A letter to the single woman this holiday season

Dear Single Woman,

I see you.

I know the holidays can feel like your relationship status is suddenly in the spotlight, or even worse, under those really unflattering dressing room lights that make everything seem rumpled and out of proportion . Your extended family and great aunts crowd the Thanksgiving table and ask the usual curious questions about when you're getting married and why you're not dating, and don't you want to have kids?

Those holiday dinner interview sessions are the reason there are so many Hallmark movies with fake date tropes. It can make you a little desperate. You more than likely want these things for yourself too, and if a wand existed to create these same results, surely you would have waved it already. The questioning just makes you feel like something is wrong with you, that maybe falling in love, getting married, and having babies is really easy, and that you did something wrong. Anxiety begins to mount - what if you never get there? What will people think? What does this mean to you ?

So you find yourself shoving cranberry sauce onto your plate and pretending to smile, wishing you could go home in your favorite sweatpants and forget about all that grim vacation reality. It's so much easier to be single on a random day in April than on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Or maybe you're single by choice at this time in your life and can't understand why no one else in your family or circle of friends will accept this. They naively think that success means mating, and they are blind to the other kinds of success in your life...your job, your ministry, the noble traits that make you who you are. The way you encourage your friends, give to the needy, and study God's Word. The way you leave a room better than you left it, the way you took up that new hobby or finished writing that manuscript you were already dreaming of finishing. You are yourself and you want to be accepted on your own, not seen as part of a matching set that lacks half. You're tired of your family and your culture trying to tell you that you're not complete without Mr. Right.

Perhaps you are tired of kissing all the frogs on your way to find your would-be prince. You need a break from the online dating scene, well-meaning friend-matching attempts that are already celebrating their tenth anniversary. Being single right now is fine.

Being single forever is good too.

Or maybe you're newly single and it's not one hundred percent by choice. Oh, I remember that feeling. I spent several years as a single mother after an unwanted divorce, and the holidays were always the hardest. The resounding silence around the table in these situations could be worse than the endless questions. Everyone knows what happened - that you were left behind, abandoned, rejected - and the awkward silence rings loudly. There is an empty chair next to you, the one your boyfriend or your fiancée or your husband used to occupy but is now occupied by the elephant in the room that no one dares discuss.

I remember. It's hard. You experience sorrow when everyone is happy. It creates tension - you also want to be happy, but there's a pain that won't stop, and no one else can quite understand. Everyone takes selfies with their partner as you brush crumbs from the tablecloth onto your plate, avoiding eye contact. You eagerly volunteer to do the dishes or do something to keep busy while everyone else is playing cards.

Or maybe the effort of inclusion is even worse than being ignored: it feels forced, like Cinderella's stepsisters trying on the glass slipper. You're not going anywhere right now, and unlike stepsisters, it's not your fault. You didn't ask for this situation, but it was given to you, and it's the worst gift imaginable.

I know. And I'm sorry. But whatever your reason for being single on Thanksgiving, it's crucial that you remember these three truths:

Right here. At present. Even at the table with this empty chair that jumps out at you. Even when you're packing leftover turkey and feeling leftover yourself. The God of the universe has not abandoned you, even though your husband has. You are not alone, even if you are single. He is with you, reminding you of his presence, his love and his sufficiency. His strength is perfected in any weakness you may feel. It is enough.

You are made in the image of God. The very Creator of the universe, who created glorious sunsets, wild stallions and intricate spider webs, came to earth as a baby, lived a sinless life and died on the cross to take your sin so it can rise again, overcome death and hell, and the sprig...