Married / Coupled / Single – I have some words for ya.

Today, I’m talking especially to my single peeps.

I’m an expert on being single. I’ve been single my whole life. As far as experience in this field goes, I think I’m qualified enough to put it on my CV.

Of course, there are those that are more experienced than me. I have lived the single life for 25 years. Others have lived it for longer.

But I mean it when I say, “single my whole life”. Not just not married, but no boyfriend (check out my previous posts on this: here and here) and, guess what – my lips are off limits!

This is all out of choice.

A bit drastic for some, I know.

I’ve written a lot about how many benefits there are to being single.

For one, arguments are extremely rare in my household, because I don’t typically get into arguments with myself.

There are things I’ve been able to do in the last five years that I know I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had been married, or even coupled off.

I really have a problem with people acting as though – especially when talking to girls and women, that your life has not begun until someone else has become a part of it. I’m sorry, what have the last twenty-five years of my life been, then? A dream?

You have to live with YOU for the rest of your life. So you might as well fall in love with yourself before you go falling for anyone else.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get married. That doesn’t mean that I want to stay single my whole life. Actually, if I’m honest, the thought of being single for my entire life rather terrifies me.

I’m a hopeless romantic, and that’s why I’m single.

I value my life.

I’m not prepared to settle. As much as I would like companionship and an intimate partner to share my life with, I’m not desperate. I know my worth and I’m not going to be with a guy that doesn’t know and recognise my worth, or simply isn’t right for me. Value doesn’t beg.

The best and coolest guy to ever live has my heart, so it would have to be a pretty cool and dog-on special guy that I would allow to share it! Jesus is my No. 1, and any other guy would be lucky to get a No.2 spot!

I used to always say, “When I get married…” I didn’t want to get married before the age of twenty-five. I knew there was a lot I wanted to accomplish before committing to a life with another human being.

Now, though I do still want to get married and believe it is likely in my future, I tend more towards “If I get married…”

It should not be a terrifying thought for me to not get married. If you feel the same way about being single, ask yourself why.

What is it that is so upsetting to you about the prospect of not having a marital partner in your life? Is it because a lot of your friends are married or coupled off now, and you feel side-lined and the odd one out? Is it because you crave physical intimacy? Is it because you want to have a sidekick who can provide you with daily companionship? Are you flippin’ tired of having people ask you if “there’s anyone special in your life?”

I’m not going to lie, I have days where I feel all of the above.

But I have to remind myself of this…

Christ has to be enough.

Do you know that song, Christ is Enough? The chorus goes,

Christ is enough for me,
Christ is enough for me.
Everything I need is in You,
Everything I need.

I’ve never really been a fan of that song. I used to convince myself that it was because I don’t really like the tune (which is true), but I think it’s also because I can’t honestly that Christ is enough for me. Is He Number 1 on my friend list? Absolutely. Do I love Him more than anyone else or anything in the world? Absolutely. But can I honestly say that Christ alone, with nothing else, in my life – no friendships, no marriage – would be enough for me? No, I can’t.

My aim is to get to the point when I can honestly say that Jesus, and Jesus alone is enough for me. To be truthful, God the Father, Son and Spirit are all I really need - everything else is a bonus. Every good and perfect gift comes from God, and they are just that: “gifts”. God doesn’t owe me anything.

That’s another thing. This idea of being “owed” something. I have to talk myself out of that pattern of thinking a lot these days. I’m twenty-five. In the map of my life that I had drawn, I would have found "the one" by now.

Courtesy of Jamie-Grace

I’ve never had a boyfriend and only my husband is going to get to kiss me. Sometimes it feels as though, because I’ve kept this promise to God, that I should have “earned” my right to have a great man as a husband by now. It’s easy to think that I’ve done this “the right way” – which is absolutely the wrong way to think, of course.

The reality remains though, that while I’ve been here, choosing to stay single (it isn’t an easy road) and wait for God’s timing, there are people out in these streets who have chosen quite the opposite: have maybe been in multiple relationships since they were ten, perhaps had a number of intimate partners before marriage – and are still happily coupled off.

