Married women have needs; unmarried women have needs. Little girls have needs, teenage young ladies have needs. There is no escaping it. I dare say men have needs too. God created us to be in fellowship with Him, and this is what puts us fundamentally right so that we are able and enabled to minister to one another. We are designed to live in community and God gives us the privilege of blessing one another, loving one another, forgiving one another, and living sacrificially for one another. Living in this way by the grace of God is what makes us well-adjusted or secure or whole people.Unmarried women are hungering for that close community that is only found in marriage. They can enjoy the fact that they live in community, but they want more. God has put this hunger in them and it is good by definition. The central thing I enjoyed about Debbi Maken’s book (Getting Serious About Getting Married) was the way she addressed the worldview problems in the church about marriage: mainstream evangelicalism has a nasty habit of labeling singleness as a “gift.” Now I suppose that it is a Continue reading ‘Glory and Guilt’
Archive for the 'Unmarried Sisters' Category
Page 3 of 3
Note: This is part of a chapter for a book for unmarried women, so they are singled out in this article, but not because married women don’t have the same kinds of problems. The point I am making here is that unmarried women have the opportunity to get a lot of things straightened out before they are married. No time like the present. And no, I am not in any way suggesting that marriage is a reward for holiness. If that were the case, no one would be married.Â
I mentioned earlier that when women worry, it is as though they are taking ugly pills. All sin of every kind destroys us, but some sin really can make us visibly unattractive. Anxiety and bitterness are like that. A peaceful woman, with a gentle and quiet spirit, is beautiful, but a woman with a disrupted spirit gets uglier and uglier.It is very popular today to have “issues,” to be depressed, or to come from a “dysfunctional” family. This is actually hip and cool. But sin in all forms is ugly, ugly, ugly. Real troubles have real biblical solutions (though some may be very difficult), but some women find security in having hang-ups and troubles. It gives them a story, provides an identity for them. But we should find our identity in Christ. He has freed us from our sins. Yes, we all have troubles. Everyone has troubles. But the unmarried woman ought to determine to get help for her troubles so that she can press on in her Christian life, and not have to drag her family’s sins or her own messed up past (or present) with her Continue reading ‘Dealing With Sin’
It’s tempting to think that there really isn’t a niche for the unmarried women in the church. The married women have their hands full with learning respect and submission to their husbands. The mothers have a big job managing their homes and rearing their children. Scripture lays out the duties of wives and mothers clearly, and the church provides plenty of teaching and instruction on the family. Sermons on marriage, books on courtship and childrearing, conferences for wives and husbands seem to occupy a central place in the work of the church. And of course, these are very important issues and need to be addressed. But the unmarried woman can feel at sea in all this. If she is not engaged, what is she doing really? Does everyone assume she is biding her time waiting to get married? What is she supposed to be doing? Continue reading ‘Unmarried Women in the Covenant Community’
Good doctrine protects us from all kinds of errors and all kinds of fears. One of the important things you must know, understand, and believe is that God has planned good for you and not evil. He loves His children. His
Providence rules His world and He governs His people with kindness. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies†(Psalm 25:10). If you have a solid biblical doctrine of God’s omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, this will protect you from many doubts, worries, and fears about the future, as well as keep you from fretting over the past.
           The unmarried woman can expect to be assailed with temptations to worry about the future: What if I never marry? What if I marry, but it is too late to have children? What if there is no one for me after all? What if I missed “God’s best� These are questions that are impossible to answer because all “what if†questions are not really questions at all, but doubts. They disrupt your peace and bring troubling thoughts; they rob you of your joy by introducing fictional and future trials. Jesus said not to borrow trouble because each day has enough of its own. These sorts of thoughts are temptations, and God wants you to learn to deal with temptations, whatever form they take.
           Jesus tells us not to be anxious about our lives (Mt. 6:31-33). We are to cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).Worrying will only make life miserable. It is fruitless. So how do you deal with temptations that come in the form of “what if†questions? This may seem like a simplistic answer, but here it is: ignore them. Do not answer them; in fact, do not listen to them. Rather, ask what good things God has given you to do today. Focus on today’s duties. This is a fruitful use of your time. Recognize that those “what if†questions are temptations to get you to feel blue, worried, lonely, or anxious. Do not engage in a conversation with yourself about this stuff. Ignore, ignore, ignore. And set your mind on something helpful, something that is profitable. This is how we fear God. And when we fear God, that holy fear swallows up all our other petty fears. Continue reading ‘Is This Really God’s Best?’
One of the many temptations for the unmarried woman is to pretend to be happy. Now before you throw something, let me explain. I think that unmarried women should be happy, of course, and I know many who are. Contentment is required of us all, and the unmarried woman has much to be thankful for.
But here is the temptation: if you are struggling with contentment and longing to be married, it is easy to want to hide it from everyone else. If you admit that you want to be married, you may think you are admitting a weakness or a fault. Or you might not want to seem like a marriage nerd, always on the lookout for “him.†So you pretend to be doing fine when in fact you are not doing fine. You may even convince yourself (while dogmatically telling others) that you don’t really want marriage right now, that you’re not interested in a relationship because you don’t have the time. But we all know that if God sent the right man along now, you would happily drop everything in a heartbeat.
Imagine a conversation with a sweet Christian woman who is in this kind of jam. You run into her and ask how she is doing. She then falls all over herself telling you how much she loves her job, how busy she is, how much traveling she is doing, how she really doesn’t have any time (or need) for a social life. Or she tells you about her classes, when she’ll have her degree, and all the wonderful job possibilities waiting out there for her. Now I’m certainly not saying that she is lying about all this. Don’t get me wrong here. But I am saying that it is possible that this is just all a very hollow cover to make you think she is happy, happy, happy when she would really like to cry and scream and say she hates all this. She might really want to tell you that she is miserable, frustrated, and lonely traveling by herself, that she wishes she could be doing something that would give her more fulfillment and make her feel more a part of the body of Christ. But this, she thinks, would be admitting defeat, and so she convinces herself that her career is all she wants after all.
Part of the way to freedom for women in this bind is to help them see, first of all, that it is okay to want to be married. In fact, it is not just okay, it is good. Of course there is nothing in the world wrong with wanting to be married. It is only wrong to be miserable or bitter about it. And wanting to be married does not equal discontent. Many women are feeling a false guilt about this. It goes something like this: “If I were truly godly, I wouldn’t want to be married. I would be happy to be unmarried for the rest of my life. But I do long to be married, therefore I am not rejoicing in the Lord, and therefore I am guilty of sin.†But you can confess false guilt all day long and never feel forgiven. God forgives real sin not our imagined sin. Continue reading ‘Don’t Pretend to be Happy’
 ……and Other Useful Comments
No doubt we have all heard people say this or, even worse, have said it ourselves. Unmarried women, depending on how long they have been in the “still not married†category, could no doubt make an impressive list of thoughtless comments spoken to them by well-meaning people, often at social gatherings, and especially at friends’ weddings. I have heard of some pretty horrendous comments, but I have reminded the women who have been the recipients of such comments, to attribute the best of motives. Most of the time people are trying to be funny, or they are trying to make conversation, and it is all they can think of to say. We really must think the best of them. Taking offense at insensitive comments only makes for bitter women. So if you can quickly bring to mind a list of people who have said unkind things about your unmarried state, perhaps you need to confess some hard feelings and bitterness. Let it go. Continue reading ‘“Why isn’t a pretty girl like you married?”’
Recent Comments