Dear Single Girl,
I know the questions that you face every day. Questions that don’t even
come from the voices of others but rather the inward you. You ask yourself
everyday if this is normal. The bae-saturated culture has convinced your mind to
evaluate your desire because everything about it screams abnormal. The marriage
obsessed church culture convinces you that you are not blessed if marriage isn’t
your reality before the age of 30. Social media trains you to think that your
absence of a significant other determines your desirability as a female. Family pressure has started to affect your understanding of your personal pace
with God. Countless people have told you that 'your standards are too high' or your expectation of a brothers approach is 'not realistic in this day and age.' The commentary surrounding 'your
season' has made you question who you are, where you are and where you are
going.
I’m writing to the girl no one ever addresses. To the girl that doesn’t desire
marriage - whether it be currently or ever. You’ve probably grown exhausted of
trying to justify your desire to be single to every person that doesn’t seem to
understand why you feel the way you do. Or maybe you’ve encountered the many
people that seem to think you’re lying and hit you with the ‘you can’t actually
want that’ line of disbelief. It’s almost a taboo in the church for a young
woman to openly share that she desires to remain unmarried. If you’re not refining
your virtue for the sake of a husband, then what are you doing? If you’re not
intentionally positioning yourself for Boaz to notice you, then what are you
doing? If you’re not abstaining from sex so that you are more desirable for
your future man of God, then what are you doing? We have done a great job at belittling
Gods beautiful intention for biblical womanhood to the preparation for an earthly
husband.
Whether you desire to remain single for an appointed season or you are
eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of God, I encourage you to stand firm. Maybe
you desire to remain unmarried because you sense God appointing you to a
specific season of singleness, for the purpose of character refining. You know
that without certain parts of your character being purified and dealt with now,
the amplification of those problems within a union will inevitably lead to a
destructive marriage. Or maybe the purpose of your singleness is to enable
intense and high demanding service unto the Lord, that requires the freedom
from responsibility that the married woman is concerned with. The challenges of
this type of woman in the Christian community generally remain unspoken,
because the reality is that this isn’t the heart state of many women. Most, not
wrongly, do desire pursuit, courtship and marriage. But today, I’m encouraging you. The girl who has been questioned,
alienated and left discouraged at points because of your desire to be single
for the Lord.
Regulating Conversation
Don’t feel the need to prove yourself or your stance to every single
person that enquires. Given the rarity of women in the faith who want to be
single out of choice, be expected to
be questioned by most about the authenticity behind your contentment and the reasoning
for it. Answer with honesty, but always ensure that your speech is gracious and
wholesome. Be aware of the easy trap of growing frustrated with people due to
their curiosity. When communicating your reasoning, be mindful that you are not
operating from a place of spite or pride. Rather, focus on pointing your
explanations back to Jesus. Always strive to highlight the goodness of God in
your life and the love of Jesus being sufficient enough to satisfy you whether
married or not.
Be free from the pressure to downplay your desire to serve God in the
capacity that He has gifted you with. There can be temptation to sway towards
talking more about your ‘long term desire for marriage’ when you are amongst other Christian
women. This feels more natural and comfortable for you, because you know the extremity
of how opposite your current heart
state is from what they all desire. So instead of actually expressing your joy
in delighting in God alone at this current moment, you choose to emphasise and
assure them that you DO want to get married in the future. Been there, done
that. Too many times to count. But my point here stands; don’t succumb to the
pressure of societal or church expectations in the midst of conversation. Guard
your heart by regulating and discerning who you share with and what exactly you
share. And in addition to that, train yourself to feel comfortable expressing
your contentment with where God has you. If they can express their desire for
courtship, why are you not allowed to speak of your love for your current
season of singleness?
Guard your Contentment
Guarding your contentment seems like a nearly impossible task in a world
that always craves more and craves it immediately. I once heard that contentment
is ‘being grateful and satisfied with your current portion but being hopeful
for things to come.’ I love this definition because it exemplifies how contentment
is not a mere denial of desire. It is easy to fall into sin when we do not
manage our desires in a godly and wise manner. At the centre of true contentment
is genuine gratitude and understanding of the sufficiency of the cross. No one
can be truly content without understanding that we do not ‘deserve’ anything
from God, so anything we do have, we must be thankful for. We didn’t even
deserve for Him to send His son to die for the sake of our sin, let alone choose
to bless us continuously out of His goodness.
