Interlude: The Singleness Anthology

Hello!

First things first - I apologise for my sporadic posting of late. God (and life) can often prompt us to choose what is most important in certain seasons, and recently that has been to take a breather from writing. However, now that I have more headspace to think and reflect on this journey, I am looking forward to returning. 

But not quite yet!

I am thinking and praying through my next offering, but for now I wish to share my attempt at a poem several years back. I stumbled across it recently, and I am tickled by how God brings such things to our remembrance at the most opportune times.

May it bless and encourage you this sunny Wednesday afternoon!

N x

Have you ever had those moments where you felt really single?

Like 90% of the time it’s calm

But there are times when the 10% really gets to me

You see, I’m at an age where I’m flooded by engagements on Instagram

Invitations to nuptial celebrations

Baby showers and such

Which causes just a touch of jealousy and discontent

It’s like the whole world is in a story that doesn’t include me

Like trying to find my chapter in someone else’s biography

All the while praying ‘When will it be me?’

I’ll admit that in the past I was jaded

Didn’t feel like ‘the one’ really existed

Scorned by past men who left my heart twisted

Feeling like love came and went but I missed it

Quick to be led astray by compliments and flirting

All the while skirting around the issue of

‘What are we?’ and ‘Where is this going?’

All these DMCs and DTRs only resulting in a pint of B&Js and a broken heart

And you know what, yeah?

I’m tired of little boys who shave playing games with me

Happy to use me for intellectual stimulation and emotional dependency

Until wifey comes along to relieve me of my duties

Then feigning naivety like ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew we were just friends’

Fam, that is the side chick that I refuse to be

So here I am

Like this piece isn’t already a walking advertisement for how available I am

But don’t get it twisted

I don’t just want to be held

I’m happy to pay my own bills and confident enough to go to the cinema by myself

So don’t believe that this is a plea for release or a cry for attention

That’s not my intention

But…

I know that I cannot possibly be the only one who feels this way

Who desires companionship but is too afraid to say

Cuz to admit that is to sound thirsty

And at the end of the day

It’s all about the chase, right?

Like, don’t look too keen and don’t let down your guard

Cuz guys like mystery and a girl who plays hard

To get to me, you’ll have to jump over the walls that I’ve built

That I’m just itching desperately to tear down for you

Such a paradox, such of waste of time and energy

When loving you could just be easy as breathing

So no more games, no more saving face

No more trying to determine the time and place

No more misconceptions, misunderstandings, miscommunications, misdemeanours

Ms Powell is over it

If it starts with me, it starts with me

Mate, If I can’t find my chapter, then I’m writing another book

A story of honesty so that maybe

My story will lead to your story, and your story, and your story, and your story

And we’ll call it a singleness anthology

Fancy a coffee?

Joanna is struggling. 

Her friends can’t quite understand what the problem is. She recently managed to buy a one bedroom new build in North London thanks to a well-earned promotion and salary increase eighteen months ago. At thirty-one years old, she’s finally escaped from the world of flatsharing and into the new world of home ownership. Plus, she only has to come into the office a couple days a week now, so she can really enjoy having the place to herself most of the time. 

And most of the time, that’s great. She appreciated the warm summer nights on her balcony, a glass of red in hand, watching the world go by in a city that never sleeps. She took advantage of sleeping in on the weekends, no longer interrupted by the sound of housemates pottering in the kitchen down the hall. She even hosted a couple dinner parties already and, whilst she had fun entertaining her friends for the evening, it did feel nice to know that the space belonged entirely to her when they left.

But still, there were times when it didn’t feel so nice. 

Sure, Joanna was happy to keep herself company just fine, but she’d be lying if she said that was her preference. Living on her own made her feel grown up and independent to a degree, but that was never the plan she had in mind. If she was honest, she thought she’d be married by now, maybe with their first child. She’d always wanted a family of her own, and she found it hard coming to terms with that longing remaining unfulfilled after entering into her thirties. 

And then there were the harder days, when workdays were gruelling and post work catch-ups exhausted her. She would come home to a dark and empty apartment, with no one to hash out the day’s events with. Sitting alone on the sofa in the darkness, she sometimes felt invisible, unseen. A tear or two might even escape despite her many efforts to hold them in. 

Joanna longs for someone to understand. 

~

Colette is struggling. 

Her friends can’t understand what the problem is. After three and a half years of trying, she and her husband Douglas finally welcomed their baby girl Charis into their lives, a miracle child and a literal gift of grace. Their many prayers to God had finally been answered, and now they could enjoy their beautiful family of three. 

