SINGLENESS AND GOD’S SOLUTION
My Personal Experience

by Betty Vivian

Singleness was a great giant that roared at me during my twenties. For some people it is not a problem, but for many it is a severe one.

I was not born the single, celibate type, nor a career person. My one and only ambition in life was to be happily married with my own home and children. I had a high ideal for marriage and knew I would never be content with second best. Having to earn my living, I became a teacher but my heart was not in my job. For me, singleness was totally against my inclination and interest, but no Mr. Right came along.

Three times I lived with a young woman who then got married. After the third wedding I resolved never to live with a single girlfriend again. Attending the weddings of these and all my friends and smiling at new babies was an ordeal. It was never my turn.

Living at home with my parents in the school holidays was not easy. I listened continually to my mother talking about my nephews and nieces. I had no friends in the village and was surrounded with elderly relatives and acquaintances of my parents.

It was hard to view couples demonstrating their feelings in public and also to be dropped like a hot potato when one’s friends started courting. To carry such labels as “on the shelf’ or” if you haven’t had sex you’ve never lived” was very humiliating.

Being single I was in the minority and was swamped with the conversation and viewpoints of married people everywhere. Over and over again I was hurt by their remarks. They mostly talked about their partners and children, and showed little concern or understanding of how I felt. They seemed to think that because I was single I had no trials or problems. I did, but they were inward and unseen.

Celibacy was a great struggle. Single people can think about sex too much and over estimate its pleasure simply because they have to remain self controlled year in year out.

I did not show my inner feelings and never spoke of them to anyone. Outwardly I appeared normal, living a busy, active life; but I had terrible, incessant inward battles. I was desperately lonely and longed for companionship. I was restless, discontented, bitter, resentful, sour, envious and utterly frustrated. I felt plain, unattractive, unloved, unwanted and thought I must lack sex appeal and be odd or peculiar. Being a spinster schoolteacher, living in lodgings was the exact opposite of what I would have chosen. When one is basically unhappy, no hobby is a pleasure and it is very difficult to relax at home.

When I was 21, I had trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and after that attended church regularly, and was an active member. In all my struggles over singleness the Bible was my greatest help and comfort. Gradually it helped me to get my thinking and attitude straight. I began to look at my blessings. I also began to look at marriages and saw the flaws and disadvantages in many of them. I tried to view myself as God saw me. Jesus had been single, so had Paul and John the Baptist, so why shouldn’t I be? I grew to love God for Himself.

The Crisis Point

God eventually brought me to the point where I felt I had to choose between marriage and God. I would choose God. After telling a friend about this I was flooded with happiness and peace. Joy, delight, exultation poured over me in waves. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I was radiant, transformed and felt like the ugly duckling who had become a swan. For the first time in my life I was totally happy. The Bible which I had thought I knew well, now lit up and became a new book to me. I read it by the hour. Day after day the love of God flooded into my soul. Often I woke in the night and was so happy I could hardly stand it. I had never been so alive in my whole life and felt pretty, attractive, loved, wanted and confident. Loneliness and the longing for companionship totally vanished. My inferiority complex was gone. I became a completely whole person and was absolutely transformed. All my old wounds were healed. This unbroken joy day and night lasted for three and a half years. It was heaven on earth. I subsequently lived a more normal walk with God but was a different person inwardly.

I have no regrets about being single and having no children. I love living on my own. Since the age of 32 I have been inwardly happy, contented and at rest and have not known 5 minutes of being lonely. (I am now 67). I go everywhere on my own, but always feel complete and never alone. My happiness lies not in my circumstances, but in being in the centre of God’s will. I owe everything to Jesus. I greatly look forward to heaven, having had such a foretaste of it on earth.


For a fuller version of this story go to: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/enayena/singleness.html or Miller Avenue Baptist Church 285 Miller Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941

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