His To Give Away

His to Give Away

Every time I go to a new place and meet new folks, I’m always a little ill prepared for the predictable questions strangers ask one another.

“How many children do you have?”

“What does your husband do?”

After these two awkward social hurdles are cleared, a third almost always follows: “You mean you’ve never been married?”

Usually this ends the quiz, but occasionally I’ll get a final query: “Really! Why not?”

I’ve stopped saying I haven’t found a dress I like. I’ve found dozens. Now I’m more prone to say that so far, God has not seen fit to give me away. My heart belongs to him. It’s his to give—and if anyone has asked him for it, he hasn’t yet agreed. Sometimes I am asked by younger women if I have the gift of singleness, knowing they hope I will say yes because they are sure they don’t. And I do say yes, with this caveat: I have the gift because today I am single—and this day, all of it, is a gift from God. I don’t know what gifts tomorrow will bring. But I plan to enjoy the gifts of this day and use them well.

My singleness is a present tense fact of my life, just like the fact that I am green eyed and Scotch-Irish, five feet seven inches and brown haired, that I live in the city but dream of the country, that I love baseball and dogs and Scrabble and can’t whistle or tan to save my life. My check-the-box marital status is only one fact about me, and not the defining one. Not by a long shot.

Here’s what defines me: God loves me. I am his. And I’ll be his forever, no matter whom else I might belong to in the shorter term. That identity suits me. It fits. It’s a role I’ll spend eternity growing into. And now and forever, I am his to keep, and his to give away.

As for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the lovingkindness of God forever and ever. I will give You thanks forever, because You have done it, And I will wait on Your name, for it is good, in the presence of Your godly ones.

Psalm 52:8-9, NASB