Holding Loosely to the Disappointment of Singleness

I quote Corrie Ten Boom twice in “Open Hands,” and both times it is the quote: “Hold everything lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”

My book (coming out THIS SPRING) details much about how to hold our dreams and disappointments in a posture of trust in the Lord, who gives and takes away. We don’t wave our fists in the air declaring what we want, but we also don’t let everything slip through our fingers. We are meant to hold some things. We are meant to treasure dreams and shoulder disappointments. We can do this safely, however, because we are nestled in God’s hands of care and wisdom.

As it is Valentine’s Day and all things lovely dovey are on display, singleness and my desire to be married are top of the mind lately. I hear a lot of talk about being open handed with our desire to be married (see this podcast episode with Annie F Downs and David Platt for a great conversation about holding the desire for marriage). However, I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about holding the disappointment of singleness loosely.

Until now.

You might ask me the difference between holding our desire for marriage in open hands and holding our disappointment of singleness in open hands. I think that holding the dream loosely means trusting God with the future. It means surrendering our timelines and hopes to the Lord. It means opening our hands around the desires of our hearts.

But holding our disappointment in singleness in open hands is different, at least for me. Sometimes I can let being single define me. I can hold it close and let it tell me who I am. I can try to solve it, understand it, and fix it. These actions are closed-handed kind of actions, and perhaps there is another posture.

Being open-handed with the disappointment of singleness means not filter our lives through that disappointment. It means to not clutch it so tightly you can’t let hope into your heart. It means to hold loosely to the disappointments, letting them pass like sand in our fingers.

I am guilty of thinking that I am sad because I’m single, lonely because I’m not married, and unsatisfied because I don’t have a family. This can be partly true, but what I am doing here is allowing one thing to become too big. I am letting singleness define me and in doing so, I am grasping too tightly to even the disappointment of singleness. I am giving it too much power.

So my challenge to myself this season is to hold onto the disappointment of singleness loosely, trusting the Lord to help me steward it well and trusting the Lord to take it away when time. My challenge is to let the disappointment pass through my fingers. I don’t need to hold it close and understand everything about it. Let it pass. For it will pass. Who knows what the next season will bring, but as for me, I am going to receive it without clinging to the past one.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Hannah