If you feel lost and alone at times as a single mom, empty nester, widow… or sad because you never married, are divorced, and/or have been bedazzled, then abandoned by unavailable men… God has good news! You’re seen, known, and passionately loved. Found. Your Maker calls you to a honeymoon in the desert where He promises roses for ashes and you’ll sing like a new bride.
Cindy McCain
Day 1
Scriptures: Isaiah 61:1-3, Psalms 118:8-9, Psalms 84:11
In Isaiah 61:1-3 God’s servant is given the mission to bring good news that heals the brokenhearted, frees captives, and proclaims the favorable year of the Lord. We need good news — especially when we feel alone and lost after losing (or never finding) “The One.” We need light in dark seasons to recognize and resist Fear when it whispers, You’ll always be alone. You’re unloveable. There’s something wrong with you.
On days when the present looks grim and I can’t visualize tomorrow, I’ve gotten myself into trouble ruminating over the past… It’s January 2020 and I’m sitting with a man I love watching diamonds of sunlight reflect on the Gulf of Mexico. Our future looks so bright we are both wearing shades… I’m dressed in sequins for our Valentine’s Day date, the first I’ve had in over 20 years. But instead of dinner and dancing in the movie-set-worthy restaurant, he walks away.
Pain and confusion blur the truth. One hurt piles upon another. I recall other Once- Upon- a- Times when I was all-in but someone left or never really showed up. Then I believe lies about myself and God. I default to flawed thinking that started somewhere in my childhood…Where’s the knight or prince the fairy tales said would rescue me, protect me? Or simply a partner to navigate life with so I don’t have to go it alone? Why do some women get the Happily Ever After and others don’t?
I spin until I’m spent… what I always do when I take my eyes off God to focus on man or circumstances. Then I remember His good news for captives and the brokenhearted: I EXCHANGE ROSES FOR ASHES. YOU ALL GET THE LOVE STORY. I AM COMPASSIONATE, GRACIOUS, FAITHFUL. I NEVER LEAVE.
Better than a prince, we get the King. One day there will be the Marriage Feast of the Lamb between Christ, the Bridegroom, and his Beloved (Revelation 19:6-9). But that relationship—personal and intimate—begins now. Psalm 45:11 instructs, “Be here—the King is wild for you. Since He’s your lord, adore him” (The Message). He says we are lovable and loved. He says it’s a lie we are too much or not enough. And He takes delight in us, rejoicing over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).
God chooses to call His people—once Israel, now all believers—Bride. Isaiah says, “Your Maker is your Husband.” Hosea says He sweeps his beloved away on a honeymoon in the desert where He courts her with roses and she sings like a new bride.
Day 2
Scriptures: Isaiah 54:4-6, Psalms 34:18, Isaiah 62:4-5, Isaiah 54:10-14
My high school DJ ended every dance by playing Chicago’s “Color My World.” I prayed someone would choose me to turn in slow circles under the mirror ball. Maybe he’d be my future husband. Years later I walked down the aisle in a Chantilly lace bridal gown to a man I’d known since middle school and loved since I was seventeen. Through tears he whispered, “You’re so beautiful,” but I cried when our children were one and four and he walked away.
Raising my daughter and son, my greatest loves, was the biggest blessing of my life. Bonus was teaching at the Christian school they attended K-12. Still, sometimes as a single mom, I felt lonely and sad. Being a Christian didn’t give me immunity to the stages of grief over the loss of a marriage or absence of a partner. Sometimes I felt angry at God, myself, and others…which led to guilt…then more depression. I knew God was supposed to be enough, but didn’t always feel He was. A spiritual being in a human vessel, I longed for someone other than Frank Sinatra to cook with me; someone to play Santa and Tooth Fairy with me; someone to show my children what a healthy marriage looks like; someone to tell my daughter daily she’s smart and beautiful and to laugh with my son while they built his dream treehouse. And I wanted someone who fiercely loved God, my children, me, to hold me.
More years later, while teaching English one summer in Italy, a friend said I was the kind of woman born for a grande amore. We all are. Whoever said a cynic is a disillusioned idealist–especially when it comes to love– is probably right. Regardless of our love language, enneagram number, or attachment style, we’re made in God’s image, and He is love. Whether married, divorced, or single, deep down we all want to be seen, heard, known, cherished. We long to belong.
God calls us to a love story of adventure; restful, quiet moments; and beauty breaks for the soul. Our Maker plants desires in our heart so He can fulfill them. God whispered to me that summer in Italy that when my children left the nest, I’d fly away, too. I did. I landed in Morocco. Sight unseen. There my Creator fulfilled my wildest, unspoken dreams. He made me feel like a girl again. He designed a mosaic from shards of my life. He gave me roses in the desert; clothed me in confidence, strength, and dignity; colored my world.
He knows your deepest hurts and longings. He speaks your love language when you get still and listen. He customizes journeys to bring you home to Himself and the woman you were created to be.
Day 3
Scriptures: Psalms 86:15, Psalms 18:16-19, Psalms 37:3-4, Jeremiah 29:11, Matthew 11:28-30
One of the lowest moments of my life happened somewhere on Nashville’s I-40. It was the night my husband moved out, and I was racing to catch up with him with my four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son strapped in car seats in the back. I now know there were no magic words to turn him around, that I was desperate because I felt abandoned, that my high speed pursuit was actually me abandoning me. When I saw myself as if viewing the scene from a drone above…my chasing a man–literally–who didn’t want me… I pulled off, turned around, and drove home.