And most of the time, it’s been great. Colette loves learning something new about her daughter every day. It feels like she is growing up so fast, and so Colette tries hard to cherish every moment with her as much as possible. She knows that she and Douglas are very blessed to be in a financial position where she doesn’t have to rush back into work; she has the freedom to enjoy this time being a new mother. She’s also been introduced to a wonderful community of mums just like her through her church’s parent and baby group every week, where everyone is quick to share stories and tips to support each other. 

But still, there were times when it didn’t feel so nice. 

Sure, Colette loved spending time with Charis at home, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss adult company too. And yes, she did get to speak to other parents at the parent and baby group, but it often felt like everything around her gravitated towards being a mother now. She was starting to lose sight of who she was before Charis, and it scared her a little. Plus, many of her friends - those without children - slowly stopped reaching out to catch up with her, or, when they did visit, it was mainly to see the baby.

And then there were the harder days, when Charis was particularly fussy and Colette was exhausted. Colette would often sit in her living room, once she finally managed to get Charis to settle into a nap, with no-one to hash out the day’s events with. Sitting alone in the silence, she often felt invisible, unseen.

A tear or two might even escape despite her many efforts to hold them in. 

Colette longs for someone to understand. 

~

Joanna approaches the coffee table after service on Sunday. As she pumps coffee into a fresh cup, she sees Colette beside her. Ah yes, Colette had a baby six months ago. It’s good to see her back in church again. Joanna pumps Colette a cup of coffee and hands it to her. 

“Here you go.”

“Thank you,” Colette replies with a smile. “How are you doing? Still enjoying the new place?”

“Yes,” says Joanna, with a wry smile. “It’s great. And how about you? Charis looks really well.”

“Yes,” replies Colette, matching Joanna’s smile. “She’s lovely. We’re very blessed.”

“Indeed. Well, it’s good to see you,” Joanna says politely, before turning to walk away. Except, she doesn’t walk away. She turns back to Colette instead. 

“Actually, I was wondering…would you like to come over for coffee this week? I work from home most days. Or I could come to you if that’s easier?”

Colette’s smile widens, and her eyes brighten along with it.

“I would love that.”

Sometimes love comes around, and it knocks you down.

If I had a penny for every time I Googled ‘how to get over someone you never dated’, I would be a very wealthy woman. 

Well, no, maybe not. I’d probably have enough to buy a Freddo or two at the corner shop, but you get the picture. 

Call it what you want - a situationship, an ‘entanglement’, an inappropriate crush, unrequited feelings for a friend, falling in love after two months in the talking stage and a handful of great dates…only to crash hard and fast. 

Disappointment is probably the hardest battle I’ve faced as a single Christian; loneliness isn’t too far behind, but we’ll talk about that one next time. 

I once read a quote that described disappointment as “just the action of your brain readjusting itself to reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were”. But disappointment leaves me with more than just a migraine. It brings with it the ache in the chest and the lump in the throat as I realise what I long for hasn’t been found. 

What’s worse is that if, like me, you are perpetually single, this isn’t your first rodeo. Disappointment in love is a strange and brutal beast; it never seems to get easier with practice. How many times have I prayed “Lord, if you want me to be alone, then can I at least be numb to it all?”

Unfortunately, such disappointment cannot always be avoided in this life. Real love involves real risk - Jesus demonstrated his radical love for us by risking his own life on the cross, after all. However, many times the risk doesn’t pay out the way we wished it would. 

If you’re struggling with what seems like a continuous chain of painful disappointment in love and relationships, I want you to know that God sees you and that you’re not alone. What you’re feeling now is dark and crushing, but it isn’t unique to you and it certainly won’t last forever. 

For now, I wish to offer three things that I’ve learnt about God through my own disappointment:

• God is compassionate

I am a proud person. I like to think that I’m not, but it’s true. I know this because every time I’ve developed feelings for someone and they’re not reciprocated, I begin to scold myself - “How could I be so stupid?” “I must look like such an idiot” “I bet they think I’m such a fool for thinking it was going somewhere.” 

Even worse is that I turn my voice into God’s voice. I imagine him chastising me for being the very thing he created me to be - a human being with feelings and emotions. Sometimes they can get the better of me, yes, but in those moments God is not looking to shame me. Rather, he is looking to embrace me, to remind me that I am so loved and cherished by him. He longs for his love to soothe me when human love has fallen short. 

So don’t beat yourself up. It’s okay to feel things and it’s okay to feel the loss when those things don’t materialise. 

• God is omnipotent

There are many things that I claim I trust God to do, but secretly I’m relying on myself to make it happen. I’ll trust God for a new job, but I’ll praise my career credentials and interview technique when I’m hired. I’ll trust God for a place to live, but I’ll praise my mortgage broker and savvy savings strategy when I move in. 