It doesn’t always feel fair. It feels as though I could probably have done things “the wrong way” and still be married by now. (Even if that were true, multiple relationships and pre-marital sex cause their own complications going into marriage.)

God doesn’t owe me anything. (Moreover, He is in the business of forgiveness.)

What He chooses to give me, or give others, is His right and prerogative.

To be honest, I’m glad I’m not engaged right now – I would hate to be geographically and socially distanced from my fiancé, which lockdown has made a requirement for many people I know! And frankly, I love seasons where I’m interested in literally no-one. Attraction is a distraction, most of the time. I have a lot more space in my brain when there isn’t a guy in it.

I do believe that my faithfulness in giving this area over to God will be met with a reward someday. But I certainly didn’t choose to do it because of the reward alone: I chose to do it because I believe God deserves my faithfulness. And He deserves my faithfulness whether or not my giving it to him reaps the rewards I want.

TO BE MARRIED ≠ TO GRADUATE.

Marriage is often presented as the “graduation” from being single, as though being single is on a lower plain and means you have less worth. This is so wrong. Besides, some couples are the worst advertisements for matrimony! (More on that in another post.)

What Now?

This time of lockdown is, for many single people, amplifying a longing for companionship. That is normal, and nothing to be ashamed of.

But it could also be a time in which we learn how to love what we already have, even more and even better. Learn how to love ourselves and prize what is inside of us: the skills, the character traits that we have to offer the world. Learn how to love those around us: caring and cherishing our friends and family. And if you believe that there is a Person who already has your heart and has already chosen you, then learn to love Him better. He loves you more and better than any future spouse ever could.

In the meantime, speaking especially to my single ladies: if he’s not prepared to work hard to keep you in his life, then he’s not ready to have the awesomeness that is you in his life. 💁🏽‍

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord.” - Proverbs 18:22

Imagine it were your last day on Earth… What would you do?

It was the 19^th of March, 2020.

The handyman was a few metres away from me, fixing my blinds.

And that was when I said it: “I feel like I’m going to die soon.”

It was the weirdest thing.

I felt overwhelmed by a very uncanny premonition. I had never before experienced anything like it.

I had not long quit my job. It was the right decision.

Despite all the uncertainty around me, I was covered by an indescribable peace.

I also felt weirdly unbothered about the future. Not worried at all. Just knew that everything was going to work out right – even though it was a very strange time to be so certain about that.

And then came this weird sensation. I felt a presence around me, thick in the air.

And I said out loud: “I feel like I’m gonna die soon.”

I knew it was weird. I felt weird and the sentence I had strung together sounded very strange to me. I apologised to the handyman, whom I had been chatting with on and off as I went about my business and he did his work. And I walked out of the room.

And I had a chat with God. Not out loud, I don’t think it was. And I started to cry.

I felt from that moment that I was going to come very close to death, very soon.

I had no idea what was going to come next.

                                             *                                            *                                                  *

After the handyman left, I went out to the corner shop to get some milk. I am a careful driver anyway, but I all of a sudden felt extremely cautious as I steered through the neighbouring roads. I thought, Perhaps someone is going to knock me over in their car?

There were actually a few moments on the journey there and back that car drivers nearly did not see me, but driving is a risky business, and I have actually been in much closer near-death experiences on the road and on the motorway. I figured I wasn’t going to die in a car accident around my house as I got my milk after all.

But as I walked to my car after purchasing my blue bottle, I started to feel very odd. Dozy. Dizzy. Bit out of it. I thought that was strange, but this was a day on which I had quit my job and had become overcome with the presentiment of dying soon, so that didn’t seem like the strangest thing to happen in the last few hours.

In the three minutes that followed, I realised I was probably quite ill. I began to feel extremely dizzy, and climbed into bed not long after. In the time I was between the covers, my temperature soared blindingly quickly. Before I knew it, even in my light clothing, I was dripping with sweat.

Ah, I thought. I probably have the coronavirus.

This wasn’t such an unlikely possibility, considering two colleagues at my workplace had been sent home the week prior, with suspected coronavirus, and I had sat next to one of them a few days before that, training her on something. I didn’t know at the time that she had contracted the virus. Neither did she.