Mom watched the kids for the next three days because I couldn’t get out of bed. There God taught me Isaiah 30:15, a verse I still return to when I’m overwhelmed and crashing: “In repentance and rest you’ll be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength.” I realized that because my world had become my husband, his rejection felt like losing everything. I couldn’t change him, but I could let go, surrender, and let the Great Healer, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace take control of me. And when I worried about my children growing up in a “broken home,” I remembered a verse that had given me hope through a childhood illness, my parents’ divorce, and two miscarriages: “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
God provided supportive family and friends, a counselor who reminded me of my identity/worth in Christ, a group of divorced women who understood, and wise mentors who taught me a foreign concept: self-care. They convinced me to use weekends the children were with their dad to recharge. Over the years, baby steps—lunch out on a patio, walking through the woods—eventually turned into strides—a yearly overnight stay at a B and B, learning Latin dance, leading students and volunteering on trips abroad. Getaways with God—outings or time on my porch swing with my prayer journal and His Word– infused me with superpowers I needed as a mom, teacher, and creative–wonder, confidence and calm. I made many mistakes— still do—but I managed to model for my children dependence on Christ daily to fill us rather than trying to love and serve others from a place of depletion.
My daughter, son and I became The Three Musketeers and life a blur. We went to school together and came home together—band, drama, chorus, football, cheerleading, soccer, wrestling and class parties in between. Summer vacations were Jaws I,II,III, and IV; SpongeBob, Guitar Hero; tea parties; Spice Girls sleepovers; picnics by the lake; and campouts in the backyard. We rode the Hulk roller coaster too many times at Universal Studios, the waves on floats in Florida, and a convertible up the California coast.
On the first day of school two years after both children had flown the nest, I sat on a rock beside a lake near my house crying. The halls at school and home were too quiet. I was lost and lonely. Then I remembered a passage two missionary friends–one living in Ecuador and another in Africa–had sent me over the last couple of years because they knew I was struggling. It was Matthew 11:28-30. A call. An invitation.
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Getaway with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
I soooooo want this life. Don’t you?
Day 4
Scriptures: Ephesians 3:20, Romans 9:25, Isaiah 54:1-6, Psalms 30:11-12, Psalms 68:5-6
Freely and lightly. I wanted that life and to be more like the woman described in Proverbs 31:25:
“Strength and dignity are her garments; she smiles about the future.” I wanted to let go of fear, walk in faith, radiate like a woman much loved.
I remembered what I’d known all those years ago in Italy. You’ll live abroad one day. And I remembered my grandmother inspiring that dream. Perched on the arm of her rocking chair, I’d fly to Paris with her for pastries in sidewalk cafes–tv trays topped with Little Debbie Snack Cakes set up along her sofa. Even better, she’d tell me stories from The Arabian Nights. Years later when I was devastated by divorce, she said: “God will use your sorrows and your strengths. He has something different, something great for you to do.”
One year after that day by the lake, on the first day of a new school year, I climbed the steps to a new classroom. It looked like the one-room schoolhouse where my grandmother had taught in Kentucky when she was a girl. It was 4400 miles away in the desert kingdom of Morocco, and it was surrounded by roses. God led me to a new life of passion and purpose. Despite being raised with a supersized imagination and fairy tales in my genes, I experienced a reality even better than my dreams. Months before, He’d made me another promise. Like always, He kept it.
I’m going to start all over again. I’m taking her back out into the desert. I’ll give her bouquets of roses. I’ll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope. She’ll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.–Hosea 2:14-15
I loved my students, my local and ex-pat coworkers, my new friends. For two years I felt courted, chosen, and cherished playing in secret gardens, sledding and trekking by foot and mule across the Atlas Mountains, caravanning across the Sahara Desert, boating through Indiana Jones waterfalls, and watching sunsets from fortresses above the sea. I belly danced with coworkers, volunteered with village girls, and rested in a pasha’s palace, on rooftops, and in jasmine-scented courtyards beside rose-filled fountains under full moons.
Ok, all was not pools and palm trees–threats from ISIS, a mugging, a wreck–but getting lost with God in Morocco meant finding the thrilled girl and braver woman inside of me. Trusting God–taking Him at his Word– can be hard, counter-intuitive, risky. Following Him with faith in full throttle can mean losing more than expected. And gaining more than imagined. How incredible our Creator chooses, of all names, to call us Bride.
Day 5
Scriptures: Amos 9:13-15, Isaiah 61:7, Joel 2:25, Isaiah 43:18-19, Romans 8:31-38
I love wandering the first century medina of Marrakesh dodging donkey carts, motor scooters, and shopkeepers’ full court press. My blood quickens in Jemaa el Fna square, excited by monkeys, henna artists, dancing Sufis and cobras pulsing to the cacophony of Middle Eastern bagpipes, drums, tambourines, and lutes. Of the 27 countries I’ve explored, no other has touched my soul like Morocco has. Yet when I was five and my best friend announced she was going to be a missionary nurse in Africa, I supported her dream but secretly prayed, “Please, God, don’t send me there!” Just as she moved home to the States after raising her children in Niger, I was headed on my adventure– to northern Africa. God knew what I needed even when I didn’t. What thrills my heart probably doesn’t thrill yours. But our Creator and Father and Husband knows us like no other can. We can trust our dreams, gifts, needs, desires, and fears to Him.
A final word to those who feel left behind by the ones you loved most… Christ sees your pain. David found comfort in knowing God cared when his heart ached: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” He knows and can redeem all…in His timing and in His way. As we spend more time with Him, we know and trust His unfailing character. As The One who pursues us reveals what real love looks like– available, strong, tender, and passionate (read Song of Songs!)–we fall deeper for Him. He is our shelter, our comfort and companion in the wilderness. His banner over us is love. Our love story–THE grande amore— has a happy ending because it has no end. It goes on forever, but He invites us to taste it now.
