Called to Singleness ... Today

I recently read a beautiful story in 'When God Writes Your Love Story' by Eric and Leslie Ludy. A thirty-something single young woman was asked by her little brother, "Do you think you are you called to singleness?" The women thought about the question for a moment and then answered sweetly, "Today I am."

All through my teen years my perpetual fear was that God would call me to singleness. Of course I was familiar - all too familiar! - with the idea that the call to singleness was a blessing and a gift from God, but in my opinion that was just an idea (circulated only by older married couples and dismissed by all right-thinking young singles). Absolutely.

Still ... there was this haunting fear ...

I'm twenty-three and it's just dawned upon me that my 'perpetual fear' has been fulfilled - because God has called me to singleness. I am not, however, shaking like unset Jello with grief and despair. (As I would have imagined myself doing, had I known - eight years or so ago - that I would one day be typing this!)

Only God knows whether He's planned for me to marry and when, if ever, I'll meet 'the right guy' and walk up the aisle in a white dress and veil. But if He has planned for me to fall in love and marry, He's planned for that to happen sometime in the future. Today God has called me ... to singleness. Today.

So ... I'll still get starry-eyed when I watch a Jane Austen movies or see another girls' wedding pictures or cuddle my baby cousins. But I'll try and remember that today - which is, after all, the only time I have - I'm called to singleness. And if anyone asks me, "Hey, Elizabeth, do you think you're called to singleness?" I'll say sweetly, "Today I am."