So when I was single in my early 20s I just figured that I would meet someone in the next couple of years. Then as I moved to my later 20s I still kind of thought, “Hey this will happen soon enough.” When I was in my early 30s, it was time to hurry this thing up a little. HAHA. But in my late 30s several interesting things have happened. First, I realized for the first time, “This thing might not happen at all.” That was fun. During this same time (about age 35 or so) God really walked me through some hard stuff and at the end, I’ve ended up being a lot more comfortable with who I am and being single which has been great.
One of the other things I’ve realized is that no matter what happens there is some stuff that won’t happen.
If I get married, my wife and I will not get to start out life together. Yes I know we will start a new life together, sort of – but thats not the same thing. I will not enjoy the wife of my youth – because I won’t be in my youth. I won’t get to share any of the moments of victory or defeat that I’ve had over the last 20 years of ministry.
I probably won’t have kids and if I do it will be different. I was joking with a friend on the golf course today who asked if I still wanted kids. I said, “Maybe, but I’m 40 this fall and let’s say I get married in the next year and had a kid within a year. I’m 42 and changing diapers. Then I’m 50 or so when they are really ready to play catch. When they are a teenager I’m in my late 50s.” I still remember the first time, the summer before my sophomore year, that I beat my dad one on one in hoops. My kid might beat me at 12.
About a year ago, I started thinking about this stuff. And you know what it kind of hurts. Now it’s all redeemable. In fact God has redeemed so much of my story already. For example after working with teenagers for a long time, I’m a father figure to a pretty large amount of people. That’s awesome and means the world to me. I love those guys. But it’s not the same thing.
We all (single, married or other wise) face loss.
We need to mourn those losses appropriately. It’s part of being emotionally healthy. If we deny the losses then we aren’t living in reality, we are staying in the pretend. That is not where we want to be.
This might be obvious when we have a big physical loss, like a death of a friend or family member. But is the less obvious stuff that creeps up on us. Loss can come from sin (like the loss of our virginity), it can come from wounds from our childhood, or from friends. Even just the common stuff in life, things like the loss of our dreams, our youth, a business loss.
Peter Scazzero points out that typically we insulate ourselves from the hurt through things like denial (It doesn’t bother me I’m not married yet), minimizing (It’s no big deal if I don’t get to be a mom), along with rationalizing, blaming, intellectualizing, and distracting (make a joke, change the subject).
But God invites us to more.
He invites us to enter into loss with HIm. This doesn’t mean dwell on it. This doesn’t mean make it bigger than it is. My cat dying and a friend dying should elicit a different amount of mourning. By the way over reaction to a minor loss is usually a sign that there is a bigger loss that hasn’t been grieved.
God isn’t asking us to deal with it so that we can stay there, but rather so that we can move through to freedom. There’s not space in a blog post to go into all of the process of this but here are two key things. First we have to take it to God. We need to take our hurt and loss to the feet of Jesus and ask Him to heal us. Jesus is fully capable of healing any loss – He came to heal the brokenhearted and put things right. Secondly, it will go a lot better if you have other people you can trust in the mix. We need people who walk with us in community.
Whatever we do we need to face our losses and honestly admit it hurts. It’s hard but freedom is worth it – whether we stay single or get married, it will help us grow.
What losses have you grieved? What losses are you avoiding dealing with?
More Than Don't Have Sex 
This is some powerful, raw stuff. It really grabs my heart. Thank you for sharing what you have experienced and all that God has taught you. I pray that God may continue to be greatly glorified through your life and faith!
Thanks for this – for the permission to mourn (appropriately). It’s sometimes hard to admit hurt when that hurt is less obvious, and maybe not as socially recognized as an area of real grief. (On a related note, I also appreciated this HuffPo piece on disenfranchised grief: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melanie-notkin/my-secret-grief-over-35-s_b_1202808.html)
That is a great post as well. Thanks for reading and sharing.
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thank u. ive been thinking about this bc im 40 and fstill single. I thought I already lost. God already said no. I wont experience being a young bride so I felt like if that was really what I wanted why get married now. im grieving the loss of having a young family bc even if I marry next week I will not b a young bride. so it is what it is. glad u brought this up.
