This week, like many single adults, I had the chance to pack up all of my belongings into my car, and move. Also, this week, a relationship has changed directions. Therefore, moving for me is not only a literal packing up and moving items, it is packing up and moving forward with my life. I consider it a test of my faith as I move on to new experiences and adventures. Admittedly, there are moments along my new path where I question what I am doing. Should I really be moving? What about everything I have established? Will I find new friends? Will I stay in touch with old ones? Am I Doing the Lord’s will? What if that was my only chance at a relationship? Did I mess up my future? As doubts enter my mind, and I begin to question, I remember the counsel of Jeffrey R. Holland. He said, “Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us.”
First, faith is for the future. Faith is a principle of action, or motion. As we take one step forward, we progress one step further from where we are to where we need to be. It has been said that God doesn’t move a parked car. If we find ourselves trapped in a pit of complacency, or becoming too comfortable, the best thing we can do is move. This may take us outside our comfort zone, and it may inflict growing pains upon us, but that is the purpose of this life, to grow and become something better.
Second, faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. We learn a great deal about this deep longing for the past when we consider Lot’s wife. Somehow in her attempt to move forward she didn’t think that God could give her more than she experienced before. Nothing would ever be better, so why go forward at all? The best way that I cope with this mentality is to remember how the Lord has blessed me so far. “He guides the future, as He has the past” the hymn says. (Be Still My Soul)
The Single Life
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This particular situation of moving is not a new one for me. Several years ago, before my mission, I lived in Arizona and studied at Eastern Arizona College. Just before what would have been my last semester before receiving my associate degree, I applied to BYU. Somehow during the process I accidentally applied for the semester before the one that I had intended. To my shock I was accepted and was to begin classes in April. All of my friends were in Arizona. I literally didn’t know a single person in Provo, Utah. I was close to graduating with my associates. Shouldn’t the timing have been wrong? Yet, I felt so strongly to move and to do so then. Looking back I have seen hundreds of people who have been placed in my path all along my way. Now, years later, I recognize many of the people I needed to meet, the jobs I needed to have, and the experiences that would mold and shape my character. God led me then, why would He not lead me now?
Third, When I graduated from high school, my only desire in the world was to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, at that time I had no money saved, and therefore, my dream seemed a complete and total impossibility. However, God knew my desires, and He knew how to get me out on a mission. A series of miraculous events occurred and I was able to be there and to experience all that a mission has to offer. It is my belief and faith that God also knows my other righteous desires, particularly for forming a relationship and creating an eternal family. If He helped me find a mission companion, surely he will help me find an eternal companion. Marjorie Pay Hinckley once said, “Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something else.” I truly believe that each stop on our journey makes us stronger and helps us to move forward better prepared for what lies ahead. God will never leave us unprepared if we work with diligence and faith.
Finally returning to the words of Jeffrey R. Holland, which perhaps are just for me, but which may help you too, “Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, of trust and divine love that will transform your life today, tomorrow, and forever.”
Ashley Dewey is extremely talented at being single. Hobbies include awkward conversations with members of the opposite sex, repelling third dates, talking to boys about their girl problems and to girls about their boy problems. In her spare time she also has a very fulfilling school life, work life, and social life.
Besides being a professional single, Ashley is also a BYU graduate with a degree in linguistics (Aka word nerd). She enjoys studying other languages, particularly American Sign Language, and finds most all of them fascinating. She is currently pursuing a masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.
Ashley works most of the time and has often been accused of being a workaholic. Currently she works full time as a merchandiser and supervisor in a retail store, and part time doing social media work. On her day off she works (really it doesn't feel like work) in the Provo LDS temple. The only kind of work she finds difficulty focusing on is house work.
Her favorite activities in her free time are reading, writing, creating social experiments, and spending time with great friends and family. Specific activities with those family and friends include: going to concerts, plays, dance recitals, BYU basketball and football games, and watching sports on television.
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