Last weekend, I was in Palm Beach, Florida. It all started because a close friend of mine and I had met up at Starbucks on a frigid New England evening and l had pondered out loud, “Wouldn’t it be great if we can just escape the cold and go to Florida for the weekend?” Well, as my luck would have it, my friend’s grandparents live in Florida. My friend was sure that they wouldn’t mind us staying with them. My plan was actually affordable and doable. So we booked it.
We only stayed for a few days, but my time there was GLORIOUS. Little did I know that my friends grandparents own a beautiful condo directly overlooking the Atlantic. The second you step into their home all you see is ocean. Their home features huge glass windows in both the living room and dining area, permitting the dazzling blue water to be your backdrop for every occasion. They also have two lovely balconies with patio furniture set up, where you could look down at the beach below. I, of course, was thrilled with the whole situation. While my friends back home in Connecticut were suffering through the coldest day of the year, I was riding through Palm Beach in my friend’s grandparent’s Porsche sipping an iced soy chai latte. Life was good.
I was so stoked to be living at the beach for a few days, a beach where it’s warm. (The temperature was in the 70s for the majority of my stay). The water there was unlike anything I have seen before, the most piercing blue, much unlike the murky dark-greenish water of the Long Island Sound. My last full day there, my friend and I made plans to go down to the beach first thing in the morning. I wanted to take some up close pictures of the water and collect some seashells to bring back home. When we got to the private beach entrance, my friend told me that she would wait at the gate, while I did my thing. She didn’t mind waiting and preferred not to get sand in her shoes. I was surprised by this. I was like a little kid. I needed to put my barefeet in the sand. I needed to let the waves lap around my ankles. I need to feel the breeze off the ocean hit my face. I needed to experience everything firsthand. I wanted to jump in! My friend, on the other hand, goes to Florida often to visit her family and didn’t feel the need for an upclose experience at the expense of getting all sandy. She was content to watch from a distance.
This got me thinking about life and adventure. How many of us sit on the sidelines without enjoying the full experience? How many of us settle for the balcony view when God wants to give us an up close and personal tour of all that life has to offer? And why? Just a couple of days ago, we celebrated Valentine’s Day. I believe many singles feel prohibited from fully experiencing and enjoying life because they feel as though they have no one to enjoy all the special moments with. They sit on the sidelines. It can be fun sometimes to think about all the things you will enjoy doing with that special someone one day. It becomes dangerous, however, when you start to believe that you could never fully enjoy doing those things on your own. That sort of thinking brings with it alot of discontentment and frustration. I love what Hannah Brencher writes in a recent blog post entitled, “‘What Single Ladies Never Told Me.'” She writes, “If you want a damn adventure then you must pack the bag and go. Buy your own coffee. Make your own playlists. Plan your own road trips. See the things you want to see just for the simple fact that they matter enough to you. A match on Tinder will not live your dreams for you. Your singleness is not an accident. Your singleness is not God’s blindspot.”
I love that. To my fellow single ladies and single men out there, stop putting your life on hold. There is so much beauty in this life. Even within the most routine of days and mundane of moments, there is adventure waiting for you to grab ahold of it. But you’ll miss out if your too busy waiting for a different set of circumstances or wishing for whatever it is that you don’t have now. I have set a list of goals that I wish to accomplish while I’m still single. I have made it my goal to see more of the world before I get married. Right now, I am only responsible for me. I don’t have to run my decisions by anybody. It’s the perfect time for adventure! Now, don’t get me wrong, if at any point God brings along Mr. Right, I won’t turn him away. But in the meantime, I want to see as much as I can. I want to try things I have never tried before. I want to explore. I want to laugh with friends. I want to read long books. I want to snuggle up with warm mugs of coffee. I want to meet new people. I want to live my life.
The truth is that in anything we do, we never truly do it alone. Jesus is our tour guide. Our constant friend and companion. He goes with us. Ditch the sidelines. Jump right in!
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Ps. 16:11)
