If you’ve read any of this blog, you’ll know that I’m an introvert. Gasp! No! Yes. Not only that, I’m an introvert with a servant’s heart, an overly sensitive personality, and an anxiety problem. I’ve been taken advantage of, ridiculed, walked over, told I’m wrong and not good enough. I’m 27, chronically single, and I live with my parents. I’ve got most of the makings of a sad, bitter individual. But I’m not.

How is this possible? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Now, I haven’t been truly relaxed about these for very long. It’s really only a recent development. Yes, people still don’t understand my introversion and yes, my servant’s heart may seem like an invitation to make me a doormat but no, those are not weaknesses. God gave me those things and therefore they are gifts. Something to be used, cherished. It’s taken me a long time to realize it.

The sensitivity and the anxiety, these are what I’ve had to overcome. These are handicaps. For so long, I would take something that happened and replay it over and over and feel rotten about it forever and let it ruin my day or even longer. As if dwelling on it was somehow going to change it or make me feel better about it. And these things never truly became scars. It was always a thin scab waiting to be pulled off.

My singleness and childlessness was another thing to beat myself up about. Obviously I’m not good enough. I can’t even get a date. I’ll never have kids. I’m already 27 and I’m nowhere close to getting married. Round and round, driving myself crazy, getting more and more depressed at each birthday.

How am I ever going to find someone who wants to live in the country, in my town, and live the life I want to live? Where will I find the guy who matches me and wants the things I want? I have a very specific list.

The answer to how I finally chilled out about this stuff? I decided to trust God. Not just in the “Yeah, I’m gonna trust God because my pastor says that’s in the Bible” kind of way. I mean for real. As in, “I want You, God. I want all of You. I want Your vision for my life because it’s gonna be so much better than anything I could plan.” It has taken time to get there. I’ve been listening and learning and everywhere I turn I hear and see what God’s already doing in my life.

Yes, I live with my parents, yes, I’m single but this season isn’t something to be lamented. It should be cherished. I don’t want to sit around dwelling on what’s “wrong” anymore. I want to experience what He’s giving me in the here and now. When I’m on my deathbed I want to be able to say I followed God’s path and did all I could for Him. I want to live full out and be all in. I believe that God has plans for me and He wants me to use this time to learn all I can so I’ll be prepared when He’s ready to show me the way.

I have to let go of all those requirements for my life. All those things I thought I needed to be happy. I don’t have to have kids if that’s not what God wants. I don’t have to stay in this town if that’s not His plan. I’m now willing to let it go and the only thing that will make me happy is doing what He wants.

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

What could be better than that?