Single but Not Forgotten: A Message for the Faithful
What many do not often discuss is the pain that accompanies surrendering to Christ in obedience. Pain and difficult circumstances are often alluded to as something that is the result of disobedience to God instead.
While pain can be experienced in both scenarios, I want to encourage those who have been obedient or who have recommitted themselves to obedience. There will be an end to a season of pain. I was recently encouraged while reading about Hannah in the Bible.
Rest Vs. Pain
She had gone through many years of pain. Scripture references that year after year, Hannah was put down by her sister-wife, Peninah. This occurred when they were traveling to Shiloh to worship the Lord. Shiloh means a place of rest.
Something that should have been rest for Hannah and her family had become a place of constant distress. So much so, that she found it difficult to rest in the favor of her husband, Elkanah, who loved her greatly.
He shows Hannah favor. As a response to Hannah’s discontent for his favor, He says, “Am I not better to you than 10 sons?” I’m sure she appreciated his favor, but Hannah had a war going on inside of her that no one could do anything about but God.
She lacked peace and contentment as she had to not only go childless, but she had to fight all of the things that came with being childless for a married woman. This included the uninvited ridicule of others who did not understand what God was doing.
The Fight to Continue Believing While in Pain
Things she may have had to fight could have been inadequacy, lack of confidence, confusion, unworthiness, and the insults of others who did not understand that her womb was not closed because she’d done something wrong, but because God himself had closed her womb.
She was trapped in a waiting room that was completely out of her control. On top of that, she had to deal with being misunderstood and maybe even misunderstanding herself at times.
How many single individuals had to deal with similar circumstances of people misunderstanding them, falsely accusing them of wrongdoing, feelings of unworthiness, and being viewed as someone to blame instead of someone to love? When the entire time, God could be requiring singleness out of the single believer for his purpose, like Hannah.
All of this, while the single individual is holding on and trying to work out his/her own soul’s salvation with fear and trembling, as the Bible says. The consistent pressure of it all can lead to coldness, hardness of heart, apathy, or the inability to feel any longer.
Comparision of Hannah’s Pain to that of Single Christians
It can lead to pushing away the very thing we may really want as singles, love. Like Hannah, in a sense, pushed away Elkanah’s kindness for the hope of relief from the burden she’d carried for so long.
Text outside of the Bible shows Hannah as the initial preferred wife, noting that, in Jewish culture, often when the initial wife cannot produce a child, a second wife is brought in to give the husband children. Peninah may have been jealous of Hannah for being the favored wife. As a result, she vexed Hannah, not realizing that Hannah is human too and facing her own battles.
Similarly, those who are single and walking in submission to Christ experience private battles that others do not see. While yes, we are winning on the outside—needs supplied, boundaries intact, which garner self-respect—we still face painful challenges such as loneliness, wanting to be held, touched, intimate, seen, known, and valued for our full selves and not simply a temporary thrill. Many grow weary in well-doing or cold with unbelief for waiting so long with no hope of something different in sight.
It’s all a really painful place to endure. Holding out for the above desire looks like, “what’s wrong with her, or there’s got to be some type of issue.” Holding out for hope yet receiving consistent disappointment all leads to a unique experience of pain that God is calling to an end.
A Change of Countenance for Those Who’d Been in Pain
In prayer, the scripture was highlighted that says, “He perfects the things that concern me.” Perfect in this scripture means to complete. I believe that much of what God has used the pain and discomfort in our lives for has been accomplished. Therefore, like Hannah, our pain is coming to an end.
Scripture says Hannah’s sad countenance was resolved prior to her promise:
And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. – 1 Samuel 1:18 (KJV)
I am believing God for myself and for many other single believers who have been obeying God and hanging in there through the difficulty, so that our countenance will no longer be sad. I believe that our previous sadness has come to an end, and we will, like Hannah, experience God’s promise and joy within our lives.
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