I didn’t worry, despite the likelihood. I just went to the NHS website and checked to see what I should be doing to combat the virus, and to verify that the symptoms I was experiencing were indeed related to Covid-19.

It was then that I discovered that I was actually now in the high-risk category. As someone that already has an existing long-term condition, I was more likely to suffer seriously from Covid-19.

Ah well, I discovered that a bit late! I had been taking sensible precautions: washing my hands for 20 seconds and standing far enough apart from people, as we had all been advised to do, but before now, the guidelines had been different, and I hadn’t seen myself as at any especial risk.

Looking back now… I realise that I had not factored into the equation an infection that specialists have been trying to help me fight for months – which is still being treated.  A later discovery revealed that I had also probably been carrying and living with another serious infection for about a month before I even contracted Covid-19. So, these things in addition to the long-term condition I already have, meant my body was not ready to handle a virus of this magnitude.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that the presentiment I had sensed was probably to do with Covid-19.

Over the next few hours, I did everything I could to try and alleviate my pain, which was immense. Consider that I already live with chronic pain. This virus made everything about 100x worse. That is no exaggeration.

In those hours, I had a long chat with God. And I cried, a lot. 

I eventually came to a place where I had accepted that I was going to die soon. The sadness only came from thinking of my young brothers and my mum, whom I would leave behind. The peace came from knowing that I knew where I would go, and that I would be reunited with family and friends who had died, and see my Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – the Triune God - face to face, and LIVE WITH NO PAIN!!

The next few days are a bit of a blur. Everything happened so quickly.

Although my temperature did not remain at an all-time high all the time, other symptoms quickly appeared and started to get in the driving seat of my body. Within a few hours of me realising I had contracted the virus, my breathing started to get more and more laboured. My spine hurt. It felt as though the virus had taken over my air passageway, and was creeping further and further down my spinal cord.

I only told a few people at first. I didn’t want people to worry. I later changed my mind: the thought that people might not be taking the government guidelines seriously – and could potentially be spreading this deadly virus around – filled me with horror.

As the illness quickened its takeover of my body, I made sure to reply to every open message I could see, and tell everyone I was in contact with that I loved them. Not that saying "Love you" is at all uncommon for me; the frequency and urgency just increased. It may not have made much sense to my friends and family at the time.

 As the day wore on, though my symptoms got worse and worse, I had resolved with myself not to call the ambulance. After all, I believed that my time was coming, so didn’t see how calling the ambulance would help or change anything. I also firmly believed that it was much more important for someone that didn’t know Jesus to go to the hospital to get help to stay alive, than it was for me.

I should explain some things about myself. I have seen a lot of death, come very close to me, since the age of ten. My own father passed away when I was thirteen, and I have continued to be very close to a lot of people dying. For a number of years, I have been ever-aware of my mortality, and thus, it is an entirely normal thing for me to think, as I prepare for bed,

“What would people say about me if I were to die tomorrow?” 

Some people die – and the people with whom they interacted have very little good to say about them. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be someone who people remember as having loved well, laughed hard and made the world a better place, just by being herself. And the person that enables me to do that is God. Well, God in three Persons.

It is because of my relationship with Jesus Christ that I felt this indescribable peace as my breathing progressively deteriorated. It is also because of Jesus, that in this time, I started frantically rushing around to tell people about Jesus.

You see, when you are so ill and have already had a premonition that you are going to die soon, a few things become blindingly clear. I became impressed with an impervious sense of urgency.

It may seem crazy to you, but as my temperature soared and my face turned red and sweat dripped down my face – my overwhelming concern was that the neighbours in my building that I had not yet spoken to, needed to know about Jesus. I knew Him, and knew that if I were to die, I would be with Him. But I could not be sure that I had given them the answer that would make a way for them to know the peace that surpasses all understanding.

So at a time when most “normal” people would ring the ambulance, I spent time composing this, and placed it on the entrance to my building. I was literally gasping for air as I wrote this, and my temperature was probably at around 42 degrees Celsius, at a guess. My handwriting kind of shows that I was feverish.

