Our Purposeful Singleness

We are delighted to share our story with you because it reflects so clearly on our Author and His romantic, winsome, wooing nature. Compassion Divine!

ESTHER: “What does my future hold? Where will I be, and who will I be with when I’m 21 and beyond? Is marriage a part of God’s plan for my story?” These questions were ones I often took to the Lord in my late teen years, a time of heart-awakening, and formulation of dreams.

At that time, my dear father took the initiative to protect and guard my heart by planning a special dinner one evening for the two of us when I was 18. Among other things, he committed to doing what he could to protect my purity and help me guard my heart for the man God would call me to, if God chose to do so. He gave me a special token that evening that I took with me in my travels, and kept to look at, long for and remember our agreement as father and daughter.

These years were special to me in many ways because I was able to focus my heart’s energies on serving God without being emotionally entangled. But don’t get me wrong, I had my struggles and was fraught with emotional battles and whimsical whims!

WILLIAM: About the same age, I was introduced to the idea of keeping myself emotionally pure and trusting God to lead me to the  girl He would choose. In my heart, there was no question as to whether I could go and pursue the young lady, I had it in me to knock on her father’s door for permission, but I wanted to set the stakes higher and know without question that God was making it happen and not me. I was keenly aware of my deep heart-felt love and desire for the “neighbor girl”! Who happened to be our new pastor’s daughter. I could have taken steps toward her door, but I was convicted that it would have been directed by me, not by God. Boy, was that tough! But on the other side, it gave me that opportunity to practice faith in God, to rely on Him for my future. It allowed me to tuck my feelings away and proceed with a “purpose in my singleness.” On that basis, I set out a “fleece” as it were, saying to God, “If the father comes to me first, I’ll know its of You.”

How did my family respond to this? They were glad that I wanted to trust God in such a personal way, but seriously wondered if something like that was even possible in today’s world. Many times, it seemed like I had made too extreme of a commitment, and was encouraged by some to “go for it”, in regards to pursuit of a certain young lady who lived across the street from me. Everything in me wanted to, but I felt I must keep my side of the agreement with God if He wanted to lead me into the blessing of a relationship beyond friendship that would lead to marriage. Was it hard? It truly was! It was especially hard at certain holiday times, Christmas and Valentine days in particular! The excitement and encouragement from my family was elevated during those times due to the time of year! It was also hard since we attended the same church and were involved in ministry together. As you can imagine, we would often be together either planning for the ministry or actually carrying out the mission. We would have the opportunity to interact with each other, which made my heart glad. Being with her in any way was something to look forward to.

ESTHER: There was a young man in our congregation who had literally caught my eye on a bus trip which our church was taking before my father had ever accepted the pastorate! He captured more than my eye that day, but I never let on that this was the case… to anyone! But there was a problem: he lived right across the street from me!

WILLIAM: Many were the times we got to make memories together, on the ice-rink, on the ski slopes, in my Jeep Wrangler with her brother and my sister, on our bikes, sled-riding, and many other ventures in the great outdoors. We also enjoyed the times we were able to connect in ministry to others through nursing home visits each Sunday. Because of our mutual involvement, it wasn’t often that we singled one another out; however, there was always the awareness that the other one was in the room or not! Being this close to her that frequently kept hope alive for me and continued to build a greater respect for who she was and why I loved her so.

ESTHER: As my father began the pastorate, this young man, his sister, my second brother and I entered into incredible friendship with each other. We would ride our bikes, go on hikes, take a jeep muddin’, sled-ride off of roofs in the winter, down-hill ski, ice-skate, and just make memories together. I had one reoccurring thought through the years, “I wonder if William could be the one?”

Knowing that William had made this “fleece” before the Lord caused me to feel the impossibility of God ever bringing us together in anything more than friendship. So many times I found myself wishing that he would just “relax” a little bit and knock on my father’s door; there was NO WAY my father was ever going to talk to him about me!

WILLIAM: At times when I would think about Esther, my heart wanted to so bad engage with her family to develop a deeper friendship with them, in hopes of my fleece being answered. How else would this happen? At times, my hope of an answer would look possible, but at other times, it would almost disappear.

ESTHER: Little gifts were exchanged through the years as we grew to admire one another. It was a discreet way to display our mutual affections at Christmas or birthdays without really declaring how deeply we cared for one another. At times I would find my longing for something to be able to happen between us increasing, but it all seemed so impossible.

One such gift was for my sixteenth birthday. William was taking carpentry at the vo-tech school and decided that one of his projects was going to be that of carving my name into a paper weight/decor piece! I was awed, and thought, though only briefly, “Wow; he spent that much time on my name? Why my name and not someone else’s?” It was a glorious thought, and I displayed his beautiful artwork in my room for many months, maybe even years. But feeling one day that the door of hope was perhaps closed forever, I put it away in my “hopeless” chest.

WILLIAM: You can only imagine how I feel now, knowing (only hoping then) that she DID have feelings for me too. Enough love for me to keep that carving, and even after her hope had faded, still she kept it in her hope chest! If hope was really lost, would that have been kept, or thrown away? It still excites me to know that she kept it all these years!

