Love Yourself

Love yourself for you.

Love yourself and then you will be empowered.

Love yourself and then you will be beautiful.

Love yourself and then other people will love you.

Love yourself and then you will be happy.

 

Does this sound familiar?  It should.  I know I've heard it from various sources for the majority of my life.  To some extent, the feel-good-gurus are right.  We do need to love ourselves, but not for the reasons that they usually give.

 

You and I, my dear readers, are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Made on purpose - no accidents here - with gifts and talents and beauty that is all our own.  This is why we should love ourselves.

Loving yourself shouldn't be something you have to make yourself do.  You should really love yourself - without effort.  If you find it difficult or you have to work at it, maybe you should take a good look inward and find out why.

Perhaps you struggle against a history of abuse: terrible things that were done or said to you to purposely make you feel like you have no value.  Perhaps it is because there is something about yourself that you truly dislike.  If you are the first, I am deeply sorry for what was done to you.  There are a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to helping people just like you, and, if you haven't already, I urge you to seek one of them out.  Talk to a counselor and let them help you.  A highly trusted resource of mine recommends www.purelyhisministry.com (thanks, girl!).

The majority of this post, however, will focus on the second type - mostly because I am limited to my own experience and this is the category I fell into.

Take a good long look inward.  What do you love about yourself?  What do you find that you struggle to love about yourself?  Here's the great news: You have the power to change the things you don't love about you.  (I'm not endorsing major and unhealthy plastic surgery here.  Let's be reasonable.)

Do you find that you have to make yourself say, "I love my body," and even then, you can tell that you are lying?  It's YOUR body.  You only get the one.  No replacements.  I'm not going to pat you on the hand and tell you it's okay to be obese.  Love your body!  It was made specifically for you by a loving God.  Don't you think you should love it enough to take care of it?  Go to your doctor first - tell him/her you'd like some help losing/gaining/maintaining weight.  Ask them what a healthy goal would be for you.  Please accept your doctor's advice - whether they tell you to lose some weight or gain some.  The benefits, bot psychologically and neurologically, of maintaining a healthy body weight are too numerous to list here.  I'm serious.  Look it up.  I will be the first to acknowledge that losing weight is hard.  If you love yourself, you'll do it.  Don't eat four cheeseburgers for dinner and then complain that you can't lose weight no matter how hard you try.  Get out there and do it.

You should love all aspects of yourself.  Don't like how messy of a person you are?  Get into a cleaning routine.  Keep yourself organized.  It will be hard.  It will be frustrating and maybe even discouraging at times.  You can build good habits into yourself just as easily as you can build bad habits.  The bad habits are usually just a bit more fun than the good ones.

Don't like how you do with money and budgets?  I have a hard time saying "no" to the temporary joy of a new pair of shoes in favor of the more satisfying - if less stunningly gorgeous - joy of knowing all my bills got paid this month.  There's help for that.  You can take a class - I recommend Dave Ramsey.  You can also talk to your bank or credit union; they usually have someone on staff who can help you.  Get a "Budgets for Dummies" book and get into a routine.  Maybe even talk to a close friend about doing some accountability.  I know how hard it is to walk away from a beautiful pair of shoes on sale.  But it's a lot easier when I can call a friend who will remind me that I don't NEED those shoes.

Don't like your job?  Brush up your resume.  See what else is out there.  See what kinds of furthering education steps you'll need to take to get the job you want.  You might find something that you love, or you may discover that you like your current job better than you thought.

Wish that you could sing better?  Dance better?  Speak another language?  Play piano?  Throw pottery on a wheel?  It is never too late to learn a new skill or just to have fun taking a community class.  You may be surprised by the self-confidence new skills can build into you.

Feeling overwhelmed yet?  Don't be.  You don't have to completely remake yourself all at once, overnight.  Life is an ongoing process.  Just pick one thing that YOU want to change for yourself and start there.  It will become a part of you before you know it.  Everyone is different - your struggles aren't going to be the same as mine here.  And these aren't even all the issues I fight against!