I’m starting to believe that this area might be the one where God wants me to learn an important lesson - that when he comes through, only he deserves the glory. Right now, asking for a partner feels like searching for water in a desert. No prospects and no leads. However, if and when God does lead me to the right person, it will be his name that I worship for providing them and not my own. 

• God is love 

My biggest fear with disappointment is that I’ll wake up one day and no longer have the capacity to hope. After one too many let downs, I’ll simply resign myself to the belief that love is no longer worth the risk. But God is love! As an image bearer of God, I was created by love, for love, and to love. Love is a costly investment that we all hope will give us a return, but if we don’t choose to invest it - if we simply throw it in the bank to gather dust - it can never grow. 

Therefore, I refuse to give in to fear and thereby cease to love. Yes, I pray for wisdom and for God to guard my heart always, but even more so I pray to love fiercely. I pray to show the world what it looks like to believe in love, as in real love and not artificial Hollywood romance. 

And if again I face heartbreak, may God choose to plant the pieces in the soil of his goodness so that they can grow once more. 

My life as a full-time fisher(wo)man

I have been in full-time ministry for a little over two years now; time has certainly flown by! 

It seems like just the other day I was in the Great Hall of Ashburnham Place, listening to one of our senior leaders as she shared the story of how her family decided to follow God’s call to plant a church in Central London. 

That call led to moving the family from Birmingham to London - uprooting the children from school, leaving loved ones behind and battling with a season of financial uncertainty in the months ahead. 

After her talk, that same leader began to prophesy that there were others in the room who were being called to a similar life, one of personal sacrifice and a less than conventional family paradigm. It wouldn’t just be the spouse, the house, and the 2.5 children, but a life where Jesus’ call to mission would be the driving force throughout. 

Kneeling on the floor in that Great Hall, the Holy Spirit convicted me that I was one of those people. Not only that, but that my current single state would play a role in my future ministry too. 

Fast forward to today, and I’m beginning to see my journey unfold. Of course, it’s only been a minute and I am both excited and terrified to see what God has in store next! However, I would like to share some of the lessons I am learning at this stage of the adventure, which I hope can be insightful and encouraging to you all irrespective of what industry or sphere you currently inhabit: 

• Impostor syndrome is a real thing

As a single, black, female in full-time ministry, I’m sure you can imagine that there aren’t many of us around (someone should seriously consider starting a support group). There are therefore a number of characteristics that can often leave me feeling like I don’t quite have a seat at the table, and being single in church is one of them. The majority of leaders that I know are married men, followed by married women, and it can be so easy to think that there is a glass ceiling for single people in leadership roles. 

However, how can we forget that Jesus - the Messiah himself - was a single man in ministry? Or what about Paul, the apostle who wrote the majority of the New Testament? The fact is single people are essential to the life and ministry of the church in ways that are unique and advantageous. We should encourage them more to know that nothing is out of their reach.

• You can’t run the race for everyone

I have been blessed with so much support from many single people in my church, which reminds me that in many ways I am a representative and an advocate for them. In a sense, I have some responsibility to make their voices heard in a predominantly marriage-led space, and I do not take this lightly at all. However, I am learning more and more that the specific calling God has placed on my life might not always fulfil the needs and desires of every single person I come across, any more than a married leader can fulfil the same for every other married couple in their congregation. To try and do so, I believe, would be to carry a burden that ultimately is too weighty for one person to bear. 

Instead, one of the joys of representing single people in this space is that I get to identify and raise new leaders with their own gifts, talents, and passions, and encourage them to step into the calling that God has designed specifically for them. If God is using me to plant the seed, then I pray that he might use them to nurture it, and even more after that to bring in the harvest. 

• You’re allowed to feel things too!

I cannot take the credit for this point; a wise friend shared this with me this evening and I had to include it. As a single person in ministry, you tend to become an example of joy, purpose, and contentment in that setting. However, in the midst of this, I sometimes find myself believing that that meant I wasn’t allowed to be attracted to someone and to see where that could lead. God forbid if I developed feelings for someone in my congregation!

Of course, when I read this back it sounds absurd; of course I’m allowed to have feelings and desires, provided they are channelled in the right ways. Just because I’m single and in church ministry doesn’t mean that I can’t date or get to know someone to see if we like each other. I don’t have to ‘fall on my own sword’ as it were, to prove a point about how living a fulfilled single life is possible. Even if I feel led to remain single for a period of time, it doesn’t mean that I become the tin man from the Wizard of Oz with no heart to feel things. Instead, I acknowledge my feelings and desires and place them with God who knows how to manage them best. 

I want to end this post with the story of Ruth from the Bible. To be clear, I am not the biggest fan of using Ruth and Boaz as any kind of analogy for Christian dating relationships - don’t leave me! However, one observation I can roll with is that Ruth came to the barley fields to work and provide for her mother-in-law and, in the midst of her work, became acquainted with her kinsman redeemer. 

