Happy Sunday friends! I hope that this finds you doing well and having a wonderful weekend! Today I am so excited to share about a new adventure that I have been working on for the last several months and in many ways as I type this out ... years. 

It is hard to believe that in January I will be celebrating TEN YEARS of blogging. When I hit "publish" on the first post back in January 2013, I was a very sick woman with a very long health journey still in front of her and started blogging to connect with others outside my home. At the time I was completely bed-ridden and needed assistance to walk from my bedroom to the bathroom, and still unknown to me was a long and difficult journey in front of me. It is unbelievable in many ways to look back at that first post and think about all of the adventures, beauty, pain, and goodness that has followed me over these ten years. 

As I started blogging I searched to also connect with other women and I found so many delightful friends that I am honored to still call friends to this day. I also though admitted in my sixth post on the blog (February 2013) about the fact that I wondered if I could still be a good blogger if I was single. And over the course of blogging I have written hundreds of posts on the subject and topic of singleness, spoken at a variety of churches, schools, universities, bible studies, etc. on this very tender topic to my heart. In 2015 I wrote a book, "Prayers for the Single Journey for Women" which I was shocked to see sold thousands of copies within weeks of being released. I continued to write about singleness as my heart has longed with aching to be married.

Some of the posts on Singleness and the Single Journey can be found HERE. Some of the most popular posts on the blog have been shared thousands of times and read by literally millions of people on the topic of singleness:

10 Things to Pray for Your Future Husband

10 More Things to Pray for Your Future Husband

10 Things to Pray for Myself as a (future) Wife

10 More Things to Pray for Myself as a (future) Wife

10 Encouraging Bible Verses for Single Women

As time has continued over the last few years I have struggled deeply with this area. Marriage and being a wife has been deeply rooted -deepest heart longing since I was a young girl. Unlike many of my friends, I actually would answer the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" with "I want to be a wife and a mom" and hoped secretly that I would meet my future hubby in high school and get married immediately after college. My friends would often comment that they would like to accomplish different dreams and then they would get married. I was the opposite. I wanted to live the dreams with someone and do so at a very young age. 

I share that to say that many people assume (if they are not in my close inner circle) that my singleness has been a choice and that I don't desire to get married or be a mama... when in fact the exact opposite is true. 

I have wrestled with deep questions that many "older" singles do in life that people who are married can't understand.

I have watched as all of the friends that had no desire in getting married, got married and have now watched over the course of my teaching career over half of my students get married. I have rejoiced with the way that the Lord has written their story... and yet I have longed for my own love story with many, many tears behind the scenes.

Last year I found myself deeply struggling with this in new ways. I found that it was harder for me, especially after the loss of my precious daddy. I stopped sharing a lot of thoughts on the blog about this topic because it was honestly simply to painful. Behind the scenes, as dear and close friends can attest... there was lots of weeping and questions. A group conversation on a past senior trip where one of my former students flippantly stated that he didn't believe that singles had as much impact or ability to change the world as a married person rang in my ears. (For the record, that seared me to the core at the time, but to be honest I realized that this student was being more honest with how many Christians feel and act than most.) Behind the scenes... my heart was broken. 

I couldn't understand why the prayers that I had been praying since I was 13 years old were not being answered... my longing for marriage hasn't decreased but increased and it is a longing that I can 100% say with assurance that the Lord has placed there. 

One of the ways that healing started for me was by re-reading and weeping through a book called Resurrection Year by Sheridan Vosey. In the first introduction note, he wrote something that struck me deeply and in many ways started me on a new path of trusting the Lord in new ways. He said, 

"Perhaps a greater tragedy than a broken dream is a life forever defined by it."

So in new ways this past year I began the process of healing, processing, and praying about how to encourage others who may be "older" singles. This will be a gross generalization (but one that I have heard from many singles who are over the age of 30) but this is not something that Christians or the Church has talked a lot about. There are millions of Christian singles who are in the age bracket of 30-50 years old who are single for thousands of different reasons.

No matter the reason, you are welcome in this space. 

So this past summer I started praying very specifically about how to encourage those in this space. In the beginning of the new year I had reached out to a friend hoping to work with her to start a community of encouragement. My married friend had some good ideas, but as time progressed and I continued to pray I realized very quickly that the direction that the Lord was leading me to varied very greatly from the direction she was thinking. Her thoughts were kind, but it was very obvious they came from a place of meeting someone and being married before entering the 30s-50s time frame. This reminded me very gently again about the fact that there are lots of times where there are just questions and things that people who are married just can't understand.

I kept returning to Psalm 34. It has always been one of my favorite passages of scripture. And verse 5 continued stick out. This has become a lifeline to me over the years clinging and looking expectingly unto Him and I loved the fact that the numbers symbolized the target age range of those that my heart resonates with. Those in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

I hope that if you are in that age group and are single (no matter what the reason) and you are looking for encouragement and community you will come and join us and follow along. 

You are not alone. You are seen.