Jo Saxton

Archive for the ‘All The Single Ladies’ Category

There’s a girl I used to know called Betty Back Up. I wonder if you know her?

Betty is a strong attractive woman, with lots going for her. But some of the nagging insecurities that get to every woman  have gotten to her in such a way that she doesn’t believe that someone will fall for her, that it will ever be “her turn”. She hides behind all sorts of things, work, humor, serving others…but finds herself spending  far more time of the sidelines of love than she would like.

It’s not that she isn’t popular; she has lots of guy friends. In fact she often has very close friendships with some guys.  Maybe one guy. They pour out their heart to her, cry with her, pray with her, trust in her, and hang out for days with her. But they go out with her…friends. Or frenemies! She’s affectionately called a sister, or even a mum, but not “my girlfriend”. She’s the backup plan; she’s the one who’s there until some other one appears. And before we blame guys for this and get all man hater about it, make no mistake; there are just as many back up Brad, Brian and Billy’s (Haven’t we ever had those men in our lives who we were quite content to leave close enough to affirm us, but far away enough so we are still available for the men we really want to go out with?).

So what’s going on? Well Betty (or Brian) can blame the opposite sex for their unscrupulous behavior, and they may even have a point. Still,  should some of the responsibility lie with Betty herself?  Betty’s in love and won’t admit it; she likes the fact that people ask what is going on with her friend, because it’s better somehow. She’s felt in the shadows for so long, it’s nice someone is even thinking of her in that way, even if it’s not the guy himself. A totally legitimate need is met, at least partially. And the time she invests, the emotional connection, the deep conversations, the everything, feels so affirming (when it doesn’t feel so lonely), and it stems the loneliness for awhile. It’s better to be the backup for awhile, right? Right?

There’s only one problem; it’s not real. It’s real in the sense that it’s happening, but not real in the sense of really going anywhere. And somehow we spiritualize not confronting it, asking about it – because “the best thing is to wait” “surely it’s the guy’s job to bring it up, it’s not right for a woman to lead the relationship” – when actually – we – I mean Betty – fears the rejection of the answer we suspect we’d receive. If we invest more – maybe he’ll finally see what the relationship should be going, and finally commit to me as much as I’m committing to him.

Where does it all end for Betty? When he finds someone else, Betty is left broken and hurting, but since it was not official anyway, she’s got no reason to be so hurt. So it’s all internalized, and feels so unfair, but she just has to get over it.
What does that do to her hope, her confidence, her sense of self worth, her relationship with God? On the surface things seem OK. Inside – it’s disappointing, heavy on the heart. She might cynical about relationships, bitter about men, even though she longs to settle down. Sometimes Betty is so disillusioned that her relationship with God is strained too….

I once knew a young woman called Betty Back Up, a gorgeous woman who stood in the shadows of almost relationships, afraid to walk into the unknown with the Father, just in case He let her down. Have you ever met someone like her?

 ”Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Proverbs 13:12

Boy meets girl, so its love, marriage, babies, right? I just expected it to happen. So why wasn’t it happening?

I was single for eight years before I met my husband, and if I’m honest I was probably happy about being single for about three,  maybe four of those years. It’s not that I wasn’t happy in general, or didn’t have a good life. But I wasn’t happy about that area. It’s funny how you can have a blissfully happy existence and an area of heartbreak at the same time. But I did, each side threatening to collide at any given moment.

In my much younger not -quite-following- Jesus years, singleness was sexy and sassy. It was fun, flirty and risky, and I thrived on it. But when I returned to the Lord, I really wasn’t sure where my sexuality fit, or how I expressed it as a single woman. So I kind of felt “nothingy”, and asexual inside, as though that was somehow holier. Maybe I dressed more conservatively; I was definitely better behaved. I was certainly not any more whole as a woman. I was just insecure about who I was meant to be.

Singleness became the battleground for my relationship with God. It defined whether I thought He was faithful; it was where I wrestled and wept over unanswered prayer. The place where my faith rose and fell, even staggered from time to time.  Would I follow Him wherever He led, or was I just too disappointed in Him?

Sometimes I was consumed by loneliness. I went to friend’s weddings, happy for them, sad for me.  I wanted someone who was mine, to share life with, to dream, even argue with. I was embarrassed for feeling odd and sad, knowing I cried tears over something I didn’t even understand.

Proverbs: 13:12

Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick (MSG)

Not getting what you want can make you feel sick (CEV)

I was “heartsick”.  My expectations had not been met and the disappointment wore me down. My heart which, in Biblical terms, contained my thoughts, emotions, w ill, desires  was worn out and debilitated. Heartsickness spilled out in cynical words and bitter memories, angry at men and the injustice of it all.  Eventually I was on my knees again before the One who could heal and restore me.

What do you do with heartsickness?

‘You always fall for the ‘alpha males’, but you’re just going to end up orbiting around them and they won’t even notice’. Great, so what, this is my destiny? To be ever more orbiting, invisible around attractive holy men who will fail to acknowledge my existence? And what is an ‘alpha male’ anyway. My friend’s response to my feelings towards the latest guy on my radar didn’t go down too well. Fair play, sometimes one needs to hear the truth, but it didn’t feel good.

I’ve been single all my life minus a fleeting few months in my nineteenth year and besides this anomaly, my ‘love life’ has consisted of multiple rejections, so my friends words were gutting but familiar in equal measure. Whilst I readily accept my current status as single, and need to acknowledge it and move on it when someone appears uninterested (however difficult that may be) there is definitely a place for refusing to define my future based on my past, because if my past is the lens through which I view every new situation, 1) I’m not trusting that God and 2) I’m being hopeless not hopeful.

 Where therefore, is the line between maintaining this desire and hope for a relationship in the future whilst being content in current circumstances? Being a person of extremes I’ve found the balance hard to strike; either I’m obsessed and proclaiming it to the world or if no one’s on the scene I completely squash and deny my desire for a relationship, pretending I don’t even care. Neither of these mindsets are helpful.

I’ve been advised multiple times by a variety of different people that wearing my heart on my sleeve (or facebook status, I haven’t done this but some people do . . .) is not cool. When you think/talk about something (or someone) over and over it essentially acquires more authority in your mind, and that, (it was pointed out to me) is meditation. I realized I’d been meditating on a guy for over a year. Oh dear. On the flip side, denying a desire doesn’t make it go away, it simply pushes it down and gives it space in which to brew bitterness. . . There is a middle ground, somewhere.

Whilst I do not have the ultimate answers to the turmoil of the single life, I know for a fact is that we are robbed what of what has massive potential to be an extremely fruitful time in our lives if we continually repress or obsess, focus on an absence and don’t trust. It must be frustrating for God, who has put the resources of heaven at our finger tips, to see his kids agonizing over something he has in his hands already. ‘Chill out, it will be fine, just look at what’s in front of you!’

Easier said than done, but if we want life, and life to the full, it’s about taking hold of what we have now and running with it, rather than sitting around waiting for something better to come along. As soon as we have the ‘once this is sorted, then my life will begin’ mentality, it only takes us to find the next thing we don’t have for dissatisfaction to take hold yet again. 

The question I’ve started to ask myself is ‘what has God given me NOW (and there is a very long list, he’s pretty generous you see), and how am I using it?’ This is where FAITH grows, it squashes discouragement.