Don't force yourself to say that you love something about yourself that you really don't.  Don't try to accept things just because someone out there said that "we have to love ourselves just the way we are."  Take the stewardship of your body and mind and soul seriously.  Love yourself because you really love who you are and what you are doing with your life!

"Love your neighbor as you love yourself" is repeated 8 times in the Bible.  When we can freely love ourselves, it empowers us to love others around us.  Through our love, they meet the love of the Father and the lovely things about themselves they may have forgotten.



Best Intentions

Isn't there a road somewhere paved with those?

 

Has this ever happened to you?  You are at a gathering - church, a party, a social hangout of some kind - and a friend of yours walks up with a guy in tow.  The conversation goes something along the lines of "Hi Mary, this is Joe.  Joe, this is Mary.  I think you two would be perfect together."  And you find yourself hoping, praying, that God would crack the earth open under your feet and let you fall into the abyss just so you could get out of the situation.

 

All of us singles have those friends who mean well, but somehow end up either publicly embarrassing us or leaving us in delightfully awkward situations fraught with the opportunity to embarrass ourselves.  These situations usually come in some form of "setup."

 

The setup is one of those terrifying, inevitable situations that all singles dread, but kind of want.  It's like going to the dentist: you know it's going to happen sooner or later, it can either go really great or horribly wrong, and when you're in the middle of it, you're mostly holding your breath and hoping to just make it through.

 

My dear fellow singles, don't get too annoyed with your friends for constantly trying to set you up with people.  It means that they think you are an amazing person who deserves all the happiness the world can bring.  It's flattering.  Really.

 

My darling married readers, BE CAREFUL!!  Remember that these are your friends, and hopefully you want them to continue speaking to you in the future.  There is a right way and a wrong way to go about setting up your single friends.  The worst form is the flippant setup which is based on surface facts that you know both parties share.  It often sounds like this: "I know someone about your age who also drinks coffee and breathes air - you two would be perfect together."  While flattering to the single who can appreciate that you just want them to be happy, it can give the impression that you either don't know them well, or don't care enough to do your research and make a proper setup.

 

The good news is, the right way to setup your single friends isn't hard to learn.  I've compiled some basic rules for all you would-be-matchmakers.  These are by no means exhaustive rules.  They're more like guidelines, actually.  They come from nothing more reliable than my own meandering experience. 

 

You must know both parties well.

So well that it would not be unusual for you to invite them over for dinner.  Having met them briefly at a conference where you exchanged business cards does NOT count.  Having gone to school with them over a decade ago - but not spoken to them since - also does NOT count.

 

Neither party can know that it is a setup.

It eliminates all chances for a natural spark.

 

The initial setup MUST be a casual group setting.

Bowling or a party are great setup opportunities.  A double date with you and your spouse does NOT count.  The singles will smell a setup as fast as they can count to four, which is pretty quick unless they went to UW.  In which case, you might even get halfway through the evening before they suspect.

 

Give your singles a tactful escape route in case they want it.

Introductions as unpleasant as the one I mentioned above are an almost sure fire way to guarantee some sort of personal retaliation from your friends.

But maybe that was your plan?  Maybe you were hoping that they would bond through the shared experience of planning your doom.  How very thoughtful of you!


This is not an exclusive set of rules.  I'm sure there are more that will be added to the list.  But if you stick with these, you might one day be a successful matchmaker.

To my lovely singles out there, remember that every time someone tries or succeeds in setting you up, they are saying, "You're amazing and we're not giving up on you!"



The Dreaded Question

"Why are you still single?"

If you're like me, your mind is a total blank when you're asked this question.  But hours later when you're lying in bed or brushing your teeth, you can think of thousands of things you should've said:

"Probably because I never forwarded any of those chain messages in high school."

Become Bridget Jones and say, "because underneath my clothes I'm completely covered in scales."

