All the Single Ladies

I had the privilege of attending a conference this weekend featuring three dynamic women teaching from the Bible. These women are among the greatest voices of our generation and they drew a crowd of over 11,000 women to my hometown arena (note to the Florida Marlins: you might get bigger crowds if you sign these ladies). The teaching was first-class and I am so thankful to have been there.

To close the conference, all three speakers took the stage for an informal question and answer session. The first 20 minutes or so were devoted to encouraging wives and mothers. It got raucous in the arena as jokes about sex and breast pumps flew (jokes flew, not the actual pumps). There is nothing like being a single girl in an auditorium full of women who are shouting “Amen!” when someone is making a joke about not wanting to have sex at the end of a long day. What immediately followed that outburst was, “Let’s encourage our single sisters.” So after 20 minutes of feeling like an outsider I was really excited to hear what these three gifted, godly women were going to say about my situation.

Let’s just say I turned to the woman beside me and said, “If I had nickel…” All the biblical knowledge on that stage and the best they could do for the single sisters was, “Enjoy your singleness. Serve Jesus.” There is nothing wrong with this teaching; it’s pretty much a paraphrase of God’s inspired word to Paul in 1 Corinthians. But it deflated me nonetheless.

Enjoy your singleness (which is always accompanied by the suggestion to go to Europe) and serve Jesus is advice you give to freshly-minted single people. Once you’ve been single for a few years and you’ve got a few stamps in your passport, you need deeper encouragement.

If I had been on that stage today, here are some things I would have shared with my single sisters. At different times during my single season, each of these lessons has taken its turn being most important. Maybe some day I’ll put some meat on the bones, but for now they are bullets…

--You don’t have to keep your desires a secret—not from your married friends, not from your single friends, and certainly not from your God. Desiring marriage doesn’t make you weak (although typing that sentence makes me a little shaky…)
--Marriage does not mean you’ve arrived and can finally start your life. First of all, no one ever arrives in this life. Second of all, your life started a long time ago. Do something with it (have you ever been to Prague?).
--You don’t have to be a missionary!
--The girl who has everything you want has hurts, disappointments, and unmet desires of her own. Don’t avoid her.
--No one deserves blessings from God. You can’t earn them for yourself and you’ve got no business criticizing the girls who are getting them.
--Be careful where you put your hope. It’s easy to put your eggs in the wrong guy’s basket. There’s only One who won’t disappoint you.
--You know the girl who says, “You just need to be content. As soon as I was content with being single I met Bob.”? Hit that girl—someone needs to stop her. Contentment is not the secret entrance to the next season of your life. It’s just a nice place to be. If you find yourself there, enjoy it!
--Serve Jesus. Ugh! I can’t believe I’m agreeing! When that advice is given as a spiritual pat on the head it really bugs me, but the reality is, the best way to be in fellowship in the body of Christ is to get involved! Very few married people are inclined to reach out to single sisters—unless they get to know you first. And how do they get to know you? From the way you serve.

Leave it to me to experience six hours of amazing biblical teaching and then walk away fired-up by a five-minute afterthought. But if being fired-up about singleness (yet again) gets me crying out to God and committing my future to Him (yet again), then so be it!