Health and wholeness isn't about your relationship status.
Incomplete
I used to think that being single was a curse. There didn’t seem to be any way to be truly healthy and whole as a single woman. I always thought I was incomplete without a man.
I would read Genesis 2:18 and think, “See, if God says man shouldn’t be alone, then I shouldn’t be single!”
But, it didn’t seem like God was doing anything to find me a husband.
So, I did whatever I could to keep from being single. I focused so much on my looks and appearance: I wore the cutest outfits with perfectly matching shoes. I’d work out (with the tightest gym clothes), so my body would be noticed. If men noticed me at all, I’d laugh just a little harder and flirt a little bit more to keep them interested.
I made sure I sought the “perfect” guy for me. He had to be cute. He had to be in church (I worried less about him being in Christ). He had to be good dad material, and he had to be fun so I wouldn’t be bored with him.
But, my find-me-a-man strategy was all for nothing.
I focused so much on not being single that I ultimately wound up single. Every relationship failed. And what’s worse, I felt so incomplete.
I thought I needed a man to complete me, to make me feel whole.
I Give Up
I wish I could follow that with, “Then I met Jesus,” but that was not the case for me.
It was amid my many pursuits of the “right” man that I met Christ. So, while I was spending my time sharing my love for God, I was also pursuing my love for men.
As Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24).
I would cry out to God heartbreak after heartbreak, begging Him to accept the man I put before Him. “But you said I shouldn’t be alone, God!”
It turned out that what I thought was following Jesus with my whole heart was actually just using God to give me what I wanted. Thankfully, God isn’t fooled.
It wasn’t until my last heartbreak and three kids later that I finally stopped pursuing the perfect man for good.
I was so mad at God. One day, I yelled at Him in my living room and said, “Fine! If you want me for yourself then you can have me! I give up!”
I’m pretty sure that’s the heart and words he was looking for the whole time.
“As a body, everyone is single. As a soul, never.”
Revelation Wellness Helped Me Heal
Once I threw up my hands and decided to give my whole heart to God, I started on a path to healing. I learned so much about myself and my relationship with my Father. Soon after, I found Revelation Wellness.
Participating in the Revelation Wellness Ministry brought me to a completely different level of faith. It didn’t bring me to a higher relationship with Him, it brought me to a deeper one.
I learned so much about how drawing nearer to Christ helps me walk in step with the Spirit. I learned the meaning of the quote above and that being single can be a blessing more than a burden. I learned how to live healthy, not for someone else’s benefit, but my own.
I learned that my whole self in Christ was just that..whole. I learned to love who God created me to be, not someone else’s idea of me.
Jephthah's Daughter
When I started thinking and praying about what living healthy and whole as a single woman looks like in the Bible, I immediately thought of Ruth. I told God that I would use her as an example, but needed Him to confirm that for me.
After rereading her story, praying and sleeping on it, then reading about her a little more, God answered my prayer; He said “No.”
Wait, God didn’t want me to use Ruth as an example of living faithfully as a single woman?
Instead, He brought me to a story in the book of Judges that I had never read before.
God, in his magnificent grace and wisdom, showed me a story about a woman who epitomizes the definition of being healthy and whole as a single woman.
Jephthah’s daughter (Judges 11: 34-40) was a young girl who had her whole life ahead of her. She had never been married or even moved out of her parent’s house yet. However, her life was about to be cut short.
The passage in Judges 11:30-31 reads, “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: ‘If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.’”
Want to know who stepped through the door? Jephthah’s daughter celebrating the victory over the Ammonites.
Scholars argue whether the use of the word sacrifice is a literal sacrifice or symbolical “to characterize something offered to the LORD by way of sacrificial giving” (Pelt, The Gospel Coalition)
Either way, Jephthah’s daughter’s life would not be anything like she hoped it would be.
This girl, though, was so whole in herself and her relationship with God that she accepted the results of her father’s vow without a fight. She accepted it, and she still had feelings about it. All she asked of her father was time to mourn her virginity with her friends for two months. She knew that she wouldn’t become a wife.
Marriage wasn’t where her life’s purpose lay.
God's Will For My LIfe
I absolutely love that story because it reminds me that my purpose doesn’t come from my relationship status, but it’s okay to grieve!
Instead, my purpose is to be a living sacrifice for Christ and worship Him with my whole body, mind, and heart.
This is your purpose also.
With our bodies, we have the privilege of caring for ourselves to maintain a clean and healthy temple.
With our minds we have the freedom to express our feelings to the One that hears our cry, as well as our laughter.
With our hearts we are teachable to be shaped and molded into the holy creation God intended for us.
Living healthy and whole is not just about eating right and loving yourself. It’s about loving God so much that sacrificing yourself in order for him to step in and launch us into purpose will be worth all the cost.
Living as a healthy and whole single woman, I choose to “Love God. Get healthy. Be Whole. Love Others.”
Jess works full-time out of necessity, homeschools three beautiful kids out of pleasure, and spreads the name of Jesus any chance she gets out of passion. Since becoming an instructor through Revelation Wellness, she has developed the confidence and motivation to pursue her calling into ministry.
2 Responses
I loved this blog so much. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me as I wrestle with my singleness. Thank you for the reminder that as a soul I am never “single”.
Thank you so much for sharing, Robyn! You are God’s beloved!