Although I’ve met some red herrings along the way, I am still holding on to the belief that as I work in ministry and give God the best of me, that will be the foundation upon which I will meet the right person in God’s timing. Frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

So, am I really just a friend?

Disclaimer: the following article is written from a cis-female heterosexual perspective and is in no way intended to dismiss the experiences of those who identify differently.

By the time you read this post, I will hopefully be one day closer to lounging on an island and living my best life for the next two weeks, or at least on a plane headed there. I will also be one step closer to meeting the unofficial love of my life, R&B artist Mario, at a meet and greet session at his concert in London.

I’ve been besotted with Mario since watching his music video for ‘Let Me Love You’ at thirteen years old. However, his first ever single ‘Just A Friend’ has awkwardly become the theme song for my life that I didn’t ask for. 

Growing up, I was surrounded by male company. I have no siblings, but a number of male cousins and so naturally I became more comfortable around guys. This later translated into having many close guy friends in school and beyond. 

I wouldn’t say that I was ever a tomboy, but as a teenager I simply found boys less complicated to hang out with - they rarely gossiped about each other, got out of squabbles as quickly as they got into them, and I never felt like I was competing with them. 

Girls didn’t like it, of course. Whenever they liked a boy in class or was dating someone, I would be the one their significant others would confide in when there was trouble in paradise. Why they considered me a relationship guru given my non-existent track-record in this area, I will never know. Maybe I was just easy to talk to. 

The problem was that what started off as a compliment ended up becoming a form of resentment. Like, why was I always ‘the friend’? Why couldn’t one of these guys see me as something more? I didn’t just want to be the girl that everyone turned to for emotional support and encouragement, right before they fell in love with someone else. 

Now, I don’t want to be the girl who always blames the culture but I think it should take some responsibility here. The truth is love and romance are often elevated over friendship. If you’re a friend, then you’re simply just a friend, second-tier, a consolation prize. No one writes love songs about the greatest friendships of their lives, and if someone has a close friend of the opposite sex then it’s often viewed as suspicious; one of them must have feelings for the other, surely? The same rhetoric can go for friends of the same sex too, especially men, as the term ‘bromance’ suggests. 

Consequently, to me being a friend implied that I wasn’t quite enough to be promoted to potential girlfriend status. There was something missing and until I could figure it out, I would forever live in the friend zone. 

However, today I would like to redeem the friend zone. We need more friends! And not just any friends, but friends who intentionally support, encourage, inspire, challenge, and uplift you on a regular basis. And yes, some of these friendships should include platonic ones with the opposite sex. 

First of all, we take for granted how beautiful it can be to have friends who simply love and care for you without sex or romance on the agenda. We can be so quick to dismiss someone as soon as they don’t appear to be a potential love interest, even if their presence in our lives as a friend could be just as essential to us. 

In the Bible, David and Jonathan were #friendshipgoals. In fact, David described Jonathan’s love as ‘more wonderful than the love of women’ (2 Samuel 1:26). Some commentators have suggested that David and Jonathan’s relationship might have been more than platonic, but again I feel this takes away from the fact that the intimacy, connection, and loyalty found in good friendship can truly surpass that found in mediocre sexual and romantic interests. 

I used to envy the girls that always got asked out, the ones that the guys never friend zoned or hesitated about when it came to pure sexual chemistry. However, getting to know those women led me to discover that they were often jealous of me! I had a band of brothers around me, men who showed me loyalty and respect, who would speak deeply with me about their hearts, and I didn’t need any form of seduction to keep them there. I was a permanent fixture in their lives, and not someone who they discarded when they felt like the sparks weren’t flying anymore. 

Secondly, whoever my future husband might be, I want him to have good female friends. I want to know that he has women in his life who he respects, cares for, and encourages, reminding them regularly that they are queens who should be treated accordingly by every man, not just those who are trying to woo them. 

I actually consider it a red flag if a man has a string of broken relationships and yet no solid female friends, and vice versa with women too. It’s because these are the females who should be able to vouch for his character and his treatment towards women. If he honours them in that way, then surely that speaks volumes as to what I can expect from him, right? 

So folks, go and find some friends! Find people who can ride or die with you in every season, without any romantic cards on the table. If you have people like that in your life, hold on to them! They are precious and live giving in so many ways. 

You’re a friend, and never just a friend.

Help - I have a fear of intimacy.

