I met my husband later in life: I was twenty-nine. OK, that may not sound like a ‘late’ marriage, but in my church circles everyone was married by the ripe old age of twenty-one. At twenty-nine, I was considered practically retired. Or a leper.
During those years of singledom, I encountered some interesting myths and assumptions about single people. I have learned that society judges singles in a myriad of ways:
– Marriage isn’t important to them
– They forgot to get married
– They’re career-oriented
– They’re too picky
– They’re not putting themselves out there
– They need to lose weight/wear make-up/change their appearance/work on their personality
– They’re unhappy (because everyone needs to be married to be happy)
– They’re happy (and Marrieds are jealous of them)
– They’re doing something wrong
– They need to work on being the right partner first
– They need to stop looking, then the right partner will come along
– They should enjoy their singledom
– They’ll be single forever
– They’re out to steal my partner!
I remember being asked if I was being ‘too picky’ and told to work on myself more. A friend told me to enjoy this period of my life…as though it was only a temporary season. It’s frustrating to be told you have to work on yourself to ‘earn’ a partner, while everyone else is getting married with apparent effortlessness. How is that fair? It’s also strange to be told your singledom is temporary when the scary reality is you might never marry. At twenty-nine, I was increasingly worried this would be the case for me.
It’s frustrating to be told you have to ‘earn’ a partner, while everyone else gets married with apparent effortlessness.
The Church seems to have its own special assumptions about single people:
– They’re in sin
– They’re not praying hard enough
– They need more faith
– They have the ‘gift of singleness’ (ugh)
– God has a partner for them
– If you serve God faithfully, he will bless you with a partner
– God will make it happen when they least expect it
– We have to separate them from Marrieds because they don’t want to hear, or can’t handle hearing, about sex
– They don’t want to hang out with Marrieds.
Mad, isn’t it? Not only do single Christians have to contend with the negative judgements of society about not being good enough for marriage, they also have to deal with not being a good enough Christian. I remember being told it would happen for me if I prayed hard enough (therefore I was still single because my prayer was inadequate) and that God definitely had someone for me.
False hope is all very encouraging (not) until you get to your late twenties and it still hasn’t happened. It gives rise to questions, not to mention a few myths and doubts about oneself:
– There’s something wrong with me
– I’m less valued, less worthy and less loveable than Marrieds
– I have displeased God somehow.
I truly believed that God would bless me with a husband if I was faithful. I had been told as much for years by my church. I didn’t know what to do with the crushing realisation that God’s blessings were not guaranteed, and that I couldn’t ‘earn’ or ‘bargain’ my way into marriage.
In the end, I settled into an uncomfortable arrangement with God. I would keep praying because I still wanted to be married. But I would do so on the acceptance that God may not say ‘yes’ for a long time, perhaps not ever. I decided to follow Jesus regardless of the outcome. (Turns out God did have a spouse for me. But that didn’t happen until years later.)
It’s hard to trust God with your future when so much is unknown. It’s a vulnerable place to be, handing over your most treasured hopes and dreams to One who may never bring them into being. Yet that is real faith too: believing in a God whom we cannot see and entrusting all our days to him, rather than putting our hopes in myths or false promises.
I hope you find a way to do that with God too.
How hard do you find it to entrust your future, including your relationship status, to God? Are you willing to hand your relationships over to God’s keeping, no matter the outcome? What else do you need to entrust to God’s care today? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.