"Because I'm socially awkward."  If you feel up to the challenge, subtly move into their personal space, avoiding eye contact, and ask if they'd like to see some proofs for your last photo shoot for your cats.

"Gravity is the only thing attracted to me."

Go Shakespearean, "Not until God makes man from some other metal than earth."

Look confused.  Say, "I am dating someone."  Motion affectionately to the air beside you.  For extra effect, make introductions, even strike up a conversation with "air-boyfriend", apologizing that the other person pretended he wasn't even there.

It is unclear why people feel the need to ask this question of singles.  Perhaps they think they are paying you a compliment by expressing their disbelief that such a witty and beautiful person has not been snatched up yet.  Or maybe they are attempting to make polite conversation, but are so accustomed to talking to other married people, they've completely forgotten what singles talk about.

For whatever reason, the question still gets asked.  A lot.

To my dear married readers:

Have mercy.

I would caution you to steer clear of any form of this question.  It's not the compliment you think it is.    You ask, "why are you still single?"  She hears, "why doesn't anyone love you?"  Vastly different than you had intended, I know.

When you think of it that way, you will understand the awkward silence and non-committal shrug response most singles favor.  Your single friend might even force a smile.  But then she will go home and cry into the chocolate ice cream she is eating straight from the carton with a fork because all the spoons are dirty.  I think there is a universal law involving the unavailability of spoons when there is a desperate emotional need for them.

If you want to know about your single friend's love life, wait.  She will bring it up, usually at the earliest opportunity.  If she isn't bringing it up, either there is nothing new, or you need to earn more trust before she feels like she can share with you.

To my dear singles:

Forgive them.

Your married friends who ask you this question aren't actually - as my dear friend, Grace, likes to call them, "idiots who deserve to be smeared with bear poop."  They are people who care a great deal about what is going on in your life.  They just don't always know how to ask you about it.  So please, don't walk away hurt or resort to emotional eating.

Don't allow a friend expressing their hope and excitement for all the possibilities in your future to overshadow the joy of the present.  Knowing that you are surrounded by loving friends, both married and single, is one of the best things in life.

There are good things ahead of you!  Don't worry, I'm not going to quote Jeremiah 29:11 at you.  But I will ask you to take the question "Why are you still single?" as the compliment it is meant to be.  Let your smile be genuine.  Value your married friends.  And don't eat ice cream with a fork.  Wash a spoon.

I am spinster, hear me roar!

When I first explored the idea of this blog and spoke to close friends about it, initial responses were all surprisingly similar.

"Ugh, I *hate* the word spinster!"
-or-
"You're too young to call yourself a spinster!"

Most people get a negative mental image when they hear the word "spinster."

To be perfectly honest, that was the image that came to my mind too.
It terrified me.  I may end up alone, knitting sweaters for my cats!
Then I decided that I was going to reclaim that word.  I did some digging and here's what I've found:

In the days when only men could work, women commonly married for livelihood or security.  For some women, marriage was not an option.  They were often abandoned by the men in their lives and faced with the very real possibility of starvation on the streets.  Many turned to prostitution, but a few found honorable work among the limited choices available.  One such job was spinning wool or cotton into yarn.  They were known as "spinsters."
Admirable women.  Proud women!  They chose a life of hard work, bent over a spinning wheel all day, working wool until their hands were raw.

See?  Look at the quiet, contented pride in her face.
She has lived a life of hard-earned dignity.

Spinster is not a bad word!

Being unmarried isn't a bad thing!
Singlehood is not a disease, and it's nothing to be ashamed of!

I AM SPINSTER!  HEAR ME ROAR!

Okay, I'm not actually sitting at my computer roaring and flailing my arms like a crazed baboon.

