I have not been in a relationship before, so the ‘season of singleness’ is not so new to me. However, there are times where it seems never-ending, especially when people your age and younger are achieving milestones like buying a house together, getting married and having children. It sometimes feels like I’ve been waiting at a stop sign my entire life. It is only recently that I am beginning to reconsider this perspective.
Perhaps I have been looking too closely at the full stop, when if I step back it becomes a comma; a small pause, a break before continuing on. I’ll be the first to admit that I prefer to be independent. However, I am beginning to appreciate the independence I have on my own, as I know that this may be the last time I am single for a good many decades. And besides, there were many people in the Bible who led amazing lives of independence serving God, and yet were not isolated or alone, such as Elijah, Jonah and Paul to name a few.
I am about to embark on an incredible opportunity that was truly an answer to prayer. However, if I were in a relationship, I do not know if I’d be as eager or willing to leave. There was a point where I turned down this opportunity as I thought I had too many obligations. And I considered my roots to be too strong and firmly grown into the ground to be uprooted far away. After many months of disappointment, God showed me that my analogy was about the wrong part of a tree.
Perhaps In this opportunity, I am not the roots that are firmly planted, but I am a seedling. Sometimes the seedling falls right beneath the tree, and sometimes like the seedling I am carried away to a new location to be planted in a new environment.
I will still carry the DNA of that tree, the memories and experiences, triumphs and scars that make me who I am. And so now when I get planted and grow, someone will be able to say “we have seen this tree before”. In the same way, my prayer is that when I get planted, I may grow to show others of my Creator, to serve and grow and be a part of another community of fellow believers.
And wherever I go, I know in my heart and head that I am not alone. That I have the love, prayers and support of so many behind me, and the Creator of the universe in front of me.
WRITER: Amber Melhuish, attends Mt Gravatt SDA Church.