Yes. This is something my friends who tell me maybe i’ll be “lucky” enough to marry in my seventies like their Aunt Hilda fail to grasp.
Note to all you complacent marrieds: Do NOT tell this to a girl of twenty crying because no guy on campus finds her worth dating. It won’t cheer her up. Trust me.
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This is so true.
It’s always healthy to admit pain and talk to someone about it. You could repress it, and slap on a fake smile, and pretend everything’s good. That kind fo thing is easy to do on a Sunday morning at church. And I’m sure many singles do that. We usually want to share good news with our friends. Not be the”downer” who’s “complaining” about his love life. I’ve learned that it’s pretty easy to avoid hard or deep conversations with friends or fellow churchgoers.
But it is painful, yeah. Sometimes, in Christian communities, people can be dismissive about these sorts of challenges:
“Marriage is hard, you know.”
“Marriage isn’t going to fix you, you know.”
“Life isn’t a movie, you know.”
“Don’t look to marriage to fulfill you. Look to Jesus!”
etc., etc.
In church, you also hear lots of messages that involve warnings against “grumbling,” or “complaining.” Or issues like envy or comparison. Or “contentment.” And, perhaps, people clam up about their unfulfilled romantic desires because they don’t want to be accused of complaining. I’ve been there, certainly.
It’s good to talk about it, for sure, but we can make it hard, expecially at church. Like you said, we have to live in reality here.
The reason I’m so angry at a lot of Christians is they refuse to mourn with those who mourn. They tell us our loneliness and missing out on everything most of us want out of life is “God’s best for you and He only gives good gifts to His children.”
Meaning a painful lonely life is “God’s best” for people like me. And loneliness and endless tears are God’s ultimate good. Since sorrow and heartbreak are God’s ultimate good–the Greatest, most Wonderful, Delightful things ever–they must last forever. Nothing makes God happier than the Ultimate Good– inflicting lots and lots of PAIN on His least favorite children. How could the biblical Heaven with no tears exist if tears and suffering are God’s ultimate goal and favorite gift to lavish out upon many?
The answer is that I’ve been spoon fed malarkey by the Happy, Smiley, Joy-Joy crowd. It’s okay to cry. Joy does not require us to wear perpetual smiles and deny that pain and sadness exist. Church goers who try to shame us into acting like the Stepford Wives (1970’s movie) just don’t want to deal with our pain themselves. And they refuse to be honest since that wouldn’t “be nice.”
That’s why they lecture about how sinful bitterness is and offer stupid platitudes. Maybe sing, “A sunbeam. A sunbeam. I’ll be a sunbeam for Jesus.” “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.” Superficial relationships. No wonder so many are lonely even at church. And when pain comes into their lives–problems with their “perfect” Christian family perhaps–there is no one to hold them and weep with them as they weep.
I don’t understand the whole “God’s best for you” line. Lots of Christians assume that, because you’re single right now, it’s “God’s best for you.”
Why is that? How do they know? So your current situation is God’s best, automatically? What if I’m currently being abused? or dealing with loss? Or someone just attacked me or robbed me? Is that stuff “God’s best” for me right now, simply because it happened, or because He “allowed” it to happen? These ideas are so strange.
“Such and such a thing happened. So it must be part of God’s plan. We can’t understand God’s myterious ways, but it was Him.” OK? How do you know? Why do people say this stuff with such certainty? Because it makes them feel better? because they think they’re saying the Good Christian Thing?
Like you said, it’s easier to spout platitudes and clichés than it is to give you advice, or practical help, or a shoulder to cry on. All things we need when we’re unhappily single or lonely.
It’s hard, for sure.
Jesus wept at Lazarus’s grave even though He knew it had only been four days of grief for his family and soon they would rejoice as they held their brother again.
Jesus brought life from death. But the death was real. God can bring beauty from ashes but that does not make ashes beautiful.
The whole point to a miracle is that it defies what is. God brings good out of evil, but He does NOT smile upon the evil and call it good.
When people mourn things like childlessness, disability, loss of dreams, death of loved ones–it only makes sense to look to eternity. In this world it will never be made right. God does not call evil good or laugh at our tears. He bids us be patient and wait for the New World where our tears will be wiped away, there will be no more sorrow or loneliness, and all our deepest dreams will come true.