In his book The Discipline of Intimacy, Charles Cleverly writes the following:

“The twenty-first-century post-modern, post-Christian world is a place of paradox. Despite more ‘connectivity’ than ever before in history, this is a disconnected word. Isolation abounds. We may have perfectly designed scandi coffee shops and public spaces but the private space of people’s hearts may be crumbling with mental health issues, breakdown or lack of relationships, and geographical disconnection. There is a longing for intimacy - ‘ghosting’ on dating apps, and phobias concerning commitment.”

These words are rather poignant to a single traveller like me. On the one hand, I deeply wish to be seen and understood. I naturally want to relate to others, to share my experiences, hopes, and fears. However, to do that requires vulnerability, something that becomes even more challenging every day I live life as a single person. 

I’ll admit it - I don’t particularly like being vulnerable. I find it difficult to express emotion and I absolutely detest crying in front of people or having someone show pity towards me. I have worked so hard to create an outer shell around myself, and I seek to defend this exterior at any cost.

However, I also know that to live this way prevents me from finding true connection and intimacy with other people. It stops me from taking risks on the off-chance that they might actually pay off in long lasting relationships with others. It creates a perception that I am cold, hard plastic - impenetrable and unapproachable - when all I really want is to be embraced. 

This might sound silly, but for years I made it clear to anyone who would listen that I don’t do hugs. I just wasn’t touchy-feely like that, and it was a waste of time for anyone to try and change me. The truth? There were times when all I wanted was to be held, to know the warmth of another person who cared about me. However, I was so fearful of being seen as ‘too much’ that I thought the best thing to do was to shrug off the desire altogether. Better to be pleasantly surprised than utterly disappointed, after all. 

The irony is that so often I believe that a romantic relationship could be the cure. Yes, all I need is someone to love, to tie my life to intrinsically. That person will instantly relate to me, to all the yearnings in my heart, and my desire to be seen and understood will finally be realised. The shell will fall to pieces and I’ll finally be free.

Allow me to put a couple of pins in that theory. 

Firstly, I would need to overcome my phobia of intimacy and the mere presence of a romantic interest isn’t going to fix that. If anything, unless I deal with the internal fears that I carry, I’ll only be riddled with anxiety and frustration at not being able to give more of myself to that person. I’ll hurt myself and I’ll hurt them too. 

Secondly, I would be placing far too much expectation on another human being to be the one person to completely understand and empathise with me in every way. Unfortunately, the big, small, and tiny screens around us provide the narrative that we will meet someone, fall madly in love, and never be misunderstood again. 

News flash - there is no-one who can walk into your life and instantly ‘get’ you without any form of clunkiness, misunderstanding, or conflict in between. When broken people get together with other broken people, the shards rub against each other, causing damage and friction. Disappointment and confusion are inevitable, and without a healthy perspective, you will struggle. 

Having close friends with partners/spouses often means getting a glimpse into their world behind the carefully curated Instagram posts. That world is hard because human intimacy is hard. The presence of a significant other brings with it many joys and challenges. It is a blessing but it is not the ultimate answer to the intimacy vacuum. 

So what do I feel God is saying in the midst of all this? 

I wish you’d come to me. I wish you’d run into my arms of love and mercy, and know that I see you. I see all your imperfections, all your flaws, the things you’re too ashamed to reveal. I see them all and know them well, and yet I love you. I love you with the fiercest love imaginable. I gave my only Son for every single one of your broken fragments, so that you could know the warmth and intimacy of my embrace. I wish you would let me remove that guard you hold up all the time. Confide in me, not as some cosmic wish-granter, but as your closest friend and companion who you long to visit after a tiring journey. Let me refresh your soul. Let me take your hopes, your dreams, and your fears and carry them within my will and purpose for you. Be as vulnerable as you like and know that it will never change my love for you. 

Until we can experience true intimacy with the God who made us, until we break down our walls and let Him in, we will never deal with our intimacy phobia towards others. We will never be able to hold relationships in their proper place, as beautiful gifts from God made for the overflow of love and connection we have in Him. 

My fellow single pilgrims, don’t let the fear of vulnerability and intimacy hold you back any longer. Run to God, feel his embrace and let your outer shell smash into a thousand pieces.

Happy Val… Wednesday, everyone!

To quote Headie One, Valentine’s Day is a sticky one, still. 

I think it’s fair to say that there is very little neutrality when it comes to Valentine’s Day. I’ve met very few people who are indifferent about it. It’s rare for someone to say “Valentine’s Day? It’s cute, I suppose.”

Oh no, my experience is that people live in two distinct camps. There are those who indulge in the romance and headiness of it all, saying things like “I just love the idea of love!” Single or taken, they revel in the excitement of a swoon worthy meet-cute just around the corner. 

