Leah Stirewalt

If you’re popping over today from my guest spot on Encouragement Cafe Radio – welcome! So glad you’re here!

The topic I was privileged to discuss with the beautiful ladies of Encouragement Cafe and with Carol Davis…”Living Single in a Couples World”. Hmmm… Let that title simply resonate for a few minutes. If you’re married and have been married in the “traditional” young twenties sort of way, this may be a bit of a foreign concept. However, my fellow single friends…whether never having been married like my friend, Sam at Fields of Gold (and also a guest on today’s EC program) or divorced like my friend, Carol, or widowed like I find myself…I think you might have a smidgen of an idea of what this living single in a couples world might be about.

I don’t know if I’ve simply been blind before, but this simply stares me in the face a lot these days. Culturally speaking, especially in a Christian culture, I’ve found myself recently in several situations that cater to the “couple”. It happens so subtly sometimes, but it’s there, and maybe I’m the only one that recognizes it.

It might be a women’s event where the “language” is all about couples and “our husbands” with the rare (if at all) word addressed to the single lady that might be in the crowd.

It might be in a social gathering with friends when the games that are played are husband vs. wife, and you suddenly find yourself in that awkward position of not being able to play according to the rules.

And…then I’m taken back to those recent days of being married…just slightly over 23 weeks ago. I’m sure I fed into this same dilemma where singles probably felt very alone in the couples world in which I also lived then. And now…God has allowed me to feel a dimension of that pain.

So where do we go from here?

As a single…I would encourage you to extend grace to your couples friends. They’re not walking in your shoes and can’t read your mind. I find that we expect couples to know how we feel, to know what we need, but that’s simply an unfair assumption unless we simply make our needs known. I would also encourage you to not isolate from couples. I especially feel strongly about this if you have children, because your children need to have godly Christian couples and families modeled to them.

As a couple…I beg you to step outside your safety box and “do life” with a single or single parent family. Invite them to your holiday gatherings, or just for dinner occasionally. Offer to babysit if they have young children so that they can get a little time away to “re-group”. Maybe even invite them to vacation with you, as vacations can be especially lonely times for singles.

Simply put, let’s be the hands and feet of Jesus to each other.

You are loved!

She was crying. I could hardly understand her through the heart-breaking sobs, but I could make out the words, “I just need someone to pray for me.”

Sitting at my desk, I had just been transferred a call from a listener in desperate need of a listening ear and a willing heart to pray. This happens quite frequently while working at a Christian radio station, but I’m not often the one that gets the calls. Typically, they go to the studio – to talk with the announcers. These are the voices they know. The ones they are most comfortable with, but today…Terrie was given to me. Truth be known…I might have simply been the first one available. Regardless, God wanted Terrie and I to connect.

I asked her to share more with me. What was troubling her? What was causing the tears?

She spoke oh-so-softly, “I just want to understand God’s plan for me. I know and hear that He has a plan for all of His children. But, everytime I think I know what He wants me to do, the plan fails.”

Oh boy. How I can soooo relate! She had just received some discouraging news and began questioning God’s plans all over again.

And so I shared, “Terrie (I had already asked for her first name)…yes, God does have a plan and purpose for you. His Word says so. But, His Word also says that ‘many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails’. We also know from His Word that God’s plans don’t always equal our plans, hence the frustration.”

But, then came the sticking point…the one thing that I wanted her to hear if she heard nothing else…”Regardless of what we may feel, Terrie, regardless of what we may see, this one thing I KNOW…God’s plans are always better than anything we can even dream up.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I simply sat there. Stunned. Did I just say that? Am I willing to believe that for myself? Was my husband’s suicide and the subsequent agonizing grief that I’ve endured a better plan for me than anything I can dream up? Really? And, in my heart…I have to answer my own question…

YES.

Yes. God’s plans are best. Even if that looks completely insane right now…I know my God is bigger than suicide. I know that my God is bigger than grief. I know that my God is bigger than loneliness. I know that my God is much bigger than my lack of understanding. And, I know that “God works for the GOOD of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

I may have to wait to see those “better” plans, and it may result in something I don’t see with my physical eyes until heaven, but YES…His plans are always better.

And…so I prayed with Terrie. We went before the throne room asking God to give Terrie a glimpse (even if it was ever so tiny) of His plans for her. We asked Him to close doors she’s not to walk through and swing wide open the ones that she is. And, we thanked Him for allowing us to see with eyes of faith right now but trusting that one day our faith will be our sight!