Four Years

I love December 22nd (currently known as "today"). 

December 22nd is an important day in my life, and in 2015, it marks four years of singleness. 

I celebrate this singleness-iversary each year. Quietly I celebrate. (If you want to reminisce on those celebrations with me, you can read about the first here and the third here.)

It's a day where I get to look back and remember how good it was to end that one engagement four years ago. It's a day to realize that this life, this single life, is better than any other life I had imagined for myself over four years ago. 

Reader, maybe you know me well but you didn't know that I was once engaged until you began reading this post. And that possibility gives me a little extra burst of joy. It's a relief to know that a life-changing decision I made four years ago doesn't define me. It's a relief to know that I can be known outside of that decision and outside of that relationship. 

Whether you just found out I celebrate a singleness-iversary or you've watched me quietly celebrate for years, I want to let you in on some insider information.

This year has been a good year of singleness. This year has been a year of really understanding that my deepest longings for community can be met (and met well) outside of marriage.

Because that's what I really want: community. That's what I believe we all truly desire. To be known deeply and to be loved as we are. To be invited to know others and embrace who they are. 

Sure, we see that demonstrated most obviously in marriage. There's security in experiencing that in marriage. But marriage isn't the only place deep, intimate community can be fostered. 

For followers of Jesus the Messiah, marriage shouldn't be the first place of deep, intimate community. The Church at large is meant to be the community foreshadowing the fellowship of all believers when Jesus returns in glory.

(I am aware that those are big statements, but please hang with me here.)

In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains the unique experience of Christian community:

• "It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians" (page 17).
• "...between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians" (18). 
• "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate" (30, emphasis added).

(There's so much more in that tiny book. I highly recommend it.)

In the Church -- among fellow followers of Jesus -- I am known deeply and loved deeply. I am invited to participate in deep community knowing others deeply and loving them.

When that longing is satisfied, when my life is spent in relationship with others, I don't feel like I'm missing out. I don't feel like marriage will solve any problem in my life, will satisfy any emptiness. Because it won't. 

Rather, whether we are married or single or dating or getting close to being in a defined relationship, we are invited to live in relationship with others as God is in relationship with himself and with us. 

We get to journey with others in all things. We are not left alone and unknown lost at sea.

And that is worth celebrating.

Reader, if you have no idea what it means to be a follower of Jesus or to be loved and embraced by the Church, I would love to tell you Jesus' story. It's the best story. If you have further questions about my joy in being single or ending that one engagement, ask me. It's okay to talk about it. It's part of my story, and there's a whole lot of redemption there because of Jesus' story.