single doubt and singled out

Today’s post in this series on singleness and the church is a guest post by my friend and co-worker, Arman Sheffey, who has the best laugh. He also has a tremendous love for God and His people, and I’m truly blessed to know him.

As a married man in the church, I represent the majority. In this respect it is one of the few places where I haven’t felt like a side dish. But I often feel at a disadvantage. As a pastor in my church, I am called to shepherd not only the married folk, but also those who find themselves single. I have found in the past couple of years of ministering to people, counseling a single person in relationships is one area that I feel the most ill prepared.

I feel more equipped debating atheists, more at ease helping someone with loss, more prepared to confront serious sin patterns, than helping someone struggling with singleness as a Christian.  My struggle comes from the fact that though I was single for the first 25 years of my life, none of those years were spent as a committed follower of Christ.

One of my greatest strengths in counseling is being able to empathize well. Discovering common ground helps me do this. Without having the single Christian experience, I search for what in my own single experience can help. I look back at my singleness and see one possible thread of commonality: DOUBT.

I was eight when my parents got divorced, and that shook my identity pretty hard. A child in a broken home such as this, starts to hear the voice of doubt pretty hard. Doubting that they were not to blame… Doubting that their parents still love them… doubting that life will ever get back to good. It seemed as I grew, all I could do was doubt. I most of all doubted what is said to be true about love and about who I am. My parents said they loved each other and this divorce was where it landed. My father said he loved me but would struggle to spend time with me. In church, I would hear that Jesus loved me but doubted that love as well.

As if growing up as one of a few black kids in a small Dutch village wasn’t enough to make me feel different, I also felt like all of my friends “got it” and I didn’t. Like they knew something about life and love that eluded me. So, I spent the years I was 18 – 24 searching for my truth about life and love. When you start believing things like my truth even exist, that is when you should start to worry. However, I was young and dumb and knew nothing about absolutes, except that I absolutely doubted real love and doubted that my life could be great. Settling was almost a new way of life, as I developed the mantra, “Expect nothing and life is filled with great surprise.” This philosophy helped to shield me from the pain of rejection I felt most of my life. Too black for my white friends, too white for my black friends, and lost in a pain filled broken home where I seemed to have it together the most, what a crock. So when it was time for me to head off to college, I was ready to reinvent myself.

I became “Da Bomb!” Since I grew up doubting that the mixed up kid in South Holland could be loved, I decided that the new me would be too awesome to pass up. I became the guy that everyone liked. I no longer hid behind my doubts. This time I made a cape out of my doubts and flew miles above the pain as the chameleon did all he could to get your approval.

I lived a single life, not uncommon to those seen in entertainment media. College parties were nothing more than alcohol painted conquests for short term love. Doubting that I could ever run into love. Settling for the closest thing to it, time and again. Women were like medals and each weekend was a marathon that I was determined to finish first. This continued for many tragic years, even into marriage, which finally came. I wasn’t ready for it when it arrived as I doubted that I could ever love myself let alone be loved by someone. I wanted to believe that love was true. But I didn’t. I didn’t know self love. I didn’t know God’s love and people got hurt. Awesome, amazing people got hurt. This is the real finish line when you are cloaked in doubt. People get hurt.

If I had only had the truth of who I really was so engrained into my being…
If I had only NOT doubted who God said I was at an early age…
If I had only met and embraced love…
If I had only caught Jesus instead of focusing on the love lost.
If….

My if’s could go on for days.

So here’s a BUT that is eternal and shatters doubt.
BUT THERE IS HOPE!

When doubt comes to pay a visit, I don’t have to answer the door.
When doubt offers me its cloak, I can say I prefer the light of God’s love.
When doubt posts on my wall “You are unloved… You are unwanted, ” I can tell doubt, “You are unfriended.”

Doubt will not be erased completely and eternally until we reach heaven, but it won’t be the bully at recess unless we let it. It can’t drive us down a dark road, unless we give it the keys.

I did that for years and didn’t even know it.
I was a victim of SINGLE DOUBT.
I felt so alone in a crowded room, and unloved even amidst a warm embrace.
I doubted that my current reality was nothing more than a permanent state.

I can’t fully relate to the plight of a devoted Christian desiring companionship, desiring a love of their own, desiring to be appreciated, but I know what it means to be alone. I know what it means to feel singled out. I know what it means to be a minority in a world that isn’t built with you in mind. I am sorry for the ways that I have and continue to be a party to the struggles that you walk through. I am sorry for the times that you may have tried to get me to hear you and I wasn’t listening. I am sorry for the ways that the church re-enforces your doubt.

I know that many of you are tired. You are SINGLED OUT. You are so done with this season and feeling ready for the new one to come. There is hope. Seasons are just that: seasonal. I am sure what you are walking out in many ways dwarfs my difficulties of single doubt, but the difference maker is here. His name is Jesus and the more you get to know Him, moment by moment, the more His voice overwhelms the voice of doubt that plagues single life. Well, at least mine. I wonder what being constantly reminded of what Jesus said about me instead of my single doubt would have done. I know as I struggle with doubt today, His voice is the only cure.

© 2014 ArmanSheffey.com

Arman Sheffey was the Campus Pastor of Torch Church Oasis (CLC, Grayslake) when he wrote this post.  Now he’s the Spiritual Growth Pastor at Torch of Faith.  He is a loving father and devoted husband who loves getting lost in the joy of the Lord.  Also known as Pastor Fury, he is a man of great passions: parenting, leadership, blogging, social media, gadgets, and the arts to name a few. He writes to glorify Jesus Christ and to bring others to Him at ArmanSheffey.com. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to his posts.