Create A Life You Love Now – Part 3

Create A Life You Love Now is the third in a 3-part series on Divorce – Single Again. Click to read part 1 and part 2.

God Has A Purpose For You

After God healed me from the dashed dreams and helped me accept that the things I hoped would change were not going to anytime soon, He set me on the path to my purpose.

He pulled me from depression to mission.

He gave me the chance to speak at my first singles event in 2014. I was there in 2013 as an attendee. And my friend told the director that he should ask me to speak at the next one.

And he did.

I had no experience doing seminars for singles nor any topics that I had ever spoken on in this area.  And I had to speak six times that weekend.

But I WAS single! And I knew what had been missing from all the single ministry programs I had ever been to.

Partnership With God Is Purpose

God poured into me in a way that I had never experienced before, and I ended up with six presentations that got rave reviews and garnered me many other invitations to speak at singles events.

People told me their stories of loneliness, sin, divorce, loss of a spouse and the struggles that they didn’t share with anyone else.

Why?

They connected with me because I was one of them. I experienced similar fears, challenges, and loneliness of being single especially in a faith community.

God’s Plans Determine His Provisions

My first opportunity to experience walking in my purpose was because I was in a place that I wouldn’t have been if I had been married.

God knew what was good for me because He knew the plan He had for me.

He later showed me how He had literally been preparing me for this ministry since I was 9 years old as I devoured books on relationships, courtship, marriage, parenting.

He created me to minister to other single women of faith to help them embrace their singleness, walk in their God-given purpose, and prepare for the partner they desire.

I don’t know what His ultimate plans are or if I will ever marry. But one thing I do know, is that I was created for A Single Mission.

I am creating a life I love by fulfilling the purpose God created me for.

How Do You Create A Life You Love?

What were you created for? And are you living that?

Start creating a new life that you love even if you miss the life that you had.

First, examine your relationship with God. Is that where you want it to be? No happiness last with out that. How is your:

Communication

Trust

Affection

Attention

Surrender

With and to God.

If this has or is falling short, then you have to be intentional about re-establishing your connection and relationship with Him because He is the source of happiness, fulfillment and purpose.

Re-establish Your Identity As A Single

Second, find yourself again or find yourself for the first time.

Marriage gives us a new identity.

Divorce forces you to re-establish your identity as a single.

Learn to love yourself well.

Don’t give to others what you would not give to yourself.

We start to get a little skittish when someone talks about self-love because we see it as self-centered and toxic.

Obviously everything God has, satan has a false version of it. So yes, that is how some people approach self-love.

But Matthew 22:39, Jesus Himself said, …”love your neighbor as yourself”.  As being the like or in a similar manner.

He didn’t say, “Love your neighbor better than yourself”.

Do For You So You Can Do For Others

Go above and beyond for yourself and that will be the norm for everyone else. How you love yourself is the standard by which you love others.

Often in relationships and marriage, we lose ourselves, particularly women. Divorce forces us to rediscover and reconnect with who we are.

Get comfortable with doing things alone and enjoying it. Do things that you always wanted to do, but maybe your spouse wouldn’t do.

Do things that you never thought of doing and learn new things.

Make Single Again Better Than Single Before

Being Single Again does not mean you have to be single the way you were the first time. Re-imagine a expanded version of you with all the good, the bad, and the ugly incorporated to help grow, deepen, and strengthen you for this new stage and the future.

We can create happiness or joy in our life by our connection to the Holy Spirit.

Nurture platonic relationships that feed your soul, empower you, and that allow you to empower others. I believe everyone person single or married needs to have 3 critical relationships in every stage of life: mentor, peers, and mentees.

After a divorce, find a mentor that can pour into you in this stage. They should be someone or couple of people who support and empower you, help you grow, and walk with you through the healing, the adjustment, and finding your fulfillment and happiness.

Don’t choose someone who is still unhealed or unadjusted from their own divorce or trauma because they will bring negativity, anger, or bitterness to you or out of you.

You should have peers that you can confide in, laugh with, cry with, vent to, hang out with, and share life with that are ride or die.

And you should have someone that is your mentee, someone that you pour into to help them grow, heal, adjust, and find their fulfillment and happiness.

Ignite the Hormones

Just like in Alcoholics Anonymous, when you enter you are with peers who are on the journey with you.

After some success, then you get a sponsor who can be more personal and help you because they are further down the recovery road than you are.

They can direct you away from the pitfalls, potholes, and brambles.

After you are in recovery for a while then you become a sponsor to someone new.

These are redemptive relationships in the form of discipleship.

But they are also scientifically proven to stimulate the serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins, the happy hormones that most people assume only comes from a husband or wife or children.

Are Romantic Relationships Approved For You?

This is NOT the time to start entertaining a new romantic relationship.

Find your joy in God, yourself, others, and settle into the new before introducing a new relationship.

And be clear on the boundaries that God set about getting into another relationship. Just because many people have neglected or circumvented Jesus’ command about divorce and remarriage, does not mean that it doesn’t apply.

Do not tempt yourself if you know that your divorce is not Biblical.

That may be hard, but it is wise. Understanding those boundaries is really something that you should do in the grieving and healing work.

Once you are whole and moving forward, most of you will desire to have that type of relationship again except better.

Your commitment now is different than before you married. If I am single, never married I still can pursue the options because they still can be married.

For someone divorced unbiblically, they can’t or more specifically they shouldn’t because God has not sanctioned it.

Find Your Purpose Not Another Partner

But again, even if you can remarry, you should actively, intentionally create a full, joyful life that excludes romance so you if you desire that later, you can pursue it from a place of wholeness and not brokenness.

Finally, walk in your purpose. We hear that a lot even in the world. But it is not the world’s concept, they have just recognized it and promoted it more than God’s people.

God has a plan and purpose for each of our lives that was ordered before we existed.

The truth is that most people don’t identify that in their lifetime so they do the thing they have to do to survive.

Or they do something they are good at and make money doing, but it is not the thing that helps them create a life they love.

You didn’t want the divorce, but it is an opportunity to reimagine and reinvent the person that you felt you had to be for others. You can become who you were designed to be by God.

Focus On Creating a Life You Love

In his book Get Unrealistic, Debleaire Snell says that a good quarterback is one who trusts his protection, so He stays in the pocket and keeps his eye on the target.

He feels the rush of the defense, but he doesn’t get distracted by them because he keeps his eyes on the target.

God is our protection from the rush of the enemy trying to distract us from creating a life we love. 

We don’t need to deny our feelings or pretend everything is good because that is phony. We need to learn to feel the rush, but not get distracted from the target by looking at the rush.

Feel the rush but keep your focus.

Feel the rush of a marriage broken but keep your focus.

Feel the rush of financial challenges but keep your focus.

Feel the rush of sexual temptation but keep your focus.

Feel the rush of loneliness but keep your focus.

Feel the rush but keep your focus.  

When you keep the focus on creating a life you love after the divorce, you are better able to address the healing, navigate the adjustments, and find the purpose and self-love God has for you.

Wrap It Up!

Finally, remember that all that we have shared in the three parts of our series on divorce is not linear. You don’t heal, then move to adjustment, then move to fulfillment. This is all overlapping and in cycles. When you are healed of one hurt, later you may find another hurt is triggered that you need to address. There is constant adjustment, and being open to new things God has planned for you.

But you should start with healing, because it makes adjustment and creating a life you love possible.

It helps you keep your eyes focused on the ultimate target which is living for Christ in His purpose and will.

God bless you.

Lorraine