Camerin Courtney - Table for One: The Savvy Girls Guide to Singleness

2002 by Camerin Courtney

Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3696-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

The personal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the people involved. In some cases, names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

Contents

Introduction

L ife usually doesnt turn out the way we think it will. Take this book, for example. I was originally supposed to write it with a coworker of mine, Ginger. Actually, it was her idea. Working in Christian publishing, wed seen our fair share of Christian singles books over the yearsand to be honest, wed been less than satisfied with the selection. The bulk seemed to be solely about finding the love of your life (as if thats the sum total of the single life) or were written by middle-aged, married male psychologists. Nothing against this genre as a whole, but what do they know about being a young(ish!) single woman in todays world? Ginger and I would occasionally joke that we should write the kind of gutsy, girly book wed want to read if it appeared in our in-boxes.

Then one day, Ginger proposed that we do just that. It didnt take much for our brainstorming juices to flow, and several meetings at several different coffee shops later, we eventually had an outline. Then a full-blown proposal. And we finally got a Christian publishing company interested when, wouldnt you know it, Gingers on-again, off-again boyfriend of six years finally saw the light and asked her to be his bride. Yea for her. Nay from the publisher. Having one of the authors be married kind of went against one of the main reasons we wanted to add another book to the slim singles section at the local Christian bookstore.

One of Gingers last acts as a single woman was telling me to carry on without her. Not marrying until age thirty-two, she still believes strongly in spreading the message of happy, full-bodied singlehood. So I retooled the book as a solo act. A different publisher bit. And now youre holding the end result.

In the end, Ginger became a wife, and I became an author. Whats cool is that both of us couldnt be happier. Its not like she won first place and I got the booby prize, though there was a time in my life when I would have seen it that way.

That was also a time when, if I found myself alone in a Blockbuster on a Friday or Saturday night, Id feel compelled to look like I was picking out a flick for me and my hot date who I was meeting later in the evening. Im not sure I ever achieved that pre-date look by being fully primped and checking my watch frequently (I was supposed to be meeting him later, get it?), but somehow between then and now Ive become very comfortable having Me Nights. Now I bound into Blockbuster in sweats and a ball cap and select a flaming chick flick or subtitled artsy film with nary a care in the world that others may suspect Ill watch my selection while snarfing a Lean Cuisine dinner, sprawled on my living room flooralone. (And love every minute of it!)

Why the change from self-conscious single girl to I-am-single-hear-me-roar woman? Over the past several years Ive learned some valuable lessons about going solo in this paired-off world, not the least of which is that a happy, successful, God-pleasing life comes in many different packages. And contrary to what our churches, married friends, society, and nosy Aunt Marge may tell us, that includes singleness.

Ginger marrying the love of her life is a major WooHoo moment. But then so is fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming an author. Thats the whole point Ginger and I wanted to make in the first placethat theres a whole lot more to life than ones marital status. This is a lesson Ive learned the hard way.

The One Who Got Away

Six years ago, I suffered the worst heartbreak of my life. Id been dating Andrew off and on for three years, and I knew we needed to move forward in our relationship or move on. Despite the fact Id met him at church on Valentines Day, that he made me laugh and feel beautiful, that he loved God and his family, I still felt uncertain about moving toward marriage with this terrific guy.

I asked married friends what they felt before they got hitched. They all responded with some rendition of I just knew he was the one, a feeling conspicuously absent in all my thinking and overanalyzing. I even met with a Christian counselor, who confirmed I wasnt a commitmentphobe. I prayedno, pleadedwith God for direction. And when I was met with silence and a lack of peace for months on end, I slowly, excruciatingly, let the relationship go.

Without a tangible reason for the breakup, its been easy for me to question the wisdom of my decision over the past six years. There were no irreconcilable differences or I want kids and he doesnt-type issues to blame, only a vague sense that God said no. Ive alternated between seasons of peace (which, thankfully, have grown much longer over the years) and seasons of waning trust in Gods grand plan. I havent been obsessing, just wondering what to do with that nagging question mark in the back of my mind: Was that really your leading, God?

Well, God had his way of helping me deal with that question. I was on a shopping excursion a couple of summers ago when I saw Andrew across a trendy furniture store. There was a woman with him. Even though I hadnt seen Andrew in more than two years, I failed to muster the courage to walk over and say hello.

Later, kicking myself for being such a chicken, I chatted with God about this chance encounter. Were you wanting us to getback together, God? Was it just bad timing before? The what-ifs crept in big time, and I prayed once again for peace and direction. I could count on one hand the number of guys Id dated in the six years since the breakup. When I let Andrew go, Id assumed there would be someone even better waiting around the next corner. When that didnt prove true, I began to doubt my decisionand Gods apparent leading.

I remember telling God it would almost be a relief to know the woman in the furniture store with Andrew was his wife. That would put the maddening questions to rest once and for all. Well, about six months later I had another chance encounter, this time with a woman from my Bible study. We were chatting about work when she casually mentioned she knew Andrew. Shed even dated him briefly. She still saw him on occasion at work and knew hed just gotten married a few weeks before.

I stood there in stunned silence, an odd mixture of grief and peace washing over me, feeling the clarity of a closed door and the loneliness of an empty horizon all at once. Yet I was amazed at the way God had orchestrated this answer to my prayer. While it wasnt a confirmation that the past decision to let Andrew go was absolutely Gods will, it gave me peace with which to look to the future. And, Ive learned, sometimes thats all we can hope for.