am, what I am doing. I am not defined by the “job title” babysitter when I am juggling 12 kiddos in the basement of a mom’s bible study, or what I am going to be when I “grow up”. I am up. All I can be is the better version of who I am, but then even though that I am learning that I am nothing, except through Christ who saved me. I still have a lot to learn.

2. Choose Joy.
Just because I am not married and Mr. Man-of-My-Dreams, hasn’t shown up and for all I know may NEVER show up. Doesn’t mean I get to sit around and cry and mope, or daydream. I get to choose to be grateful. I get to choose joy. I get to choose singleness.
Somedays when I feel like this song. I get to say “God, thank you for the gift of being single.” It says to be grateful in all things, not for all things, but being grateful in singleness makes me grateful for singleness.

3. Grieving is Okay.
Woman was created to compliment man, to be a help meet, it’s okay if part of me “misses” him…who may never come. It’s okay. Grieving is part of life, in order to move forward, one needs to grieve. Living in a stationary stage of denial isn’t going to help me at all and will only harden my heart.

4. Appreciation
I’ll say my definition of “romance” has changed from chocolates, roses, compliments….to a man willing to eat an imperfect meal without a complaint, a man willing to pitch in with dishes, and hold a fussy baby…those are things that make a man much more attractive than the abilities to quote Shakespeare, and bring home a dozen roses…though those things are appreciated…they just aren’t as important.

I used to believe that if I was going to fall in love he had to be: TALL, (because being 5′ 9 3/4″ there are very few guys that I get to look UP to. harharhar pun pun pun) blond (because dark is just so over -rated) and well…handsome? Preferably…three years older than me, and with sisters and brothers….and loves dogs. Now, I realize that guys don’t come in “novel” packaging. That shorter guys can be really just as gentlemanly-maybe even more so, that younger guys can be shockingly mature and wise, and dark is just as handsome as blond. That no race is superior, that darker skin can be just caring and strong and loving as scandinavian white plaid wearing arms. And that brown eyes can be just as devistating as blue ones… I mean look at this kid….

Still Learning,

Jessica Greyson