If you are reading this and single: Congratulations!
I'll take that as a sign you still hold on to hope!
As a 29-year old single male in the Latter-Day Saint faith I know I am not alone, but my existence sometimes causes others to scratch their head.
In other words, I get the question "Why aren't you married yet?" in various forms. Now sometimes people want to know the actual reasons or they may just paying me a compliment, meaning something like, "you seem to be marriageable, what's the deal?" The deal is there are many reasons I am not married yet. Finding someone who suits me, the ups and downs of life, and making myself get "out there" are just a few.
Though questions may come occasionally, I feel I haven't really received a lot of outward pressure to get married, at least in comparison to the pressure I put on myself. I listen carefully whenever counsel is given on marriage, trying to make sure there is not anything I am missing, some unknown secret. There have been girls that I have adored and girls that have thought I was tolerable enough, but it has not been right yet according to all parties in any given relationship I've had (I'm including God and his wisdom through the verifying of the Holy Spirit here - in other words, that feeling that something just isn't right).
Here is my point. Being single, sometimes one thinks that things just aren't working out. At some points we get the most defeating feelings and thoughts. We feel overly needy or pitifully and embarrassingly desperate. We think things are just not working out for us in particular. While we may well continue to have those feelings from time to time, it's what makes us human AND guess what?! It's not a negative thing to experience the loneliness that can come with being single. I am a firm believer that single people can be happy over-all, but there are unavoidable times when we feel those painful feelings. They are what can propel us to redouble our efforts, pushing us to continue in our journey. In Genesis we find out that "it is not good that man to be alone." I think most of us could have found that out without that scripture, but it's good to know that our feeling, that need to find someone, is correct. Could you imagine?! Being perfectly happy 100% of the time while single would be a disaster! Why, who would ever go through all the effort of finding a spouse, having children, and growing beyond what they are now, if we could be perfectly happy in our current situation? It's just not right, the truth is that we were meant for more, we can feel it. We feel it when we see other happy couples, we can feel it during our greatest triumphs and in our lowest of lows. There is a need in us to share our lives, ourselves, with someone else. Sure, we can run for a while from such thoughts or feelings, we can hide... for a while. But when we feel that pang again trying to wake us up to our purpose, we will realize our bitter mistakes.
So what do we do in the meantime? What I believe is NOT correct is to have the attitude to wait for marriage or someone else to start living our life or becoming what we want to become.
In a talk available on CD by John Bytheway entitled What I Wish I'd known When I Was Single: How to Do Life as a Young Adult, he talks about how it is so much more attractive to be moving forward and developing yourself rather than being focused on your singleness. Not only do I fully endorse that talk for it's hopefulness (It's so good and helpful!) but it is based in what is true and firm providing real instruction for us "singles".
Despite where we may be, we can be a little happier, we can open ourselves up to opportunities that will increase our chances to find someone when the opportunity comes along. Most importantly for my LDS audience, we can get to the Temple, and live our lives in accordance with God's commandments, finding the wealth of joy and feeling that comes thereby. For all the reasons we may not be married yet, let not a lack of faithfulness to the God of Heaven, Earth, and Man be among them.
One more thing... to my readers who are tender of heart and for whom these things may just be too real and close right now, missing and longing for that person they have yet to meet. You pray for your future spouse. They may need your blessings. Not only that, but your heart will be turned to them and you will want to be a better person, the kind of person they will need in their life.
Link to Sample of Audio Book
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