Already there has been a flood of engagements surrounding December and the Christmas season, and I am not ready for them.
I am not ready for all of the pictures- the guy on one knee surrounded by a beautiful country or glittering city landscape, her hands covering her mouth in surprise, an embrace, a kiss, a sparkling ring on her hand.
I am not ready to have to click "like" on their life event on social media.
I am not ready to tell the newly engaged couple congratulations when if I am honest with myself, though I am truly happy for them, I am slightly more jealous and sad that it is not me.
I am not ready to feel alone during the season when everyone else seems to have a special someone.
I am not ready for mistletoe dangling above me and only me.
But I'm realizing that it's okay not to be ready.
I'm not saying I am allowed to be bitter or that there aren't times when I need to get over myself and be thankful for what God has given me. That is true more often that I care to admit.
However it is also true that this is hard, watching friends, old classmates, acquaintances, the younger people around me get engaged while I am still waiting for an eligible guy to notice my existence.
But despite the hardness, the engagements of others, and not me, will come. They will come with the Christmas snow and New Year's confetti, and I can't avoid them.
So these are to ways I am getting ready for mistletoe:
1. Prayer
Prayer is a powerful tool that I know I forget too often. In Matthew 26: 41, it says, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak." Though Jesus has saved me by grace and I am looking forward to spending eternity with Him, I am still a sinner with weak flesh. When I see couples holding hands walking down a snowy street decorated with Christmas lights, I get jealous. When another friend gets engaged I sometimes get angry that it's not me. But I can go before God and ask Him to help me with my struggles. This year I am asking Him to prepare me for the situations where I will be tempted to dwell in envy and self-pity and to instead give me an unexplainable joy for the couples He has decided to bless with marriage, as well as the current situation He has given me.
2. Thanksgiving
Though the holiday of Thanksgiving is over, I need to be continually counting my blessings. God has not me marriage or a boyfriend, but He has given me much more. Life, a loving family, wonderful friends, a good job, a warm place to live and food to eat, a desire to write, libraries of books waiting to be read, books to write... I could fill journals of all of the things God has given me! But even more than those things that are all amazing, He has given me eternal life. The Master and Creator of the universe has given me Himself- something I could never hope to deserve. So if He has given me this much, why dwell on the one thing He hasn't given me that is truly worthless compared to His gift of salvation? So I list everything He has given me instead of being sad about what He has not.
Heavenly Father, I pray that during this holiday season, I and my fellow single sisters in Christ will not dwell on the boyfriends and relationships we wish we had, but will instead be filled with joy and raise for the relationship we have with You forever.
