The Pain of Being Single; The Love that Holds Me Fast

8 minute read

As if I needed any more proof that God didn’t love me, my car wouldn’t start.

My first instinct was to crank it again, because surely God wasn’t letting this happen.

When it didn’t as much as sputter, I called my dad, who lives 400 miles away. He didn’t answer the first two times I rang, but he did on the third. By then, my panic had fully set in, and I, hardly a force of strength to begin with, had started crying. His suggestion was to check the battery, as if I had any idea how to do that.

The context for the breakdowns (automotive and emotional) didn’t help things. I was headed home from a members’ meeting at my church. I had skipped out on the second half of it, staying for the finance update and new member announcements but clearing the scene as soon as the potluck began. The straightforward, informational half of the gathering was manageable, but sharing a meal with families was too much for my heart to handle. Seeing so many young married couples and their little children practically paraded in front of me—however unintentional—hurt.

I felt as if I had unhappily single stamped on my forehead, and the truth is I was already in tears when I stopped for gas on my way home. 

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I had a broken engagement a while ago. It was the deepest valley my soul has ever known, and it brought to a head the necessity of deciding what I really believed about Jesus when I felt completely abandoned. When I determined he had, in fact, capriciously cast me aside, he began to restore my soul, one mercy-stitch at a time.¹

However, on the other side of healing was the crushing heartpain of being single, the longing for a new relationship that feels like I am somehow grieving a person I have never met. It is a sorrow that, unchecked, consumes me, devolving into anger that my life doesn’t look how it’s supposed to. The grief is separate from my broken engagement, but it carries the same temptation: God cannot love me and let me suffer like this.

I once told my pastor, “God hasn’t given me what I want—a husband—, and I don’t understand why.” It sounded like a complaint, which was precisely how I meant it. In some ways, I laid out my disappointment because I wanted him to make my pain comprehensible. I wanted to hear I wasn’t good enough for a husband—and here’s a checklist to become good enough. I wanted to hear it would just be a matter of time—surely I would meet someone soon. In short: I wanted the mystery of my pain unraveled, but mostly I just wanted the pain to go away.

Instead, my pastor said, “Jesus is what you want.”²

I’ve forgotten how I responded, but I didn’t share what I was thinking: No, he’s not. I didn’t want to wrestle with a God who proclaims his love for me while letting my heart ache.

The truth was that I hated my story. I didn’t see in it the marvelous weaving of God’s mysterious ways, the undercurrents of his love in the most impossible circumstances, or a hope that never fails. I looked at my life and saw indifference, and hurt, and a God who seemed silent when I was the most desperate for his voice. Suffering through the pain of being single felt unfair and unreasonable and unnecessary. How could I want Jesus when this was the story he gave me?

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And so I sat in my car thinking about how the situation was a metaphor for literally everything bad in my life, ever. I didn’t want anything to do with Jesus, who allowed all the bad stuff to happen in the first place.

Then I realized I was a text away from everyone in the state of Georgia who could help me because they were all at the potluck. If my car had to die on me, this was the perfect time. It was grace, and it irked me: The One who I was convinced had let me down was also my only hope—through his Church.

And when I asked for help, the Church answered. I later learned that as soon as my worship leader got wind of my problem, he grabbed his keys and nearly ran to the parking lot. A group of guys immediately volunteered to help. However, the first person to get back to me (by about 30 seconds) was a church elder, and soon he arrived. We determined my 18-year-old Toyota would have to be towed the next morning, and he pushed it to a parking spot. Then he drove me home. When I started crying on the way (of course I did), he was gentle with me.³

The irony was deep: When I left my church early because I could not bear the pain of being single, God brought my church to me. No one asked why I left the meeting early. They just saw a need and met it in love.

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Less than 24 hours later, my emergency fund had a hefty dent in it, and my car had a new starter under the hood. A church friend⁴ gave me a ride to the mechanic.

I wish I could say that as I drove home, I felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude to God for providing so perfectly. I didn’t need a husband; everything was taken care of.

But I can’t.

I was glad my car was fixed, yes, but I was disappointed, convinced the whole situation would have been much, much better if I were married. My church’s help was something less than what my heart longed for. It felt like God threw me a crumb because he felt sorry for me, not like God Almighty, the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, moved on behalf of his beloved daughter.

Certain my singleness proved that God loved me less than he loved everyone else, I sat in my living room on the verge of tears again.

It was as if I could see my entire future before me. Sitting by myself at church Sunday after Sunday. Fighting a stab of grief upon receiving another wedding invitation. Feeling hopelessly awkward at social gatherings, a perpetual “party of one.” Skipping church potlucks because it just hurt too much to go. Worst of everything, though, was the ache in my heart saying something was missing, that my life would be less meaningful, less valuable, if I never got married. I wanted Jesus to be enough—I really did. But how was that possible when my heart seemed bound to keep breaking, over and over again?