But in all seriousness, this is a special time in a woman's life - a gift that God has given you.  I know, I know, sometimes it feels more like a curse than a gift.  Some of you may even have been told that you are cursed with singlehood.  But, I promise, it's a gift!  Your time is so much more your own without the responsibilities of a full house.  It's much easier to find time to read your Bible, pray, foster your relationship with God and your friends.  You can attend classes and volunteer at your church and in your community without trying to balance multiple people's schedules.

As it goes with other gifts God gives us, we get the most satisfaction when we use our singleness to help others.  For example, taking a teenager out for coffee or visiting with an elderly widow.  I know, kind of scary to step out of the old comfort zone.  But trust me, you won't have to do hardly anything but sit and listen.  They'll do most of the talking.  These are things that married women with small children rarely have the opportunity to do.  And how many of your married friends haven't been out for a date in months because they can't find a sitter?  Or you could go over to your friend's house and hold the baby so that she could do things that you take for granted, like running to the grocery store or taking a hot shower.  You, as a single woman, have enormous potential for blessing the lives of the people around you.

This is a glorious time in our lives, my dear spinsters.

Revel in it.

Bask in it.

Don't wish for a fast-forward button on your life so you can just skip to the part where you meet "the one."

Complaining about being single is like blindfolding yourself at a scenic overlook.  Open your eyes and your heart.  God has surrounded you with blessings and the ability to bless others!

WE ARE SPINSTERS!  HEAR US ROAR!!

Welcome!

Singlehood today can feel like a bizarre combination of waiting to be picked for a team in middle school gym class and being shipwrecked in a sea of married people.  I don't want to say that this blog is going to be anything as cliché as a life-buoy to cling to; it's more like a fellow shipwreckee...

Wilsoooon!!!

So welcome, dear reader.  Since you are reading this, you have the stunning good fortune of stumbling across my blog.  Lucky you!  My main purpose here is to offer encouragement and survival tips to my lovely single friends.  Also, this is a bit of a survival guide for marrieds - to keep you all from saying things that might make your single friends want to give you a hug... around your neck.

It's also here to entertain, because - let's face it - life is funny.  Whether you are a single, married, parent, or grandparent, you can always find something to laugh about.  Unless you're a Husky (UW grad/student/fan) -- those people lead a sad, joyless existence.

Here are a few warnings I should probably put out there to keep my cautious inner-lawyer happy:

1 - I am an unabashed Christian

so there will be gratuitous mentions of God, Jesus, and the Bible.  If that offends you, I might suggest that you don't read it.  :)

2 - This will not always be G-Rated

I will be dealing frankly and honestly with some things that might be tough for some people to read.  This is geared toward adults, so don't let your 5 yr old read it.  However, if you have a 5 yr old reading at this level, let me know, I'll send you a WSU enrolment application.

3 - I am a Cougar

Like the WSU-grad kind, not the "Ooo, look!  20 yr olds!" kind - so there will be some Husky-bashing.  Ok, a lot of Husky-bashing.  However, if you are a Husky, you are welcome to read my blog if you like.  I'll try to keep the words small so you can follow along.  I'm also looking into getting an audio app for those Huskies who haven't graduated yet.  That was a joke.  See?  If you'd gone to WSU, you'd be laughing.

4 - All opinions stated in this blog are mine

and mine alone and are not affiliated with any business or organization.  If you get all offended and want to sue someone, you're stuck with just me and all you'll get is a shady '97 Subaru that smokes when it goes up hills.

5 - I borrow shamelessly

from other writers, movies, from other random sources.  I will do my best to cite sources as well as I can (you can thank my English professors for that).  But I am not making any money off of this, so if you see something familiar on here, don't get all uppity and make me take it down.  Enjoy it for the compliment that it is.

6 - This is NOT a man bashing blog

I'm not a bitter spinster looking to vent frustration on an unsuspecting male population.  Even though my primary topic will be "single women surviving today's world," I hope that bachelors will derive some encouragement here as well.

So, happy reading!  Enjoy!  Leave comments, start discussions, let me know what topics you would like to see discussed, and above all, live well.