On my 16th birthday, Esther along with her brothers, gave me a fun-looking toy jeep wrangler. I loved jeeps, so it was a perfect gift for me. But unknown to most, I kept that toy! Since my job was working with computers everyday, I positioned that jeep “within view at all times” on my desk! That quiet gesture spoke of how my love even then for Esther was always there. It has been 15 years since my 16th birthday, and if you were to stop by my work, you would still find it sitting there, resting on top of my monitor. It was a way to secretly and quietly remember her each day, in hope that something might someday develop deeper between us.

ESTHER: Many other gifts through the years showed the depth of our friendship, but seemingly, as the years went slowly by, it became more apparent to the physical eye that friendship would be as far as we’d be allowed to go by the Lord.

Was this lamentable? Were we both wasting away to emotional poverty, stuck in a rut called “singleness?”

Because of the Divine Compassion that flows from the heart of the God we adore, we’re glad to be able to say a joyful, emphatic, No!”

WILLIAM: Amen to that! I believe my singleness meant I was being “Singled out for her!” Through my single years, God used that time in me to bring a deeper respect for Him and others. He used that time to teach me humility. Even though I am still the clay in the potter’s hand, I can see more clearly now why he was teaching me these lessons. In amazing ways, God used dear, close friends and a long, tough job experience to teach me about Him, about who He wants me to be, to define the reason I exist! Which is to honor and glorify Him in all I do!!!

In light of my sweet relationship with Esther now, I can look back and can see why God planted the seed of the Yellow Bus Adventure in our hearts. The Yellow Bus Adventure is a yearly ministry undertaking for our church, which has been designed to invest in the lives of the dear children God has brought into our church outreach. The event has completed its 8th year. God knew that Esther and I would need a framework for the future, and He chose YBA to do it. We ended up working side by side all these years. Over the years, the YBA team helpers and assistants have changed, but God allowed Esther and I to continue working the closest together in the teaching side of the event. Many times my parents wanted me to take this opportunity to ask Esther out on a date, well, not really! They suggested that I call it a “Time of Planning.” But I never felt ok with that, knowing how that might appear to her or her family. Please know that I desperately wanted to do that!

Since we have been together, God is continuing to “work things out for our good”. We are seeing God take care of seemingly big concerns and causing them to be minute details or issues. Praise be to God! He is a personal God, who wants to work in your life.

ESTHER: I was invited by William to help him team-teach at YBA. Guess what that meant? Planning sessions…at my house…just us! Wow! These times became something I looked forward to very much, but always with a tinge of wistful longing. He was oh so careful to not give “hints” to true feelings. Though I wished he would at times, I found my respect for him growing because I knew he would never violate what he had agreed to with God, and through that, he protected me.

Each year we planned and taught together, the dynamic of our relationship deepened somehow. I found myself admiring him as I watched him pouring forth his singleness in ministry to others. He wasn’t stuck on the fact that years were passing and it seemed that God wasn’t answering his fleece with anything positive. Ministry together seemed effortless and fulfilling. God was teaching me that waiting is truly a “friend” in disguise.

WILLIAM: You know, every time I was with Esther, either ministering or making plans for YBA, it was hard not to smile. Even if I didn’t always show a smile outwardly, I was smiling on the inside the entire time. I knew I felt something different around Esther that I hadn’t experienced with others. Somehow, I could never be myself around her. For I knew how I felt toward her in my heart and I could not let that show outwardly out of respect for her and God.

ESTHER: One night about 6 or 7 years ago, I dreamed an impacting dream. In my dream, a young man approached me with this question: “How can single people be powerful for God?” When I awoke, I remember telling my mother about the dream, and told her that it had fostered a desire to put on paper what my response would be to such a question. I proceeded to do so, and for years, this has been on display by way of reminder in my room. This has been truly a large part of my joy-filled, purposeful singleness, not for my name, but God’s fame!

How Can Single People Be Mighty for God?

• Purpose to intimately and accurately know and be satisfied with God’s love first—all other love is a bonus (Eph.1:4; Phil. 1:21; 3:10)
• Seek God’s manifest presence (His face) as your greatest and most vital necessity. (Ps.27:4,8)
• Live with the desire to display His love to others with personal acquaintance and deeper discernment than before. (Phil.1:9)
• Memorize and “chew” or meditate upon His words—looking for ways to apply them to your daily living.
• Live in such a way that no one will doubt who you are waiting upon. (Ps.62:1,5; Isa. 40:31; Isa. 30:18)
• Look for every opportunity to train yourself toward godliness. (I Tim. 4:7,8)
• Sanctify the Lord God in the eyes of all who see and know you by displaying a reverential and loyal spirit to Him. (I Pet.2:11)
• Develop an effective prayer life that is Biblically-based. (Phil. 4:6)

WILLIAM: God directed my singleness through the youth ministry at our church. My parents had a big part to play in molding me into someone worthy of this next step of life. Daily softening and rounding off the rough edges of my life in ways that only parents can do. Esther’s brothers, among others, spoke vision into my life and heart in my earlier teenage years. I’m ever grateful for their deep friendship, that even exists today.