God is faithful even when it is H.A.R.D | Singleness Part 2

I am an unmarried woman living in a patriarchal society. It hasn’t been easy. I have made mistakes. Even last week, as I walked around the big park down the road, I just nodded a few times at an older man (he was walking around in the other direction). Thinking, “poor guy, maybe he is lonely”, it was a kind of “I recognise you” nod and smile. Well, on the next day, when I did it again, he stopped me and asked me out for a coffee as clearly it seemed as if I was interested in him. The fact that he was 20 years my senior didn’t seem to bother him. And to make matters worse, this is not the first time this has happened. I clearly need to stop nodding and smiling at older men. 

I have observed that there is a continuum of singles working cross-culturally: ranging from those that can’t wait to get married, through those that are happy to get married if the opportunity arose, and those who believe they are called to be single. I fall somewhere in the middle: Singleness is not something I am excited about, and if my husband showed up on the park, maybe I would go to coffee with him 😊, but I know God is still a faithful God, even if I don’t get married. 

When I turned 40, and the prospects of getting married and having children was diminishing, I heard a great talk by another single cross-cultural worker which so encouraged me. She used the quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “You can live a fulfilled life in spite of unfulfilled wishes”. Because she was German and was translating it herself, she actually translated the word “wishes” as “dreams” and that really struck a chord with me. 

Another reason it is hard is that most people assume at my age I should be married. And many people here in Bosnia assume that getting married to a local is the reason I am here. Once I was at a fancy spa place with two local friends, enjoying the sauna and “getting away from it all”. We were joined by an older lady who asked us where we were from to start the conversation. One of my friends shared that I was originally from South Africa, but had been in Bosnia for almost 20 years. Her response still has us in stitches: without even confirming her assumption, she said “Love is evil! But I guess for you to leave your home and come to live in Bosnia, he must be worth it”. 

There are days when I look at my life and wonder what it would be like if I had a husband or could be a mother. The not having children is possibly the hardest part. I do have days when I wish I was a mom. When I feel what so many of my childless married friends feel. I know so many people whose longing has taken then on the road to IVF treatments or adoption, some successful, many others not. I understand what drives them, and there are days that it is H.A.R.D. 

Last year, I was sent a book by a Christian single woman in her 30s to review. In the end I told her it was better if I didn't give her a review, as the whole book felt like a complaint about how hard it is to be single. And at the same time, she was trying so hard to convince herself that she was fantastic and God is great. It felt like she was protesting too much, and in reading between the lines it felt like she was in denial that she was struggling with being single... and here she was trying to write a book to help others!

After reading that book, I realised the secret is to find the sweet spot: not complaining too much, but not in denial about the fact that it is sometimes hard. Lamenting and taking the pain to the Lord when it is hard, but not going on and on and on about it… Being real with Him and others, but then picking yourself up off the floor and getting on with living the life you have to live right now. Not waiting for it to start. Being aware of our faithful God’s gift in every season of your life. 

And actually, that is the secret to living any kind of life, not just the single one! 

This is the second in a series of blogposts about God’s faithfulness when things are H.A.R.D. They follow the series of 20 short stories celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it was 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

God is Faithful even when it is H.A.R.D | Singleness part 1

I just spent 20 days celebrating God’s faithfulness over my 20 years in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but I wrote only one story about the faithfulness of God when it is H.A.R.D.: about surviving the winters here in Bosnia. However, I realised there were many other things that were “hard”, and so I decided to continue these stories of finding God’s faithfulness even during the difficult times. 

I am not writing these blog posts as a way for people to feel sorry for me, but rather trying to share lessons learnt along the way. Or should I say lessons I am still learning along the way as I haven’t got there yet in many of these areas. 

I wanted to start with the topic of singleness. And as it is such a big topic, I am going to do it in parts, so welcome to part 1! 

A big part of being a single living cross-culturally is the area of loneliness. We don’t have a built-in social network of family and so sometimes it can be very lonely. I remember back to my days when I lived alone for two years in Zenica. I was in a team with two other couples and no singles. It was very lonely at times. I was hardly ever home by myself - I made friends with locals and fellow cross-cultural workers, got involved in many activities, all just to keep away from all the loneliness that would happen at home. 

Even with local friends and other relationships, I realised that I wasn’t cut out for living on my own, so I realise how faithful God was to bless me with a local housemate almost all of the time I have been here in Banja Luka. You can read how that came about here

In January, my housemate was visiting her family and so I was alone in the house for almost 3 weeks. Granted because of Covid, this is the first time I have been in the house alone for almost a year, so I was the one that decided to stay and be here by myself for what was supposed to be 10 days. Then we had some heavy snows, so she stayed on longer... and I started to feel sorry for myself that I was all alone…

*cue pity party music here* 

And then, faithful as always, the Lord reminded me once again of the idea, 

“Alone, but not lonely”. 

One of the spiritual disciplines I am learning to embrace are times of solitude – when we are alone, but conscious of the presence of the Lord with us always – so NOT lonely. Spending quality time with Him these past weeks has reminded me that loneliness is really a state of mind. Self-pity is a dangerous tool of the enemy and loneliness plays into his hands. Realising that ‘solitude’ is not ‘lonely’ means that I can embrace alone time and even look forward to it.

Another thing that has helped me all these years in single cross-cultural life was when I first came to Bosnia someone told me “get your main heart relationships with the locals, don’t just make friends with the foreigners”. This has been a huge key for me. Foreigners tend to come and go but locals are mostly around for the long run. Having local friends with whom I can hang out and have fun and it not be about “work” has definitely been one of the reasons I made it to 20 years here in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Another key aspect of this was learning the local language, but that is another whole story. 

When I ended up being the only YWAM worker here in Bosnia-Herzegovina, what became key was finding online fellowship with people at a heart level. I have a mentor, a peer mentor and a spiritual director with whom I meet online on a regular basis. This has helped so much during Covid when going to live gatherings was not possible. I was so grateful to already have set regular times with people to whom I could be vulnerable and they get me!

However, nothing can take the place of live, in person times with other people who are able to feed your soul. This is something that you have to figure out how to do or else you will not last long cross-culturally. (As I said, in these Covid times, I have managed to harness the online version of this, but I long for the days when we can once again gather in person and do it live!)

The main reason that I wanted to start my series of God’s faithfulness in the hard times on the area of singleness is that I realised that so many of the lessons that I have learnt about God’s faithfulness were BECAUSE I am single… and frankly, I wonder if I would have learnt them if I were not!

This is the first in a series of blogposts about God’s faithfulness when things are H.A.R.D. They follow the series of 20 short stories celebrating 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it was 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful!