Monday Marker: Feeling Dislocated?

As a single mom, you may feel sometimes like you don’t belong in certain groups of people. You don’t go to church because it hurts too much to see the other families with two parents.

                      

It seems that all the small groups and Bible studies are full of married and single people, but few single moms. You fit somewhere in between because you have kids like married couples, but you’re single like the single person with no kids.

Maybe you do go to church, hang out with a variety of people, but leave feeling lonelier than before you went.

When I was a single mom, I was part of a wonderful church family. It was a small church, so most of the time I was the only single mom. Even though they loved me and my kids and included us in everything, I sometimes struggled with feeling I didn’t belong. Always the third or fifth wheel in a group, as I’d constantly remind myself that I didn’t have a mate or at least a boyfriend.

When I was newly divorced I felt terribly dislocated. I felt like I had a sign on my forehead that read “Divorced, Dislocated, Discarded.” And if you turned the sign over, it would have VICTIM written in bold letters.

That’s how I saw myself, so that’s how I presented myself to the world. I hung those signs up and I was the only one who could take them down. 

I was tired of being alone, raising two kids, carrying the entire load that being head of a household brings. 

I became comfortable in my victim mindset and used bricks of rejection, abandonment and pity to build a thick wall around me. 

This had become my focus.

However, I stayed connected and involved with my church family. God used fellowship, teaching and deep friendships to begin showing me how He viewed me. He had a lot of work to do because I’d lived in this place for so long.

I don’t know where I’d be today if it weren’t for the people God surrounded me with. He used them to encourage me, speak His truths into my life, and help me see that I was not a poor rejected single mom, but a Christian woman who God delighted in.

In my own sick way I couldn’t part with the way I viewed myself. What about justice and what happened to me? If I let go of my victim status where will that leave me? Who will I be?

Then a woman shared with me from Isaiah 62:3-5 one night stating that this is how God views me.

“You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hands, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you deserted or name your land desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah (My delight is in her) and your land Beulah (married), for the Lord will take delight in you and your land will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Those words sparked a change in me. I no longer saw myself forsaken and desolate. The sign on my forehead changed to “I’m His delight” and “royal diadem”. God renamed me therefore I belong to Him.

He has renamed you! You belong to Him.

When you name a pet or your car (yes, some of us name our cars), that means it belongs to you. God gives you a new name, so that means you’re not dislocated at all, but relocated into a place where you belong.

If you’ve been feeling dislocated, I want to encourage you today that you belong! You’re a vital piece of thread in the whole tapestry that God is weaving in His grand plan.

Here are 3 ways to go from dislocation to relocation:

1. Acceptance. Accept your role as a single mom and stop seeing it as a bad thing and that you’re incomplete without someone.
2. Surrender. Surrender your life’s circumstances to Christ and move forward.
3. Stay connected to a healthy church family, developing your faith daily.

There are many other ways, of course, but these are the 3 that I know are tried and proven.

Lastly, don’t isolate yourself and your kids from being part of a church family. God wants to use your gifts and talents there. And He wants to use others in your life and the lives of your kids. And since you belong to God, you belong in His family.

His delight,

Terri