You are in the midst of a generation that glorifies marriage as an idol
to strive towards at all costs, rather than the intimate covenant reflecting Christ
and His bride that God intended. So I encourage you to be intentional about
guarding the state of your heart and the purity of your meditations. This could
mean a variety of things for you. It may be regulating what and who you follow
on social media, ensuring that everything on your timeline isn’t bridal shots
or courtship ministry posts. It may mean refraining from watching romantic comedies
that seem to trigger thoughts of discontentment and entertains ungodly desperation.
Or it may simply be learning how to kindly shut down comments from others that
discourage your passion for serving God or plant seeds that suggest that you’ll
never get married if you ‘keep talking like this.’ By whatever means the Holy
Spirit leads you to, be diligent in guarding your contentment. There are probably many
times you have heard or seen something and brushed it off, not
realizing that you have internalized the seeds that have been planted in your
heart and taken root.
Serve Fervently and Faithfully
As an unmarried woman, you have a practical freedom to serve the Lord in
a way that is different to the married woman. Maybe for you, this has been at
the core of why you desire to be single. From speaking to some married women, I
have gathered this common feeling of regret of mismanagement of time in their
singleness. They always wish that they had done more when they had the absolute
freedom to do so. For others, it has been the general frustration of wanting to
plough for Gods kingdom but the responsibilities of being a wife and mother
drains them of physical energy. You, as a single woman have the capability to
serve God with what Paul calls ‘undivided devotion’. Use this time of
singleness, whether it be for a certain period or your whole lifetime, to
invest into your gifts and mature in your calling. Learn and train in the ways
that God desires to use you to edify the body of Christ and bring the saints to
maturity. Be active in looking for creative ways to reach out to lost souls and
disciple them in God’s word. Look for ways to build up your home church, by
devoting your time, talents and spiritual gifts for their use. These are all
ways in which you, as an unmarried woman can serve God with the gift He has
given you. Now is your prime season
to cultivate discipline, consistency and excellence as a vessel of God.
I know it. You’ve probably heard comments like - ‘’Don’t do too much,
because the brothers will think you’re a bit too fiery and will find you intimidating to
approach.’’ I cannot count the amount of times that this ‘advice’ has been
relayed to me since I started serving God in public ministry at sixteen. Maybe
you’ve heard the same, or even similar. Never ever adjust your faithfulness to serving God for the sake of a
relationship. You will find yourself drained, miserable and annoyed because you
are supressing the gifts that God desires to blossom within you. All for what?
A guy who is too insecure to accept the calling of the person he’s trying to
call his ‘wife’? If he can’t even accept
the weight of your call in God, what makes you think he’s going to find any
ounce of joy in leading you in that
call? As an unmarried woman, I encourage you to serve the Lord with unapologetic zeal and commitment. Refuse to settle for half-hearted service or delayed
obedience, in an attempt to get the brothers to pursue you without fear. This notion of ‘not
serving too much’ is far from a biblical concept. Both Ruth and Rebekah are
women who were found in their place of service and work. It was not only their
positioning that caused their husbands/seekers to be drawn to them, but their attitude,
character and virtue exhibited in the midst of their work. So serve, and when
you do, serve well. I pray that you would be so engulfed in your assignment from
God in this season, that whether or not a husband comes, you learn to delight in serving
God both fervently and faithfully.
It is never my intention to
persuade girls that desiring marriage is wrong, but it is a cry of my heart
that Christian women around the world would walk with the Lord faithfully in
their appointed time of singleness. So I encourage you to regulate your
conversations, guard your contentment and serve with fervency and faithfulness.
Know that you are not alone in your pursuit of God as a single, but there are other
sisters around the world running the same race.
Know that it is okay to not be
the girl that does the swirl click over her head shouting ‘I rebuke it!’ when
someone brings up the prospect of not getting married, because you maintain a quiet inward confidence in Gods will.
Know that your
satisfaction in Christ alone is a beautiful thing, a treasure that should be
celebrated and not condemned.
Know that if you do desire to be married in the long
run and it’s in Gods will for your life, then He will present you to a suitable
spouse according to His sovereign timing.
Know that if you want to remain
single for your entire life in order to serve, that desire is advantageous to the Kingdom of God.
And finally, know that no matter your marital status or inward desire, you are already loved, found and chosen by
Christ Himself.
Love always,
Caitlin Nunez