For all of the single women out there–a reader shared this with me, and I’m so glad she did! I am not single anymore, but I admire so many of you who are living out your callings well and serving God in so many ways that I can’t right now. Know that God sees you and hears you and has a good plan for your life… <3 Just as he does for me and every other woman created in His image. ~Alison

I stare in the mirror after coming home from Sunday lunch at a friend’s house. I look at my face, “Is it my looks? Or is something just wrong with me? My personality? Do I need to be more funny? More anything?” Deep inside, the questions burn and tumble through my brain. 

Some days, I’m fine. I’m happy. I’m excited to see what the days ahead will bring. I look around at marriages and kids and responsibilities, and I think, “I’m good. I love my life.” I’m old enough to see past the rose-colored love, to see it’s a lot of awfully hard work to be married to someone and raise kids who embarrass you on the daily, but there are the days when loneliness hits hard. We were created for companionship; it’s in our DNA .

I’m sitting in church, right in front of me is a dating couple whispering through the service, and I can’t look away, but I have to. Something like a knife punches me in the gut. I don’t have what they have. I’m alone. 

I sit across from my best friend and her fiancé and play games with them, watching their interactions and thinking, “That could be me if I hadn’t turned down the four guys that showed interest over my lifetime.” I tell myself, “You chose this single thing,” and somehow, it doesn’t make the pain go away. 

Singleness is hard. There, I said it. I hate to be “that person.” I try to be grateful for what I have. I love my freedom and flexibility. I love to travel and to spend money on whoever or whatever I choose. I have a good life. God has blessed me beyond my wildest imaginations. Some days the tears trickle out of my eyes with pure happiness because I am living my childhood dream. I am a nurse, a real-life registered nurse working at my local hospital, who has hopelessly lost her heart over the hurting world and sometimes still has enough hope inside to think that she could make a difference. I’m that person who cries over the St. Jude commercials and can’t give up my dream of working on a Mercy ship. I have had crazy opportunities to travel the world and to live and breathe in the air of a multitude of cultures. My dad raised me to value experiences over money, and that has served me well. The richness and beauty I have been able to experience still blow me away. 

Really it comes down to loneliness. The alone feelings when trying to make a life altering decision or maybe it’s just something simple like what car to buy or even if I should. 

It’s living life alone that gets me. It’s fearing I will be alone forever. Do I cry myself to sleep sometimes? Maybe. 

I could say a bunch of cliche things about Jesus being all I need and how He is enough. I could tell you about the adorable little freckle on the ring finger of my left hand. That is my little sign from God that if I never get chosen, He asked for me first. I could say a lot of things. But all I want to say is. It’s hard. 

It’s ok, it’s hard. No one needs to feel sorry for us singles or try to “fix it.” We all carry brokenness from the fractures of this world. We all hurt. That’s the nature of this life. 

Does this season make me press hard into the heart of God? Yes. Does this loneliness push me to ask God hard questions? Yes. Do I come to God because I need him? Yes. Is He sufficient? Yes. 

God has used the brokenness and longings of my heart to create a space where I long for more of Him; for that, I am thankful.

Whatever hard you find yourself in, I pray that you find Him to be faithful. He is.