Here are my thoughts after watching the first half of the Premier TV discussion (I had to stop it to do something else and wanted to go back to it but it took far too long to find the place where I'd left it so I didn't bother):
One of the women said something to the effect of, "God wants us all to be married." And I also heard this in the discussion: "I'm single. I'm not happy. God wants me to be happy, therefore he wants me to be married." (Nobody used those exact words, but that was clearly the attitude of both women.)
RUBBISH! Where do they get that from? I don't see it in the Bible. Just because Adam and Eve got married, doesn't mean that every human being from then on would also get married. Adam needed another human with whom to have a loving relationship, and all humans need that. But it doesn't need to be a marriage relationship. We don't need sex in order to live. Jesus didn't marry. Why should we assume that God wants us to?
I find that too many discussions about singleness in the church centre around how difficult it is to find a husband (it's mostly women who are talking about it after all!) and how terrible it is that the church isn't doing more to attract men into it.
I see the issue from a different angle. I agree that being a single Christian in a relationship-orientated secular and church culture is hard. And it gets harder the older we get. However...
God is bigger than my desire to get married, bigger than the lack of men in the church. He is not sitting there, going, "oh dear, whatever are we going to do about Fiona's singleness?" He's not saying, "Oh no, look at the church, it's doing a terrible job at providing husbands for these poor girls. I wish it would get itself organised." He's bigger than the church's lack of vision or understanding of the issue.
At the end of the day, if it would serve his purposes for me to get married then he will provide someone for me to marry - and it may be that he would lead me to join a singles network or internet dating site to facilitate this. If, on the other hand, I can serve him better as a single person, then why would I want to go out and get myself a husband at all costs? I would be missing out on God's best for me.
God knows me far better than I know myself. He knows better than I do what's good for me. And he has promised to provide for all my needs. If he hasn't given me a husband then that's because I don't need one, no matter how much I might feel that I do. And, while being single in a marriage-orientated church culture can entail a lot of pain, there is so much that God can teach us through the pain and the heartache, if we'll only listen rather than keep shouting, "But I want to get married!"
We need to acknowledge the pain. We need to grieve the disappointment of unrealised dreams. And we need to find our way through it with God's grace. And, though it may take a long, long time, we WILL get through it, and we'll be stronger on the other side. There's a song by Lilly Goodman called "sin dolor" which has comforted me during the hard times. In it, she sings about how pain is horrible, yet without it, we don't grow and it's often in the hard times that our gifts are awakened, and we are enabled to meet what God has in store for us around the corner.
There is a real danger that we become obsessed with this issue. It begins to define our lives. Our hopes and our dreams become bound up in it and we stop looking for what God might be doing in & through our lives in general and, in particular, this painful situation. All we can see is how we're not getting what we want. And the focus is on us, rather than on God, who should be the centre of our lives.
God is able. Trust him to provide you with what you need. Look to him for fulfillment and joy. Marriage is not the answer. Only God can satisfy.
What do you think?
Replies
I think if I lived my life without hoping there was a husband out there for me I'd go potty! However at the same if I lived my life in a constant search for one - that'd drive me potty too! Aiming to widen my circle of friends, guys and girls, is probably the best thing, I feel, to do.
This probably sounds a bit naughty but when I feel a bit fed up of being single I make a mental list of guys I'm so glad I'm not married too, like some of the boys who I thought were chocolate as a teenager who have turned out a bit, well...boring? Phew ... some lucky escapes there!
Please don't feel you need to have some kind of 'theology of singleness' all neatly wrapped up to contribute here ... any light hearted/funny stories would be great here too!