A lot of Christian leaders have been talking about sex lately. The publicity has generated a great deal of conversation–some good, some not so good–as Christians continue to learn about godly sexuality and its proper place in the Christian life.

As important as it is to have these conversations and to seek greater understanding, these discussions can also present a bit of a challenge to single people. When Christians talk about sex in the same way as non-Christians–namely by elevating it to the position of a basic necessity and touting its nirvana-like pleasure–I am not sure we are serving single Christians in their call to chastity.

This week, Matthew Lee Anderson wrote a terrific article for Christianity Today about this community component to our language about sex. In it he addressed the contribution that singles bring to these discussions when he wrote:

Just as importantly, learning how sexuality is a community concern gives a voice to those who are frequently ignored when the topic arises: those who are single, and especially singles who may be called to that state. It’s paradoxical, of course, to think that those who might never have sex have something to teach the married about it. But within the community of the church, single people have an indispensible role in reminding the married that for all its joys and pleasures, life without sex is not one of drudgery or disappointment.

The perspective Anderson offers here is a great reminder of how lop-sided our conversations about sex will become if we exclude particular voices in the church. When married couples alone are the key leaders and thinkers on this issue, it is possible that we can develop an understanding of sex that is somewhat distorted.

For instance, in our exaltation of sex and its many benefits, great sex is sometimes described as a reward for godly married couples. Some of this logic comes from married couples who regret their past sexual impurity and the baggage it brought into their marriage. They wish they had waited and they encourage young Christians to make different choices. In addition to these testimonies, married Christians who enjoy sex appeal to it as a primary motivator for right behavior. Some teachers promise that abstinence prior to marriage is a guarantee of great married sex. If you can wait it out, it will be worth it.

To be sure, sex before marriage can result in a lot of baggage. Sin always has consequences, a principle that is repeatedly emphasized in the book of Proverbs. Likewise, righteousness undoubtedly bears fruits.

However, the logic behind this approach to abstinence has a number of problems. First, it’s simply not true. Abstinence does not guarantee good sex. Just before my husband walked into the church on our wedding day, my pastor said to him, “Prepare to have the worst sex of your life.” By this he meant that no one is a pro at first. For a lot of married couples, sex has a slow learning curve and it takes time to really enjoy it. For most people, it’s not mind-blowing the first time–or the 20th.

Add to that learning curve the component of personal hang-ups. Some Christians struggle to transition from abstinence to having regular sex. Many women are insecure about their bodies and have trouble being intimate. For other women it is physically painful, and for some men the drive isn’t always there.

Contrary to television, sex is complicated and each couple’s sexual relationship will have its own unique challenges. Fortunately, in marriage we have our whole lives to learn about one another, to trust one another, and to grow with one another in this area. Even when a couple struggles with their sexual relationship, that commitment to struggle together is part of the beauty of sex.

Returning to the logic of reward for abstinence, there is an additional problem with it that goes beyond it’s logistical fallacies: The purpose of abstinence is not to have great sex. The purpose of abstinence is to honor God with our bodies. Our bodies do not belong to us but to God alone, so we are to live as stewards of our God-given bodies prior to marriage and within the bonds of marriage.

Toward that end, sex is an echo of the great and mysterious relationship between Christ and the church. When we join ourselves to another in sexual intimacy, we reflect the perfect intimacy between God and His people. That is our created purpose, and that is the proper category in which sex belongs, before anything else.

All of that to say, sex is not an ultimate good. When married couples speak as though it is we set singles up to feel bitter toward God for withholding such an ultimate blessing. We also tempt singles to treat sex the way the culture does–as a basic right that they should not be expected to live without.

But the purpose of sex is not to serve ourselves. The created purpose of sex is to reflect the intimacy between Christ and the church within the relationship of Christian marriage.

Let me close by suggesting that contrary to popular opinion, single people should not be dependent upon married people to develop a robust theology of sex. Yes, singles should certainly listen to married couples–otherwise they would be excluding a great majority of teachings from the church. However, the two greatest Christian teachers of all time were both single and that is a tradition we should continue. From Jesus and Paul we know that one does not have to be married to have a godly understanding of sexuality. In fact, we need the voices of single people if we are to understand sexuality properly. And we need single people if we are to conduct these conversations in a way that edifies the entire body, not just married people.

Single brothers and sisters, the church needs you. When it comes to discussions about sex, your voice matters.

One of my favorite stories from my years as a college minister came out of a conversation with a Freshman girl about singleness. We both sat in my office as she bemoaned the fact that she’d never had a boyfriend, and wondered aloud if she would EVER get married.

At the time, I was newly engaged at the age of 28. I proceeded to tell her the story of my journey through singleness, the good times and the bad. Sure, there were seasons of sadness and uncertainty, but throughout it all I had determined not to waste my singleness.

My motto as a single woman was, “No regrets!” I wanted to do as much as I could for God and His church, and experience as many things as possible in His amazing creation while I had the luxury of such freedom and time. I didn’t want to get married one day, only to look back on those years with regret. I wanted to make the most of it–and I did! I traveled the world on missions trips, got a Master’s degree, became a college minister, discipled lots of college women at my church, mentored a local teen for 8 years, and made amazing friends. I had a lot to show for those years, and I didn’t regret a thing.

I shared my testimony with my distressed student, hoping it might inspire her. “My single years were actually pretty great!” I concluded. “I wouldn’t change a thing!”

For a moment, she processed my words silently, then slowly got up to leave for her next class. But just before she closed the door behind her, she wheeled around and exclaimed, “I just hope I don’t have to wait until I am 28. That would be HORRIBLE!”

End scene.