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When I have a moment of lucidity in the pain, I remember what I believe—Jesus died for me and calls me his own. Jesus cares for me and loves me. This should be enough, I tell myself, trying to make the gospel melt the jagged edges of my soul. But sometimes these magnificent truths don’t stir a thing in my heart. Instead of giving me more faith and courage, they make me angry. They feel like trump cards, silencing my oppositions. I cannot argue with a God who died for me; I cannot demand explanations for my suffering when he has promised it’s passing away; I cannot withhold my heart from him because he created it.

So I feel trapped by the gospel my mind believes but my heart resists. I know the future is good but don’t understand how to make sense of the present. I want a comprehensible God who prevents me from suffering, but instead I have a God who took on flesh and suffered for me on the cross (John 1:14; 2 Philippians 2:5-7; Hebrews 12:2). 

However, even as I wrestled with God and the mess of my life that night, there must have been an ember of belief somewhere deep down in my broken heart. I believed there was a chance someone in my church would be willing to inconvenience themselves to come to my rescue, so I asked for help. This was an infinitesimal act of faith, but it was faith, all the same. Through it, Jesus taught me something about himself.

Tim Keller once preached about how as long as our faith is in the One who has the power to save (Acts 4:12), we have all we need, even if our faith is weak. He uses the miracle of the Red Sea Crossing (Exodus 14:1-31) as an illustration:

The Israelites all crossed over, but that doesn’t mean that they all crossed over with the same disposition.

Some walked through marveling at the walls of water: “Wow! Look at that! God is on our side! Eat your heart out, Egyptians! The Lord is fighting for us.”

Others were probably walking through like this: “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die!”

Yet they all crossed over. Individual Israelites had different qualities of faith, but they were all equally saved. They were equally delivered. Why? Because you are not saved because of the quality of your faith. You are saved because of the object of your faith: the Redeemer, the God who is fighting for you. Everything about this text says, “Grace, grace, grace, grace. Crossing over is by grace.”⁵

In case you haven’t guessed it yet, I would be in the “I’m gonna die!” crowd. My weak faith is sometimes a single text message deep. However, as it was for the Israelites who made it to the other side of the sea, that’s enough for our strong Savior. He loves us; he alone is our salvation.

I knew these things as I sat in my car. I believed the gospel even as I fought against it. So maybe God knew I needed to see it. I needed to see my church really did love me. I needed someone to push my dead car to a parking space. I needed someone to show me I still mattered. Now, looking back and seeing the perfect providence of God, the cross no longer feels like a trump card, but an invitation to come and see. 

To come and see that neither God nor his Church is after some stellar blockbuster story of great faith or even some example of what it looks like to trust Jesus wholeheartedly through the pain of being single. God had every reason to write me off that night (and many other nights). And yet he sovereignly made a way for everything to get taken care of, knowing that as I drove up to my apartment in my repaired car, I’d still say it wasn’t enough. Apparently, Jesus is not after anything I can give him; instead, he’s just after me. He has chosen to love me even when I say I don’t want him back.

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Here is how the very thing I long to be delivered from—the pain of being single—is turning into my deliverance. I have been asking myself, Is Jesus what I want? My answer wavers on something as mercurial as the operational status of my 2006 Toyota. But when I see myself as I am—crossing the Red Sea with trembling hands and shaking knees—I pretty much see a failure, someone who is always falling short, someone who just can’t get herself together. Then a truer question comes to mind: Jesus, do you want me?

His answer to me is yes. I fall apart when my car breaks down, but Jesus remained on the cross for me.

Here’s another thing I don’t understand: love like this. It’s too much grace for my mind to comprehend. It means I never have, and never will, sit by myself in church. Nothing is missing; my life is not less meaningful; I am not less valuable. It means my story isn’t about a relationship that ended in heartbreak and the subsequent grief of singleness but about a Love that will not let me go.

I do still struggle with being single. Sometimes, Jesus feels far away, and my faith falters. But when I put my faith—little as it is—in him, I discover his unfathomable love has held me fast the whole time. He loves me from the beginning to the end, from my best moments to all the rest of them. The evidence in my life forces the conclusion that Jesus wants me. And something else rises from my soul: I want Jesus.

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About Olivia
© Olivia Davis 2024, all rights reserved

1. You can read about my heartbreak and healing here and here.
2. Thank you, Daniel Chen.
3. Thank you, Charley Malmquist.
4. Thank you, Julie Malmquist.
5. Tim Keller. “Get out! Tim Keller on the Exodus Story.” The Gospel Coalition, June 18, 2019. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/get-out-keller-exodus/.