The Source of Joy

"One of the secrets to a happy marriage is remembering the source of our joy, which is not one another. The source of our joy is the Lord. Yes, we share tons of joyous moments, but we don't expect, let alone demand, endless joy-filled moments from each other. "~ Liz Curtis Higgs ~from the devotional: Rise and Shine

When I first saw this quote over the weekend, over at CWO (click the pic above), I thought "Great, it's dealting with marriage. I can't take part in IOW this week, wonderful." And yes, at the time there was lots of eye rolling and such associated with my thoughts. That is because I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I read the quote.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I'm not married (and I have no kids). Sometimes I struggle and/or have problems with this issue. I also find that there are so many resources available for married women, and even mothers, but, try to find something for single women and you won't find much...or at least I don't see much in the Christian bookstores in my area. Oh sure, there might be the odd devotional or something, but a lot of the books/articles are geared towards single teens or women in their twenties - or they aren't Christian books and give worldly advice. That really needs to change. Anyway, enough rambling and onto my thoughts on this quote:

Yes, Jesus is the source of joy in a marriage, but He is also the source of joy in the life of a single woman (and men also). Do I always find joy as a single person? No. Plain and simple, I turn my eyes inward - to myself - and focus on me. I want to be married. I want to have children. And when I focus on this, I can become depressed and angry because at my age I have neither of these.

See, I don't feel called to be a single person forever. I do have the strongest desire for being married and having children (as I said above), but I don't want just "any" husband. I want the husband that God has picked out for me - my "perfect" mate; the one He wants me to be with. I know my husband wouldn't be perfect, for none of us is. What I mean by perfect, is simply the man that God wants me to marry, the one He has matched up for me. I don't want to rush into a marriage (or even relationship) with someone just because I am lonely, or just because I want to be married. But in all honesty, there are days when I just don't want to be single anymore and am somewhat willing to settle for someone just because I want to be married.

Every day isn't like that, though. Most days I am "sane" enough to know that things could be much worse than being single - like being in an abusive relationship. I don't want that. And, in all honesty, it isn't that I can't be alone or that I'm afraid to be alone. No, I have been single all my life and know that I can be alone. In fact, there are times when I want to be alone! I also know that I don't need a man to be happy or complete.

But, as a single woman, Jesus is the only one we need to be complete. Face it, without Him (whether we are single, married, widowed, or divorced), Jesus is the only one we need, the only piece of the puzzle that completes us. Jesus is the one true source of joy in the lives of mankind, and we won't find that joy anywhere else - not in a relationship, not in a bottle, not in a job, and not in any possession we could ever (or hope to ever) own.

So, I suppose, the secret to the single woman's life is, as Liz Curtis Higgs says about marriage, is also in remembering our source of joy - Jesus.