Then there are those who are simply chomping at the bit for any opportunity to remind anyone who will listen that Valentine’s Day is a commercialised gimmick giving licence to bars and restaurants to charge triple the amount for the same menu, only this time with a heart shaped mint to accompany your dessert wine.

It was fair to say that for a long time, I was very much in the second camp. Here’s why.

In 2005, I decided it would be a good idea to buy a Valentine’s gift for a boy in my science class.

I had no prior experience in buying Valentine’s gifts for and receiving them from anyone other than my parents (even they have stopped buying me a gift now - thanks guys 🥲). However, it seemed necessary for this boy - let’s call him Quentin, because why not? - to know exactly how I felt about him. 

I went with a friend - let’s call her Stacey, because her name was Stacey and I don’t think I need to anonymise her - to the shopping centre after school in search of the perfect token of love. After daring each other to go into Ann Summers ‘just to have a look’ (don’t judge me, okay? We were all a bit too curious at that age), we eventually stopped in Clinton’s.

After much perusal, I settled on a small, red box containing an even smaller heart shaped key - the key to my heart, the description read. Perfect. 

The next day, before Quentin arrived, I placed the red box on his desk and scurried over to my own before anyone else saw me. I watched in anticipation as Quentin sat down, picked up the red box and opened it to reveal its contents. His brows furrowed in confusion for a moment, before he hurriedly pushed the box aside to make room for his biology textbook. 

I sighed despondently across the room. Not really the reaction I was hoping for, to be honest. Little did I know that things were about to get worse. 

Whilst I chatted away with my friends in the playground afterwards, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Quentin’s best friend, Jonah (again, fake name). Jonah held up his right hand, which was holding the red box. The box containing the key to my heart. I gulped.

“Quentin says you can have this back,” he barked, before stuffing the box into one of my hands and running off. 

That was the first and last time I ever bought a Valentine’s gift for someone I was interested in (keyword being interested - if you’re a bro and you got a novelty gift from me, you’re still a bro, sorry). 

That was almost twenty years ago, but I would be lying if I said the feelings of embarrassment and rejection at that time do not still bother me from time to time. And when Valentine’s Day comes around each year, I have to decide how to feel about it whilst being single yet again. I have to decide which camp I want to pitch my tent in. 

However, this year there might actually be a third option. Valentine’s Day happens to also be Ash Wednesday, traditionally marked in the Christian calendar as the start of Jesus’ 40 day fast in the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan. At first glance, this day is not particularly romantic. Plus, who wants to turn up to a date with a cross of ash on their head?

But at the centre of this story is the call for us to surrender our hearts to Jesus and follow him on the journey to the cross, his ultimate act of love and devotion to us. You see, in this story, Jesus undeniably gets the key to my heart every time. He doesn’t push it across the table, nor does he get someone else to bluntly let me know it’s not wanted. Instead, he demonstrates his unconditional love for me by giving every part of himself in death, only to be glorified in his resurrection. 

The story isn’t romantic or swoon worthy; there’s pain, loss, grief, and suffering, but it’s followed by hope, a living hope that remains unblemished for me.  

So as Haddaway echoes his question “What Is Love?” again this year, may this be our response:

”This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.“

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Just call my name and I’ll be there.

One of the reasons why I started this blog was because I wanted to demonstrate how single people are getting things done. 

We’re not waiting on a Prince/Princess Charming type to come around so that we can finally go travelling, or speak to a mortgage adviser, or trial that business idea, or even check out that adorable Italian bistro at the end of our road. No, we’re taking life by the horns and we’re enjoying every second it has to offer. 

But sometimes we come across those moments in life where we would love to have someone around, someone who is more or less obligated to help us figure it out. 

For example, for me it could be as trivial as overestimating my upper body strength whilst shopping at Lidl. Who is going to help me carry the bags? Do I shell out the £15 Uber fare, or simply take thirty-second lifting breaks for every ten metres I manage to walk back home? 

What about when I host dinner at my place and I’m left with the washing up afterwards? Even worse, a BBQ? Okay, granted, I do have a dishwasher in my flat but if you follow the loading rules correctly (and there are rules everyone, we’re not savages) then you’re bound to be left with the bigger items to wash by hand, plus all the clean up in the living room and the garden. Plus, it’s more than just having a helping hand. Sometimes you just want the company of another person whilst you stuff rubbish into bin liners. 

And then there are the bigger things - when your body forces you to stay at home and rest, due to either planned (i.e. surgery) or unplanned illness. Who is going to look after you until you get better? Will people remember to check on you, even when there’s no significant other of yours to remind them at church on Sunday? Will your friends visit you and keep you company for a bit? And even if they do, what happens when they go home afterwards?

The truth is we can ask ourselves a million questions like these but simply asking them doesn’t solve anything. When Jesus said that worrying doesn’t add a single hour to our lives, he really wasn’t kidding. 

