There is no doubt in my mind that God has called me to mentor young women, especially young, single women.However, even though I know I am called, rarely do I feel qualified.
You see, I am no longer single. Now I am a married woman of six years, in my late 30’s, and I have a toddler girl. So I ask myself: Am I still qualified to speak into these women’s lives? Can I relate to them anymore? Am I relevant enough? Or “cool” enough – whatever that means?
Recently I had the privilege to share my answers to these questions in a devotional at EncouragementCafe.com.Join me there, and learn how yes, I am made to be a mentor, and regardless of where you are in your life, you are too!
Have you ever thought about mentoring a younger woman? What holds you back?
Image courtesy of OhMega1982 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I know what you may be thinking. Why do I need to read a chapter about marriage when I’m single? Well, you need this chapter just as much as anyone because you are in a prime position to shape your thoughts, beliefs, and convictions about marriage before you get married which will lead you to make wise choices and build a healthy foundation.
Do any of these lies resonate with you? I suspect the first one might.
I must have a husband to be happy.
It is my responsibility to change my mate.
My husband is supposed to serve me.
If I submit to my husband, I’ll be miserable.
If my husband is passive, I’ve got to take the initiative, or nothing will get done.
Sometimes divorce is a better option than staying in a bad marriage.
I want to camp out of the first lie for most of this post; however, I want to point out that “signs” that you believe the other lies about marriage do begin to show up and take root in your dating relationships. How often do you desire or even try to change your boyfriend? Do you have visions of a dream house, dream car, dream kids, dream vacations along with a housekeeper and nanny? That could be a form of believing that your husband is supposed to serve you to provide all of those things. And then there’s the dreaded “s” word that our culture has totally taken out of context and trampled – submission. What are your thoughts about that? Spend some time really examining these topics.
Okay, the lie “I must have a husband to be happy”.
When I was single, and I looked into my future, I could not imagine a life without a husband. It was like looking into oblivion, my thoughts couldn’t even perceive what that would look like. This was so much the case that I purposely did not pray for God to change my heart, if it were His will, and take away my desire for marriage. I was afraid that He’d actually do it, and then where would I be?
This is a lie that is easy to believe because as a single woman with an intense, good desire for marriage, you can’t imagine a satisfied, content life without it. The problem with this is that we begin to see marriage as a right and not as a gift. Then, after we’re married, the lie “I must have a husband to be happy” morphs into the lie “My husband is supposed to make me happy.” In both cases, our happiness is dependent on something other than God, so it is displaced. This leads to impossible expectations and feelings from your husband of being used and emotionally suffocated. No human being can make us happy. By expecting him to do so, we are asking him to be a kind-of god to us.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes on pages 137 and 140:
“Satan twists the Truth about marriage by suggesting to women that the purpose of marriage is personal happiness and fulfillment, and that they cannot be truly happy without a husband to love them and meet their needs. The Truth is that happiness is not found in (or out of) marriage; it is not found in any human relationship. True joy can only be found through Christ.”
The purpose of marriage is not to make us happy. The purpose of marriage is to glorify God through our lives together – to serve Him in a specific way in the unity as a married couple that we could not as two single people.
“The Truth is that God has promised to give us everything we need, and if He knows a husband would make it possible for us to bring greater glory to Him, then He will provide a husband.” Lies Women Believe, p. 140
What are your thoughts about these lies about marriage?
A few months ago I received an email asking me if I wanted to host a giveaway for Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl. The moment I read the title I thought to myself, “I could have written that book!” Yes, I was a boy-crazy girl to say the least! Then I read the subtitle, and it described me even more – “On Her Journey from Neediness to Freedom.” Believe it or not, that describes me, too. Even though I’m married, I’ve been slow to learn those hard lessons of neediness, which is really a form of idolatry. That’s why I consider myself a “recovering single.” I sure wish I had this book several years ago.
This week in our study of Lies Women Believe, we’re moving away from three foundational lies women believe – Lies about God, Lies about Themselves, and Lies about Sin – and we’re moving into more practical lies women believe. The first are lies women believe about priorities.
Do you believe any of these lies about your priorities?
I don’t have time to get everything done I’m supposed to do.
I can make it without consistent time in the Word and prayer.
A career outside the home is more valuable and fulfilling than being a wife and mother.
Personally, I struggle with the first two at times. The third one I’ve never really bought into. However, I feel the pull from our culture to start believing it all the time.
I want to talk to my single readers right now because you may be thinking, “Why do I need to even be thinking about being a wife and mother when I’m not a wife or mother?” Well, this is why.
Since I was a little girl I wanted to be a full-time homemaker. I also wanted to go to college, but I didn’t plan to climb the corporate ladder. Even from that early age I had (and still have) very strong convictions about staying at home and raising your children full-time.
I majored in education and became a teacher because I thought that would be the best career for a family just in case I wasn’t able to stay home; you can leave at 3:30 everyday and you get summers and holidays off. Well, I didn’t pray about this decision (which is another blog post for another day), and I quickly learned that even though my top spiritual gift is teaching, I hated teaching children in public schools. I know I shouldn’t use the word “hate”, but I really can’t think of a better word. It was rough.
I was a single woman late into my twenties and into my thirties, so I taught to support myself, and ended up teaching for 13 years. Finally, my dream was coming true. In my late 30’s I was married and expecting our baby girl. I was going get to be the full-time homemaker I always wanted to be. Except for one small problem.
My husband didn’t want me to stay home with our baby girl. He wanted me to work outside the home. The idea of staying home was foreign to him. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Why didn’t you talk about that before you got married?” Well, you’re right, and again that’s another blog post for another day. I did mention it when we were dating, but I didn’t make my convictions about staying at home with our children clear enough.
So why do you, as a single woman, need to think and pray about your role as a wife and mother and your career? Because when you are headed towards marriage, these questions will be important, and you will need to know where you stand on them apart from the influence of love. And even after you’re married you will find that the voices about women’s roles inside and outside of the home are loud. If you don’t know what God has called you to do, then you may begin believing the lie that a career outside the home is more valuable and fulfilling than being a wife and mother.
“However, according to 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, women who are unmarried are still called to be ‘homemakers,’ though in a different sense. They are to devote their energies and efforts to building the household of faith; they are to live selfless lives that revolve not around their own interests and aspirations, but around Christ and His kingdom.” Lies Women Believe, p. 127
What do you think? Do you struggle with any of these lies about priorities?
So often my prayers contradict themselves. For instance, I ask God to give me patience while at the same time praying that there’s not a line at the grocery store. The circumstance that God may want to use to answer my first prayer, I’m asking Him to not use in my second prayer.
Only recently did I realize that this is what I did as a single woman, too.
Right after the little plastic stick told me there would be a baby, the next question consumed me. “Is it a boy or a girl?” Those roughly 16 weeks before we knew the answer were the longest. They were also a time of self-discovery.
Whenever someone asked me if I wanted a boy or a girl, I hesitated. I knew the politically correct answer. I knew I couldn’t reveal the truth, and in some ways I didn’t want to just in case it got back to my child one day. At the same time it felt good to be honest. Honesty helped me to work through my emotions. Honesty allowed me to let go of my secret.
I’m sharing this story of why I asked God for a baby girl today at Mothers of Daughters. Please join me to find out what God taught me through asking Him for a daughter.
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