Singleness is NOT a disease

Singleness is NOT a disease

For twenty-nine years I’ve been single, very single in fact, the kind of single that eventually makes you feel like there must be something seriously wrong with you. BUT here’s the thing: there is nothing wrong with me. I’M JUST NOT MARRIED, and for some reason in the church at a certain age you’re made to feel that being single isn’t okay.  I obviously can’t speak for every single woman in the church, but I can tell you my experience and my heart. 

I feel like single Christian women are often viewed as “not as spiritually mature” because they don’t have a husband and/or or kids.  It seems that somehow marriage is the only thing that can be sanctifying, and that if you’re not married, you’re somehow lacking.  

Don’t get me wrong. I love marriage; some of my best friends are married.  I see beautiful examples of marriage, and know that God uses those relationships to point others to Himself.  I think marriage is a beautiful gift that God has given his children.  I desire to be married and have a family.  BUT I think singleness is a gift too. In fact I know it is, because God’s Word speaks highly of it.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7,

“ I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. ^“

Scripture makes it very clear that singleness is not second best.  It is not less than marriage. It isn’t second place. If you’re single, please hear me when I say that singleness is God’s BEST for you in this season.  

Marriage is not ultimate. Christ is.  But somehow it seems that in the church marriage is always the end goal.  I attended a Sunday School class for singles once where the teacher essentially said that she hoped this class wouldn’t be needed soon because we would all get married.  I left that day heart broken that my relational status was viewed in the same way as a sickness or disease; that I was something broken and in need of “fixing.”  

A Gallup study was done in 2014 that showed that 64% of men and women between the ages of 18 and 29 were single. That’s well over half of my generation.  We have to rethink what church looks like and have a place for singles.  Not a special place where we’re segregated off, but a place at the table with everyone. Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

I love the church. I really and truly do. But sometimes it’s the place where I feel loneliest. Sometimes I feel like it’s the hardest place for me to break through and find community because I truly don’t know where I fit it or belong.

My prayer is that this will change.  That the church would be a place marriage and singleness are equally esteemed. That community wouldn’t look like age ranges and martial statuses plastered on signs outside of classroom doors on Sunday mornings. Instead it would look like a family.  A group of people of all ages and relational statuses gathering together, learning God’s Word, growing, challenging each other, fellowshipping, and sharing each others burdens because we’re all one body.