Sometimes I get emails from those of you who aren’t only single, but you’re also a mom. I want to tell you that I have so much respect for you. You are women who carry the parenting load of two people and seek to do so by honoring God fully with your lives. Being a single mom is the hardest subset of “singleness” and the hardest subset of “motherhood” by far.
When I get your emails I want to speak truth-filled words of encouragement and hope to you. I want to tell you how much God loves you and how He has not forgotten you. However, even though my words are sincere, they still feel hollow because I have not experienced single motherhood.
She was wearing a black fleece and jogging pants the last time she saw her ex-boyfriend in person. He came over to her townhouse to break the news gently. As he walked out the door she thought she’d never see him again. Then he showed up in her living room five years later – this time on her computer screen.
Like some of you, social media is a fairly new dimension of my adult life. I got my first Facebook account when I was 32 years old. For those of you in your 20’s, you may not know an adult life without social media. Regardless, social media has changed relationships with all people – including relationships with past boyfriends.
Like the story above suggests, before when you broke up with a guy and closed the door that final time, it was the last time. Now you have direct access to him at all times through your computer screen. So what might you do? You might search for him, look at his pictures, analyze his post, daydream about the “what if’s?” and “why not’s?”, and possibly even work yourself into a depression.
Friends, whether you realize this or not, this is a form of adultery. I know, you may think I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It is a form of adultery, and it’s even a form of adultery for you, a single woman.
For most of my life I have felt like I have no one. Sure, I have people around me. Both of my parents stayed married, and I have friends. However, even though God has blessed me abundantly in many ways, giving me mature, godly, older women who can disciple and mentor me has not been one of them.
I would be lying to you if I told you this doesn’t make me sad and leave me bitter. It does. However, I’ve learned the solution for when you feel you have no one. I’m sharing it today for Single Saturdays at Woman to Woman Ministries. Please join me there and find out what you can do, too, when you have no one.
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?
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