On Being 33, Mormon and Single

I originally wrote this piece in March 2013 for an institute class assignment on Why I Believe. It was partly inspired as a response to a poignant NYTimes Modern Love Column entitled Single, Female, Mormon, Alone. Processing, writing and sharing these thoughts has been transformative for me.

My brother who is nine years younger than me got married over Christmas. It was the first time all four of the Nuckols kids had been home together for Christmas in over five years. It was a time of rejoicing and fun, but there were still a couple hard moments for me. One was during my 20-year-old sister-in-law’s bridal shower where I felt like all the older women looked upon me with sadness and pity and all the younger girls looked up at me with dread thinking, “Oh man, I hope that’s never me!”

This moment triggered a little hissy fit with God. “I don’t understand! I don’t get it!” I screamed in my head. I was taught that if I didn’t date before I was 16, if I kept the law of chastity and if I was an obedient missionary, then You would bless me with a husband and a family! How is it that so many of the "rebellious" girls I've known have been blessed with what I worked so hard to deserve? How is it that some of the men I have known who have left trails of pain and betrayal behind them have had all their romantic dreams come true? Where is the karma in that?

Please don’t let people tell me that if I don’t marry and have kids in this life, then I can receive that blessing in the next. To me that sounds like my best chance for fulfilling my dreams is to go and get hit by a bus. The alternative is 50 more years of living alone, without sex, without romantic love, without children, and with pity from all. While I do believe that this life is just one moment in my existence and that in the end, You will make everything right, just waiting for blessings for the next life is a horrible way to have to live this life.

Also, why have You given me a commandment that is essential to my exaltation that seems so out of my power to keep? This key to my “fullness of joy” is completely dependent on someone else’s agency, as well as on my own random feelings of attraction and chemistry that seem so impossible to predict or control.  

So, there you have it: the gist of my hissy fit. I have had fits like this before, and I’m sure that I will have more like it again, but I have learned how to get myself out of that dark, bitter place and how to have peace.

The first thing that I remember is that God doesn’t owe me anything. When I start to spiral down with thoughts of why not me? Why her? I realize how prideful and entitled I sound. Because I am not getting what I think I deserve, I start to resent God. But the reality is that I am less than the dust of the earth. I am a fallen, mortal woman. As King Benjamin so artfully explained, I am already in debt to Him for my life and for the air that I breathe and for the great gift of the Atonement. Every time He blesses me, I become more in debt to Him. Instead of resentment, I owe Him gratitude.

On the other hand, God does tell us that He is bound when we do what He says, that all blessings are predicated upon obedience and that He will keep His promises to us. I think that this is another one of God’s great paradoxes: He does keep His promises to me, yet at the same time, He doesn’t owe me. Most importantly, the way that He fulfills His promises may not be in ways that I expect or understand. I can not dictate to Him how or when He will bless me.

I have also been able to progress from my youthful sense of doing what is right in order to get what I want, to a sense of doing what is right because it is the right thing to do. I want to be obedient because I love feeling spiritually connected to God, not because I am hoping for some specific reward.   

Another thing that gives me greater perspective is remembering that the purpose of life is to be refined. When Sister Oaks spoke at a broadcast a couple years ago, I thought about what my life would be like if, like her, I didn't marry until my 50's and remained faithful and devoted in the Church until then. It struck me what a refining and purifying experience it would be to work to keep feelings of resentment, bitterness, and hopeless at bay for the next 20 years. It would be a very long and intense exercise in fostering gratitude, humility and hope.

In the church, we are frequently told that our greatest purpose on earth, the best and most useful thing we could ever do is to have a family. However I think that our true purpose on earth is to have our natures changed so that we become more like Christ. The family is a great training ground for putting off the natural man: sacrificing for and loving children and a spouse can change and refine your character if you let it. Ultimately celestial marriage is a necessary component to exaltation, but there are other ways for us to learn and to grow and to become who God wants us to become outside of marriage. I am confident that God will give us the opportunities for refinement that we need in this life in order to reach our individual potential.

The third thing that helps me to stay focused is remembering that life is not perfect. The scriptures are full of stories of righteous people who suffered and never had their dream life. Yet a lot of modern-day Mormon stories that we hear in conference or read in the Ensign all have happy endings. There is a subtext to these stories that if you are a good Mormon, then you too can have a happy, wealthy, well-coiffed, well-dressed family. But the older I get, the more I see good, righteous people not living the idyllic life they dreamed of.

When I step back and see the way in which every life has its trials and its disappointments and its heartaches and its un-hoped for and unwanted circumstances, I feel less alone. I feel part of the great, mortal human family. You can’t have kids. You have an addiction. Your husband betrayed you. Your child has a disability. This all kind of sucks, but we agreed to come to this fallen challenging world. What can we to do grow from our circumstances and experience joy in this life?

I also draw strength from moments of comfort and reassurance from God. One day, when I was a 6th grade teacher, I had a student who kept raising her hand and asking to go to the bathroom in the middle of the lesson. I didn’t want her to miss some key moments of instruction, and I knew that I would be done soon, so I told her no. She kept on pestering me until I looked directly at her and said, “Shauna. At the appropriate time, I will let you go the bathroom.” As I firmly said those words, a line from my patriarchal blessing jumped into my mind: “At the appropriate time in your life, you will fulfill the secret desires of your heart.” In that moment, I understood those words in a whole new way. There may be something that I want really really badly right now - the same way my student really really wanted to go to the bathroom - but God is my teacher and He knows what is best for me and when it will be the optimal time to respond to my requests. Elder Scott said, “With even your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you, when it will yield the greatest advantage.”

A couple years ago, I was struggling with a relationship that I had been very hopeful about but that seemed to be stalling out. I was frustrated and discouraged, and one Sunday morning I was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing “I believe in Christ.” They were singing the last verse with the very dramatic buildup to the line “His voice is heard: YE SHALL OBTAIN!” I felt the Spirit so strongly in that moment witness to me that yes, I will obtain. Even then, I had the foresight to recognize that I may not obtain that particular boy (which clearly, I didn’t), but I felt God’s comfort and awareness of me. I don’t when or how I “will obtain,” but these moments of reassurance give me the courage to keep on in faith.

Finally, I take inspiration from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. In a conference talk in 2004, Elder Simmons quoted them telling King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:17-18 that “If it be so [that you cast us into the furnace], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand. But if not, … we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

The key phrase in that verse is “but if not.” They had faith that God could and would deliver them, but even if He didn’t, they promised to remain true. Their faith was not based on a particular outcome, but was based in complete trust in Jesus Christ.

Elder Simmons concluded his talk by making modern-day parallels to that verse of scripture: “Our God has the power to deliver us from sickness and disease, but if not … . He has the power to deliver us from loneliness, depression, or fear, but if not. … He will deliver us from death or impairment of loved ones, but if not.... We will receive a perfect companion and righteous and obedient children, but if not, … we will have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that if we do all we can do, we will, in His time and in His way, be delivered and receive all that He has.

When I die -- whether I get hit by a bus or not -- I want to die as a woman of God. I want to come out of mortality not jaded and bitter and resentful, but humble, grateful and full of love. No matter my trial, no matter my disappointments, no matter my sense of injustice about this mortal life, I want to remain a woman of faith.