Dear Friends, I want to introduce you to my dear cousin, friend, and sister in Christ. Lane Yoder is beloved by all who know her. She has a wealth of wisdom and knowledge, and I am thrilled she is willing to share that with us. Join Lane all week on my blog for her special series. You will be blessed. Sara
My Story by Lane Yoder
There are a lot of life circumstances through which one can find themselves single. One friend of mine is a widower. Another friend is one month into a new life as a divorcee. I was single and never married for a good part of my adulthood. When my dear cousin, Sara, asked me to write a Valentine’s devotional addressed to singles, I began to think about what I would have wanted to hear less than a handful of years ago when I was still walking in singleness. Even though there were times I prayed God would remove my hope for marriage, hope was something I never really wanted to lose, but the question became in what or in whom was I placing my hope. Where did my hope lie?
My tapestry of life has many different threads from many different places. From a small liberal arts college in Tennessee to London, England; from New York City to Corinth, Mississippi, the journey has been colorful and God has been a constant thread in varying degrees throughout. My story, however, took a dramatic turn one cold morning in NYC over 10 years ago. The turn was not outwardly visible, but inwardly transformative and it was not dramatic instantly, but rather gradually.
That cold morning I was reading Day 37 of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life and what I saw written on the pages was, “What is it about your life you are most embarrassed? Whatever it is, THAT is what God wants to use to change you so thank Him for it.” The thing I was most embarrassed about was the fact I was in my mid-30’s and still single. Singleness was the one thing I most wanted to change about my life and singleness was now the thing I had to thank God for! You HAVE to be kidding me! However, I could feel myself standing on the precipice of bitterness, knowing I was close to going over the edge, and yet knowing this was not who God had called me to be, I set out to thank God. With gritted teeth and clinched fists and with every fiber of my being screaming for me not to, I prayed the angriest and most bitter prayer, “Thank you God for my singleness.”
Remarkably, God heard that bitter prayer and shortly thereafter, I was struck in my mind by an image of a potter’s wheel on which there was mound of clay. The pedal beneath was starting to pump and the wheel was starting to turn and I sensed God saying to me, “Now we can get back to the business of shaping your heart.” Years later, when my journey had led me out of New York, I came across this verse I had never read before from Isaiah 64:8 (NIV), “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
Please join me this week as I share my journey of experiencing God’s transforming grace as He turned my ugly shame of singleness into a beautiful gift for His glory.
