Where Do You Fit?

Here is a picture of one of my favorite little friends, Preslee... who is about to have her 3rd birthday! Lately when I see her, we will be in the middle of playing something and she will stop with a concerned look on her face: "Do you have a mom?" she'll ask. "Of course I have a mom!" "What's her name?" "Where does she live?" "Why don't you live with her?" After I satisfy her barrage of questions she will repeat the list with my dad. I love watching her try to make sense of the world around her... She is trying to put things and people in a place in her mind where they make sense. After all, she sees me often enough... Where do I belong? Am I a part of her family?

The situation itself is amusing, but I think that even as an (almost) three year old, she is tapping into some questions I have been asking myself lately: where do I belong? what does my family look like? Of course I have a family. Of course I have a mom and dad (whom I love VERY much!). But with my 26th birthday rapidly approaching, I have been trying to sort out this perplexing season of life myself! Where do you fit when you are too old to be a kid in your own family and have yet to start a family of your own? How should my need for family be met in my day to day life? Did I miss it somewhere? Of course deep down I know that I am right where I belong, but I find myself almost daily asking these questions.

I have more questions than answers these days, but the further I go on this journey I find more and more single women asking these questions. When the Bible Belt world around you finds their spouse in college, what do you do when you are one of the ones "left behind"? While I have no answers I am starting to see a beautiful picture God is creating from the questioning singles. I see Him weaving us together into a community of faith who is strengthen in numbers and no longer lonley and isolated. I see Him taking the orphans and widows (prophetically speaking) and putting them together in families. In fact, the Young Adults ministry is one of the largest groups at church. Weekly, we have about 60 young singles meeting together in lifegroups to meet the family needs of our hearts. Isn't that just like God to take an unstable time in life and use it to shape us all before we start families of our own? Thank you, God, for caring so much about my future family that you have given me this time to learn what family truly means!