Although in my head I had decided I would not ring the emergency services, late that night it became clear that the situation had gotten a lot worse – and my supposed impending death was taking a lot longer than I had foreseen. Where I had imagined I would die peacefully in my sleep, I found I was in so much pain that I could not sleep, and that my struggle breathing made the lying awake even more unpleasant. If my death was going to come, I would rather have some help in feeling less agony when it did take place! So I asked my friend to ring the ambulance for me: remember, I no longer had a voice.

That night, the emergency services were exceedingly busy, as you can imagine. I waited for HOURS. Finally, I accepted that the paramedics were not going to come in time. My breathing was so bad that my friend later told me she thought I was going to die that night. So did I! At one point, it felt as though I had a centimetre left of my air passageway to breathe from. When I tell you, I thought I was minutes away from Heaven, I kid you not.

And then, suddenly, it was as though my lungs slowly started filling with air. I can only describe it as a miracle. I KNOW it was a miracle. There were a lot of people praying with me.

I had two paramedic visits after that incident, and the second paramedic told me that: the way that I had been breathing… it doesn’t get better from there on out. Well, it did! And without help from emergency services – because they hadn’t made it to me yet. So, take from that what you will.

Even though I survived that night, the journey had barely begun. Over the next few days and weeks, I would experience severe pain, feel my body fill up with salt to the extent that I actually had visible salt granules on my tongue… I won’t show you the pictures but my face and lips did turn a combination of blue and purple. NHS clinicians decided that it would be best not to take me into hospital, because my immune system was so weak at that point that I probably would easily have caught something else from other patients that would further worsen my state. I forget that even several weeks on, I am still in recovery: although no longer contagious – my body still hasn’t adjusted from going through that nightmare.

There were points when, though thankful to God for bringing me through, I wondered why He had kept me alive – only for me to live life as a vegetable. I was unable to do the simplest things for myself – and living alone, there was no one else to do them for me (although I did get lots of help from people dropping things off for me that I needed!). There were days that I was so weak that it took me a good two hours to get out of bed to even make myself breakfast! And of course, when your body is fighting infection, you need to eat!

We’re talking about someone that had literally packed up their bags in preparation for Heaven. I didn’t see for a number of days why God hadn’t just let me die. After all, I knew that where I was going there would be no pain! Instead, He had kept me alive (great) to keep me in indescribable pain (not so great). I was definitely not suicidal, but I really struggled to see the point of my life at this point.

That’s when I called on my friends for encouragement. I literally didn’t see what else I had to do here. (Yes, I would have liked to get married and have kids, but I think Heaven is better than all of that, so there.) They helped me get to a turning point where I decided that God still had more plans for me down here – and the crux of that was, I needed to tell more people about this Jesus. The Jesus that does miracles. The Jesus that gives you peace when it doesn’t make sense.

It isn’t a secret that I’m a Jesus follower. Jesus addict, as I like to say. But going through the mill has taken me to a whole new level of telling people about Him! I literally wouldn’t let the paramedics leave until I told them about Jesus, haha!

God gave me a revelation a few years back, which has forever changed the way I see this.

Imagine, you are a seismologist. You study the patterns of the Earth’s vibrations, and help foresee earthquakes so that you can get people to safety before their worlds cave in. Well, the seismologist has information that can save people’s lives! Can you imagine being a seismologist that KNOWS when an earthquake is coming, and knows exactly how far out residents of the affected areas need to be in order to escape its wrath… AND DOESN’T TELL ANYONE?!

I reckon you have a few words for a person like that. “Selfish” would probably be one, right?

Or, here’s a more topical analogy. You are a virologist and have the cure for the coronavirus, but decide you will guard it with your life – only administering the life-saving treatment on yourself and your family, but keeping it a secret from everyone else. Ummmm….

Jesus has changed my life. He has saved me from spiritual death, and now has also given me a new lease of natural life. I can’t think of anything more important to share with you.

Imagine you knew it were your last day on Earth. What would change about your today? Would you love people around you a little more? Would you reverse some decisions you took yesterday?

Would you feel peace because you knew exactly where you were going when your breath expires?