Alicia has found that He gives these to us as a gift to protect us, to prepare us, and to also teach us that the real treasure isn’t out there somewhere, it’s with us already here. When we think about God being infinite and God being omnipresent it means that God is equally present in every moment. There isn’t some future moment where there’s going to be more of God for you. There isn’t some amazing event we need to get to, or a wedding alter that we need to find, in order for the presence of God to somehow be thicker or more. God is as present to us today as He ever will be. All of His fulless, all of His goodness. What hidden seasons do is they unclutter us. These seasons where we feel like someone has pressed the pause button, in some sense it removes from us what we thought our identity was in. Until we get to the point where we relaize our identity is in HIM, our value is in HIM, our contentment is in HIM, whatever the season, whatever the scenery, whoever else is accompanying me. There is treasure to be found in realizing that God with me, is truly enough. 

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Could it be that we need a new theology of contentment? Alicia tends to think that we all have this GPS in our soul and we’ve got this address in there of where we think contentment is going to be. For some people it’s marriage, for others it’s a career, for others it’s healing. Thinking that contentment is some kind of point like those above is why we keep looking into the future saying, “well where is that?, why isn’t that here yet?, or what do I need to do to get there?” Contentment is more about a person than a place. Contentment is more relational than transactional. Maybe we’ve cluttered our definition of contentment so much that we’ve made it impossible to find. Contentment isn’t about acquiring things. Contentment is found relationally. I’m loved, and the one who loves me, holds me. Which means, like Paul, I can be content in every situation. 

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Grieve well with Jesus and we remember that His call to ALL was to simply follow HIM. There was no extra call. He is the leader and we’re not. This is all about relationship. There’s one call to follow Him. Period. Where that follow takes us, only he sees. The treasure is WITH HIM. Grief is HEALTHY. It’s honest and that’s what leads us to intimacy with God. Be honest with Jesus and then follow Him. We think answers open the door to trust, it’s honesty. 

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The FRUIT that comes from a waiting season…more specifically, do you feel like we cut off the ability to process and grieve the deep, hard, negative feelings. Is that where our intimacy with Jeus kind of just plautus? Or what is the effect of drawing that line of I’m happy to spend that time with Jesus but this is off limits. 

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Since God is the ultimate reality, anytime we make an alliance with denial we are moving in the opposite direction of intimacy. So the more we’re able to be honest about what’s real the greater our capacity to walk with the God who knows all about reality. God wants the real you. We don’t have to spin it or fluff it. So we bring the sadness with us. It becomes something we integrate with faith. A faith that has been seasoned by sorrow is a very different type of faith than one that’s only been peppered by joy. 

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Alicia would highly recommend her book, “The Night is Normal.” There is a difference between grieving as a solo and grieving as a duet. When we’re just greiving all by ourself, that has very different fruit then when we, like Mary and Martha, grieve with Jesus. We have to invite Jeuss into the greif. When we feel discouragement and disillusionment starting to edge toward despair, for Alicia personally, it’s usually because she’s exited the duet and she’s just living it as a solo. When we grieve as a solo, often what were greiving, becomes an identity issue for us. It shifts  from this is full of sorrow for me, to I am sorrow. Greiving with Jesus helps keep the grief uninfected. It keeps us having to look at Him. It keeps us wrestling with the tension of how can He be so good and how can He be so powerful, and how can I hurt so much? When we wrestle with it looking in His eyes, it stays uninfected. It gets infected when we turn away. 

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Dueting with God is a habit that takes practice. Jesus is with us. We live life in the plural not in the singular. You AND Jesus are doing everything. This also emphasizes that we are not alone. 

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When we talk about interior contentment. We can’t mistake it for exterior calm. We can know internal contentment regardless of what’s happening externally. 

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As a single, not that life isn’t complicated, but relationally it’s easier to focus. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to build up those mental muscles of being intentive to the presese of God regardless of the length of this season even if it’s a lifetime. That muscle will serve us well in every single season and arena we step into. Singleness does create that fertile ground for cultivating that discipline in a way that other seasons may be a little distracting. 

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You’ll never regret the muscles you’re building now of being in the duet with Jesus, grieving with him, spending time with him. It’s hard to develop a new discipline in the midst of a crisis or conflict. Everything we can grow in this hidden season will serve us well in every other season to come. 

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You can connect with Alicia on Instagram, her website, and can get her books on Amazon. Check out her newest book, The Night is Normal. 

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