So you think you should be married by now? Or maybe you aren’t bothered by that yet, but it is more feeling like you should be further in your career or weight loss journey, or even your living arrangement. You have so much around you telling you that you aren’t there yet, and honestly you kind of think you will never get there.

You see your friends moving ahead of you in life and you are beginning to feel like you are behind. Like really behind in the “game of life”. Friends are moving on and going where you thought you would be and it just isn’t working out that way for you. This leaves you feeling hopeless and afraid of what is in your future. You wonder if you can handle it on your own and have decided you need to get good at this alone thing. So you settle into what is comfortable and are working on getting by with life.

You actually take yourself out of the game. You take your piece off of the “gameboard” so to speak and you have decided it isn’t worth it.

But what do you do with all the sadness that brings, because you do still want it?

You actually do desire marriage, a family, a home, a future filled with what everyone else has.

So your brain goes to work solving the problem why am I behind? Which only brings you more evidence that there must be something wrong with you. Because if you were just prettier, smarter, trendier back in your 20s, or thinner, you wouldn’t be here. You know, alone. While everyone else is where you should be. You spend your hours thinking how you did it wrong, and regretting the past which is just a time waster. All of that leads you to feeling awful and not liking who you are for sure. So you decide you need to feel better or at least numb out from this current life that feels “too hard”. You turn to overeating, drinking, watching Netflix, or maybe purchasing that perfect thing you saw for sale the other day. You think that will do the trick, but after that is all over, you are still left with you. The version of you with the current state of life and the feelings of being behind. Which in the end just feel super hopeless if you are honest.

And how do we manage hopelessness? We just give up our dreams and hopes. We throw in the towel on our truest desires and stay stuck. Right here, not advancing, not moving forward, just actually getting more behind. Because if we are in this same place next year, are friends are moving ahead. They are on their 2nd baby now and maybe even their 2nd home. You, your still single, in the apartment, with the same job.

See what we create? See how we do this to ourselves?

Not any of my “further along friends” deemed me behind. They actually envied the single, carefree life I had. While they were managing their marriage, pregnancies, mother-in-laws, and weight loss journey, I was over here thinking I was behind. They were over there thinking I was lucky. They wished for 24 hours by themselves. I was dying for a companion. Someone to help me make decisions and make life easier than it was. Here they were thinking my life was easier. But I couldn’t see it. I was too busy focused on how I was behind and not measuring up and not enough. How I was missing my opportunity for the life I really wanted, the one they had. It was getting “too late” for me to find love, have kids, get the dream home. They were there and a lot of them didn’t feel “further along”, they were just feeling different emotions.

I can see that now. I couldn’t see that then. Neither can you.

Listen, I need you to hear this, “You are NOT BEHIND.”

There is no game board, there is no finish line. Married people are NOT ahead of you. Women who have babies are not further along.

You my friend, are right where you are supposed to be. You are exactly in the place in life that God wants you. But, if you don’t open up and accept where you are you will miss all that is in front of you. The good that makes up this season of singleness for as long as it lasts. You will create a giving up, a stuck, and hopeless feeling about today and tomorrow. You have the story line that will tell of how you never quite made it.

LET’S END THAT STORY TODAY!

Give those thoughts up. You are done believing you are behind. You my friend are moving forward. You are taking all the necessary steps to stay in the game. That may mean you are literally rolling the dice, moving your spaces, showing up, sharing the game with others, and taking it one “turn” at a time. Don’t remove yourself from the board, don’t take yourself out of the game.

Stay in it! Believe you are right where you are supposed to be and bloom right here, knowing you will be here for as long as God wants you to be, and moving forward with each step you take towards the direction you want your life and future to go. Keep trying for that relationship. Keep looking for new opportunities for growth. Keep moving forward to where you really want to go.

But you will have to believe you can do it. You will have to choose hope when there may be no evidence of any available to you. You might have to believe there is a husband, kiddos, house in the future when that seems bleak. Because if you can believe that when it is bleak, you can really believe that when you meet that amazing man you will marry. Or if you can believe that after heart break and getting dumped or cheated on, you can totally believe that when a guy is showing up and pursuing you.

If you think you are behind, you will be behind, and stay behind, and never move forward.

But if you can believe you are here not by mistake but for a purpose, you bloom. You are right where you are supposed to be!

God has this for you, not to harm you, but to prosper you.

Believing for you,

Angie