Excerpt
Single Today
Chapter 1
Stagnant Water Feel Your Feelings and Talk It Out Is there something wrong with me?
The church parking lot had been buzzing all day, but now it was empty. Another successful Sunday. Another week of being a pastor. The sermon was done, the building was locked, the alarm was set, and all I had to do was get back to my apartment.
But I couldn’t move.
For the past hour, my Chevy Cruze had been the only car left in the lot. The keys were in the ignition, but I couldn’t put it in drive. I was stuck in my own head, trapped by the spiraling thoughts.
We have thousands of thoughts every day. Most come and go, but some get caught, embedding themselves in our brains, like a drill digging deeper and deeper into the earth.
Ten years ago as I sat frozen in that parking lot, one of those thoughts came.
Is there something wrong with me?
Recycled.
On repeat.
Every day.
At the time, I was a few years into being a pastor and loved it. I was working at a great church, was taking seminary classes at night, and had amazing friends. But there was one problem.
I was single.
A single pastor.
By the way, I’m still a single pastor—a much healthier one, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In some Christian traditions, singleness is celebrated, but that wasn’t my experience. Although we’ve got Bible verses that say we should celebrate it, in my circles we’ve been pretty good at overlooking them. (Don’t worry—much more on that later.)
I wasn’t all that concerned about my relationship status, but everyone else sure seemed to be. My singleness was the low-hanging fruit in every service. Older guys would find me in the lobby and remind me that marriage is God’s idea and that they’d really love to see me married by this time next year. And every well-intentioned aunt and grandmother was hearing from God that I was supposed to meet their niece or neighbor.
Everyone had their own method but the same message. Time is running out. If you’re single today, you should be worried about tomorrow. If you aren’t searching for “the one,” there must be something wrong with you. After all, you aren’t getting any younger.
The expectation was for me to be married. Or at the very least, single and ready to mingle. After all, we’re here to be fruitful and multiply.
Which is great.
And biblical.
And important.
And of not much interest to me.
A relationship has never been too high on my priority list. But I didn’t know how to say that back then. And every time I tried, the person listening would smile as the words went in one ear and out the other, and then they’d tell me about another friend they wanted me to meet—this one was “super independent,” like me.
For years, the narrative of my singleness hung around. It was the thing in the air. I’d go to work and hear it. Then I’d go to seminary and hear it again. Then during every holiday, I’d see my extended family and they’d complete the trifecta. Three strikes and you’re out; you can secondhand smoke a narrative for only so long before it starts affecting you.
I say you because it’s easier to type than I. But the truth is, I was laughing less, dreaming less, and sleeping less. Life was losing its luster. My soul was being buried alive underneath all the worries and confusion about my singleness—each harmless joke or comment was another handful of dirt tossed on the coffin. Until this particular Sunday night—the one that found me sitting in the parking lot—when the coffin felt six feet deep.
I was angry and upset, or at least I wanted to be. Those were the emotions I was searching for, but I couldn’t find them, name them, or feel them—I didn’t know I was allowed to. I couldn’t even cry. I hadn’t in several years. So instead, I sat in my car and stared blankly at the night sky.
That may sound a bit dramatic for the start of a book on singleness. Maybe your singleness has never kept you stuck in a parking lot. Or maybe my story feels tame compared with your experience. Whatever your story is, we’ve all had those moments of isolation when the loneliness sets in. Those are the moments when the first enemy of singleness (the past) can take some really cheap shots at you. Shame, regret, and pain from yesterday start telling you there’s something wrong with you today.
What I really needed in that moment was for someone to teach me how to process my past (which may be the same thing you need today). I needed to talk it out. Fortunately, that week, I made one of the most important connections I’ve ever made.
Spiritual Direction Bill’s office smelled like lavender.
To this day, I’ve never seen a humidifier work harder than the one in the back corner of his small space. The incessant hum was about to escort me into new territory. The place beneath my conscious thoughts. Beneath the surface of the water, the deep end of my soul.
Once I found enough footing to put my car in drive and leave the church parking lot, I figured I should probably see a counselor. I didn’t know how to do that at the time; this was before there were resources everywhere. But after a quick Google search, I found an option called spiritual direction.
Spiritual directors are basically counselors, except they are way more spiritual (that’s a joke, sort of). While counselors help us work through situations in our lives and relationships, spiritual directors primarily focus on discerning what God is up to in our lives. While every director is different, sessions usually start with some Bible reading, prayer, and a little silence before you dive in and talk about whatever is going on in your life.
That sounded like a good place to start, so I sent an email to a center down the street, and a few days later, I heard back from a guy named Bill who told me he’d love to help.
I had no idea what to expect. My only experience with counseling was what I’d seen in movies, so I figured I was essentially Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting and would scare away the first few victims until I finally found someone who “got” me.
That’s not what happened.
Mostly because I wasn’t a genius with a troubled past who was running away from my potential. I was just a single pastor who was overthinking my singleness.
The counseling space was small but cozy. Besides a couple of chairs, a side table with a Bible on it was the only other piece of furniture. Bill casually sat down, waving at the other chair, inviting me to join him. He had thick, long, unkempt hair and was wearing the baggiest pants I’d ever seen, matched with an oversize plain black T-shirt and flip-flops. The same uniform he would sport every session over the next several years.
“Coffee?” he asked, raising a Styrofoam cup.
I’d been a pastor long enough to know that deep conversations are more manageable when you’re sipping on a hot drink, so I nodded. And although he didn’t say anything, I’m confident he noticed my shaky hand when I took the cup, coffee spilling over the top and splashing on the floor. As I would soon discover, despite his laid-back appearance, Bill was always observing. Not in a judgmental way, but rather like a fisherman watching the water patterns, or a comic studying human behavior.
“I picked out a passage for us,” Bill said, his voice calm. “I’m going to read it. Then I’ll be silent. Whenever you are ready, start talking.”
That felt like an odd strategy.
That’s it?
I came from a fast-paced pastoral job, where we made quick decisions and had so many people to meet with that we had to keep conversations swift and efficient.
But I nodded again, and the room went still.
Really still.
The only sound was the humming of the humidifier lofting lavender into the air. Which I needed because the longer we sat in silence, the louder the events of the day became. Random thoughts kept popping up. As if my brain were taking a last stand, trying to protect me from what waited below the surface.
That budget meeting was brutal.
I have so much to get done before my sermon on Sunday.
Maybe I shouldn’t be a pastor.
Is there something wrong with me?
Oh shoot, I forgot to call Andy back.
This whole “inner work” thing was new territory for me. Taking time to feel my feelings and talk to someone about them was outside my comfort zone. I’d gotten really good at encouraging others to do it, but I figured it was time to practice what I preached. As uncomfortable as it was, I knew I needed it, so I took a breath and tried to let the hum usher me into the stillness.
Then Bill opened his Bible to the fifth chapter of John’s gospel and began to read a story about the Pool of Bethesda.