There was a time when I was terrified of growing old alone. It was not necessarily because I wanted to be married and have a family of my own before then (although that is preferred), but because I imagined a life where everyone around me would be too caught up in the lives of their families to remember that I didn’t have one. My parents would grow old and pass on, the only two people ever to be completely focused on my wellbeing, and I would simply have to figure it out without them. 

And of course, the British in me that hates to inconvenience, or bother, or impose would allow me to struggle in silence, hoping that  the power of telepathy would reveal itself and let my loved ones know that I needed a bit of help. 

However, I’m so glad that God, by his incredible grace and with much patience, has opened my eyes to see that my singleness is not just my perceived weakness, but in fact my biggest superpower. 

You see, being single allows me to step into the gap for others in my community. It gives me the opportunity to be the person that I long for in the times when I need it. Lauren Windle recalls something similar in her book Notes on Love:

“During 2020’s COVID-19 lockdown, I coordinated a team of church volunteers who could support vulnerable people in our parish with shopping, errands, and prescription collections. When I looked at my list of volunteers, I always jumped for the single people first. In the fast paced, uncertain times, I needed people who could just mobilize, and experience showed me that they were best placed to do that. Married people and those with families were incredibly valuable, but far more likely to respond the following day or send a placeholder while they checked with their partner what they would be able to commit to. There is nothing wrong with that at all. But at a time of relative emergency, it was the single people who carried the operation.”

Friends, we are the first responders in our community. We have the freedom to show up, make room, clear schedules, open doors, and be there for whoever needs it, whether our fellow single friends, our married friends or our extended church families.

Tonight, I visited a church member living on their own with mobility issues. I reminded them that their church community has not forgotten about them. This week, I will accompany a friend to the hospital for surgery and I plan to stay with them at home until their recovery. 

Their friends and family were greatly touched by what they feel is an extremely kind and sacrificial gesture. But for me, I’m just trying to build the kind of family that I pray looks after me in the same way when the time comes.

New Year - same me?

Hello everyone! Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read my first blog post, subscribed for more, or has been super encouraging either way. It’s a bit scary to put yourself out there about something that you personally live through and sometimes struggle with, so thank you for embracing me and my story. I hope it can help you too. 

As we’re still in January, I think it’s socially acceptable for me to talk about the New Year (capitals make everything way more official, am I right?). 

A new year can be met with a variety of responses. There are some for whom a new year brings that booked holiday, wedding, or other major life event that little bit closer. For others, it’s a chance to escape the challenges and disappointments of the previous year and look to better things ahead (on behalf of 2020 and 2021, I sincerely apologise!). Yet again, there are others who seize the new year as a chance to reinvent themselves, set goals, and dust off their vision boards. For them, the clichéd phrase ‘new year, new me’ is a guiding mantra for the next 12 months - or the next 12 days at the very least.

As a single person, I can admit that finding progression in the new year can be tough. When there’s one part of your life that has yet to materialise, and you give it enough head space to fixate on it, it can easily overshadow any sense of joy or accomplishment from the previous year, along with any hope and expectation for the next. Maybe you were hoping your ‘new year, me’ would come with a new relationship too, but that hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe your year ended with a break-up, leaving you to reconfigure what your new year looks like without them. 

One way to respond to a new year in light of the above might be to simply resign yourself to the pain and disappointment of being single for another year. After all, disappointment cannot hurt you too much if you’re expecting it. Sure, you gave God a chance to fix things but he clearly doesn’t feel like your marital status is something that needs to change this year. Best to leave that hope in 2023; your heart is safer that way. 

A second response might be to apply greater pressure to ‘make it happen’. This will be the year I meet someone, this will be the year that I fall head over heels in love with nothing standing in my way. Naturally, you focus on making outward changes to improve your chances - changing your wardrobe, working out at the gym more, etc - as this is far easier to accept as the reason things didn’t work out last year, rather than the truth that not every year promises us a life-changing romance story like our surrounding culture says it should. 

The problem is that neither option deals with our disappointment in a healthy way, nor does it grow realistic expectations for the year ahead. Therefore, here are some of my suggestions for how to stay grounded and hopeful for the new year:

1. Bring your honest feelings to God and to trusted people - this tip will be a recurring theme in this blog, and a subject that I will likely dedicate a separate post to. It is so important to be honest about any pain or disappointment you feel about being single. God can handle our feelings; he is not offended or surprised by them. What he longs for the most is for us to turn to him with them instead of wallowing deeper into self-pity or turning to other coping mechanisms as a way of escape. Pray and talk to the God who is near to the brokenhearted (Ps. 34:18). When you’ve done that, share your feelings with someone you trust, who doesn’t mind sitting with you in the difficult emotions and isn’t too quick to patch things up with empty advice or sentiment. It’s okay not to feel okay about being single sometimes; it doesn’t make you weak or pathetic. 

2. Pursue gratitude daily - there is honestly nothing like being thankful on a regular basis to remind yourself that God is so faithful. Although there might be one aspect of your life that still feels TBC, there are many more things we can celebrate and thank God for. This year, I have a three year journal. Okay, before you freak out, it only provides for a couple of lines each day, which is just enough for me to write a prayer of gratitude to God for anything at all - the beauty of nature, the warmth of family and friends, the excitement of work and play. Try and practice gratitude daily, bringing with it fresh perspective and refreshed hope. 

3. Remember that you are being renewed daily - 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that we are “being transformed into [God’s] image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit”. Forget ‘new year, new me’ - it’s all about ‘new day/hour/minute, new me’! Even when you feel like your life is stuck on the same page, God is continuously transforming you to look more and more like him. You are not the same person you were yesterday, last week, last month, or even last year. The world around us will focus on the external aesthetic, but God focuses on the heart. Therefore, seek more opportunities to draw closer to him in prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, and fellowship with other followers of Jesus. Watch as these disciplines sharpen your godly character and cause you to flourish. Not to mention that such traits are irresistible to potential Christian partners who are about that life too!

Finally, I know it’s tough. No-one likes to start a new year feeling like it’s more of the same. I spent the last few days of 2023 getting over an Instagram DM from a guy I met twice, who sought to let me know - rather abruptly - that he wasn’t attracted to me romantically, when I casually suggested meeting up for a hot chocolate some time. It’s a cold winter at the moment! 

But don’t lose hope. Learn to hold your desires tightly enough to have faith that God sees you and is faithful to respond, but loosely enough to welcome whatever that response might look like. God is good. He withholds no good thing from us, and I pray that 2024 will be filled with an abundance of good things.

Hello. It’s me.

Hello world.

Thank you for taking the time to stumble across my first blog post! Whether you find yourself here through intrigue, or because I persistently asked you to check it out, your presence is greatly appreciated. 

My name is Natalie and, as the intro on the homepage states, I am a single Christian woman. Of course, I am indeed many other things too - a daughter, a close friend, a follower of Jesus Christ, a former lawyer, a musician, and a leader in full-time Christian ministry. It is fair to say that I have many hats!

However, over recent months, God has placed in my heart a burden for single people, both inside and outside of Christian circles. This is obviously a subject that hits very close to home for me, being single myself. I write this at 32 years old, having never been in a relationship, never been kissed, or managing to get to a third date. I don’t just have a few thoughts on singleness; I live out this reality every day so far. 

Many times, particularly when feelings of loneliness and isolation crept up on me, I would scour the YouTube archives looking for any Christian content aimed at encouraging single women. Now, I am not saying that it’s all bad out there but, if I’m being honest, a lot of it frustrates me. All this talk about ‘waiting seasons’ and ‘enduring the in-between’, as if singleness is some sort of limbo that we’ll eventually be pulled out of if we simply complete more Bible reading plans and journal each morning, is highly tedious to listen to especially when coming from 23 year olds. Sometimes I want to scream at the screen - ‘there’s so much more out there than this!’. 

I recall the summer of 2021, before I first entered into full-time ministry. In the week leading up to church on Sunday, I was wrestling with whether investing more into ministry would mean sacrificing the opportunity to meet more people and, hopefully, pursue a relationship with someone. The truth is I longed for marriage, for a family of my own, but with there being no real prospects at my church at the time I feared that spending more time there would just mean less chance of that happening. 

After the service, one of my current colleagues approached me with a prophetic word. She sensed that God was calling me into leadership, something that would involve mission and be pioneering. She then asked if I was single at the moment. I replied that I was, knowing that we had never really spoken about my love life before. In response, she shared that God was calling me to go now, just as I am, and not to worry about singleness holding me back. 

This moment had a profound effect on me in two ways. Firstly, it showed me yet again that God sees us so much more than we realise. He sees our worries and anxieties, our dreams and desires. He cares about them deeply and He wishes to speak to us about them. 

Secondly, it cemented in me the idea that singleness isn’t a waiting period to be endured, but a blessing and a gift to be celebrated and taken advantage of for God’s glory. It’s not a ‘how long’ but a ‘what’s next’!

That is why I have titled this site What’s Next? I want to continually ask this question, to use this time - however long or short it may be - to live the fullest experience of Christian life possible, and to share my experiences and reflections with you in the hope that you can be deeply encouraged and empowered to do the same. 

So a Happy New Year to you - may God bless you as he shares what’s in store for 2024!