For many of the people who know me well, this headline is probably a surprising one.
You see, I grew up in the Bible belt. I went to church regularly, was homeschooled through most of grade school, and attended a private Christian highschool. I went to Christian church camps, youth groups, concerts, conferences, and even a pre-college Christian camp.
Let me put it this way: I've heard the "Christian girl singleness talk" a lot of times. And to be honest, it resonated with me. Until I came to college.
During the first month of college, I experienced a life re-evaluation, so to speak. The Lord broke my heart in many ways as I had a constant front-row seat to my peers searching for joy and fulfillment in all the wrong places. The fact is that everyone comes to college searching for something.
We are convinced that college will somehow fill whatever hole we think we have. For a lot of us, it's relationships. Although the search for a significant other looks different in Christian circles, I realized that the motives aren't terribly different.
I realized that no matter how religiously (pun intended) I use the word "Christian" as an adjective, stuff is still just stuff. My dreams are still self-centered, even if Christ is a big piece of the puzzle for me.
Christian youth and college ministry naturally focus a lot on relationships. They talk about the difficulty of singleness, but "encourage" us by promising that God is using the season of singleness to prepare us to be kind of spouse He desires (or worse, "needs") us to be.
Excuse me, but where in the Bible does it say that? Where does it promise a relationship? Where does it say that your life builds up to one?
Are any of the specific routes for "preparing to be a good spouse" wrong? Not necessarily. I'm simply suggesting a heart check. No matter what my future looks like, I know that my purpose is to follow the Lord and share Him with the people I encounter. My calling is evangelism, and so is yours.
Paul talks about how beautiful singleness is in his first letter to the Corinthians. He even states that singleness is preferable to marriage. Why? Because, as a single person, you are able to wholly devote yourself to the Lord's service; in marriage, a good chunk of your time is spent serving your spouse.
I don't think Paul would be telling modern-day Christian singles to focus on preparing for marriage, Godly or otherwise. I think he would urge us to jump wholeheartedly into serving Jesus and serving others. I don't think he would urge us to spend all of our prayers, Bible studies, church services, and discipleship time in focus on marriage.
Marriage is beautiful. It is a blessing. But it is not the whole story. It isn't the end of the strory, and it certainly isn't the beginning of the story, either. The fact is that marriage is a tool to demonstrate the love Christ has for the church. Marriage should advance the kingdom of God. Singleness should advance the kingdom of God. Whatever your life looks like, you should be focused on advancing the kingdom. So should I.
It has always bothered me that the divorce rate in the church is no lower than the national divorce rate. Why is this? At first glance, it doesn't make much sense. But when I realized that many of us in the church have a sugarcoated, Jesus-flavored version of the same motivation that the world has for marriage, it makes total sense.
Our natural desires are self-serving. We want to be loved. We want to be fulfilled by another person. We want a partner in reaching goals we have in our lives (this is where a lot of that sugarcoating comes in). We glamorize and mischaracterize marriage in a way that is injurious to our future relationships. We are dissatisfied because we make it all about us, instead of all about Christ, and what He wants to do through us.
Don't get me wrong - I am a strong believer in the beauty, sanctity, and value of marriage. I have always wanted to get married one day, and still hope for that. That desire is God-given and beautiful. But the Lord has showed me that using Christian as an adjective simply isn't enough. He wants our hearts first and completely. He wants our focus.
So, I'm not preparing to be a Godly wife. I'm preparing to be a Godly woman who strives to serve the Lord in all she does. I am confident that God will do the rest - according to His own plan, and in His own timing.
