Please help me find answers if possible. I am 31 years old, born again and single.

I have seriously been asking God for a spouse since I hit 28. I feel like I am at the end of the road now. All my friends are married, and I am the last one standing.

Everyone around me, especially at work, keeps asking ‘when is the wedding?’.

I have become depressed and even waking up in the morning is a problem. I am doing the bare minimum.

I am beautiful, educated, and well mannered, yet still no gentleman is approaching me,  except married ones who keep saying I am wife material.

My siblings are all doing so well even financially, which I can say am also struggling a bit.

I have been thinking and am wondering if it is the curse of the first born?

How do I get delivered from it? There are times I have even said that truly God is unfair.

And in between, I haven’t shown any desperation and I haven’t had heartbreaks.

People think I have it all together yet am dying inside. Please help.

Thanks,

Name withheld.

 Dear Desperate,

One thing you have to realise about life is that no two lives are alike, even in instances where identical twins are raised inseparable at birth.

At any given time, there will always be people who are far better and lesser persons than yourself.

So, comparing yourself with others will only lead to bitterness and frustration.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me break it down like this.

Not all of us were created to live our lives as married people.

Today is a Sunday, so please allow me some indulgence to delve into some spiritual realm.

God is a marvellous creator and, when you think of it, some people were just meant to go through life as single and unmarried. And there is nothing wrong with that.

The flipside of it is that the same God created people like me–people who will be married scores of times before they fall dead.

That is the marvel of creation; diversity.

But the beautiful thing is that when God created people like you, He created them strong and resilient so that they could withstand the rebuke.

Most of our unhappiness stems from the belief that our lives should be different than they are.

We believe we have control — and our self-loathing and self-hatred comes from this idea that we should be able to change our circumstances, that we should be richer or hotter or better or happier.

While self-responsibility is empowering, it can often lead to this resentment and bitterness that none of us need to be holding within us.

You don’t need more motivation or inspiration to create the life you want. You need less shame around the idea that you’re not doing your best. You need to stop listening to people who are in vastly different life circumstances and life stages than you tell you that you’re just not doing or being enough.

Sincerely,

Big Man Wamkulu