That story makes me laugh every time I think about it. But the reality is that singleness is very difficult, especially for women entering their 30′s and 40′s. As each new friend gets married and that pool of single friends grows smaller, it can be genuinely terrifying. I don’t want to make light of that.

Married Christians have a tendency to talk about singleness as a “gift,” but it is often a gift that nobody wants, like a pink knitted teddy bear sweater from your Great Aunt Pearl. I therefore realize the risk I am taking with this blog post and I am not trying to sound like a smug married woman who knows better. That said, if you are single and have never had children, I encourage you to use the freedom this season affords. I don’t know what the future holds for you, but in the mean time I hope you will pursue God with abandon. I hope you will drain the marrow out of life so that whenever you look back, you can proudly proclaim that you were a good steward of the unique resources you had.

This year I will attend two different weddings for close friends marrying in their late 20′s. This same year, I had two friends in their mid 30′s who got engaged. Another woman in my church got married for the first time in her 40′s. I share these stories, not to strike fear in the hearts of you ladies in your 20′s who want to get married now, but as a reminder that every woman’s path is different. You don’t know when you will get married, so I hope you will not miss out on the special missions of ministry God has for you today because you are too busy looking ahead.

While I know that is easy for me to say now that I’m married, I also say it as a woman who is still learning to find contentment in the here and now. It is a lesson that will follow you the rest of your life until you learn it. Whether you are single or married, we all find ourselves tempted to worry about tomorrow. That’s why Jesus warned us against it in Matthew 6:34–he was protecting us from ourselves. We get so caught up wanting a boyfriend, wanting to get engaged, wanting to finish school, wanting to have a baby, wanting to live in a house instead of an apartment, waiting for that next big thing. But it never satisfies, and it produces a life defined by waiting, bitterness, and never fully living. Which is why, dear sister, I hope you will avoid that trap and truly live!

In verse 33 of that same chapter, just before Jesus cautions us against worrying, he exhorts us to “seek first His kingdom.” Seek FIRST His kingdom–that is your priority for today. Don’t worry about tomorrow, just seek first His kingdom today. Figure out what divine appointments and special blessings God has for you on this day. Whether you are single or jobless or struggling with infertility, seek Him today. Be on the look out for what He has for you and embrace it. Live each day with no regrets, and those days will add up to a lifetime of radical devotion to Christ and amazing adventures along the way.

Last night Ike and I got to have dinner with one of our single guy friends, and over the course of the meal the conversation drifted to the topic of dating. I’ve only been married a year so I remember the ups and downs of the dating world well. Over the years I’ve had my share of break-ups, and I’ve also comforted a lot of broken-hearted friends. It’s definitely tough out there, and unfortunately “Christian” dating is not tremendously easier than any other kind.

Aside from the fact that we’re all imperfect human beings struggling to think clearly when our emotions are raging, it’s hard to pinpoint the one thing that makes dating so hard. To be sure, there are a lot of different factors in any given situation that can trip people up. But the more I think about it and the more I process my own experiences, it’s clear that one of the main contributors to dating speed bumps and train wrecks is sheer cowardice.

Just think about it–how often do men creep into a relationship slowly and confusingly instead of stating their intentions clearly? How often do women lie to men or coldly reject their advances, instead of gently and clearly explaining that they just want to be friends? How many men and women delay a difficult conversation because they like the attention they’re receiving, even if they have no intention of actually dating their pursuer? And how many men and women don’t have the guts to break up with their boyfriends or girlfriends, so they stop returning phone calls and try to gradually fade out?

There are so many ways that cowardice rears its ugly head in dating relationships. We don’t often recognize it as fear because it’s usually masked as “compassion”–we don’t want to hurt the person. Unfortunately our cowardice only ends up hurting them more. It’s a double insult: on top of rejection there is now disrespect.

It’s important to own up to this cowardice, but the language we use about dating often inhibits personal responsibility. It is instead common to speak in generalizations: “All men are dogs” or “All women are crazy” or “I’m always the friend but never the girlfriend or boyfriend.” This language has got to stop. It’s neither accurate nor Scriptural. All of us, at some time or another, has screwed up in some magnificent way along the dating path. So when we’re tempted to place blame on the opposite sex for being particularly confusing or ridiculous, Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 are a helpful directive:

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (v. 3-5)

Like the rest of the Christian life, it’s easy to focus on how we’ve been wronged while overlooking the many times we have wronged others. Dating is no exception. So with that in mind, the rest of what I’m going to say is directed specifically at women and it deals with your personal responsibility in dating. Many of us have been injured, but we have also inflicted injury, and we need to be honest about that fact.

So to begin, one of the primary reasons women get frustrated with guys is their lack of clear intentions. Many single women yearn for men who will “man up” and just ask them out. However as soon as a guy steps up to the task, he is likely to get shot down. Why? Become women don’t want just any guy asking them out–they want the right guy.

That is a common pattern among women and it is extremely discouraging to godly men. It not only sends mixed messages but is exacerbated by the fact that women won’t own up to it. After complaining that guys aren’t initiating, women find ways to weasel out of dates when the “wrong” guys ask them out.

Of course, some of this behavior stems from a desire to spare the guy’s feelings, but it can actually be more insulting to men when we treat them like fragile baby birds. They’re not gonna break and they’re not gonna cry. We need to be kind but we also need to treat them like the men that they are. After all, if they had the courage to ask you out in a gentlemanly way, they’ve earned a little respect.

One big question in all of this is WHY women freak out so much. Why can’t we respectfully decline like a mature adult ? (And I am here speaking of appropriate advances from men, not inappropriate ones) Well I have a theory. One of the reasons women get so wigged out when a guy shows them unwanted attention is that women assume men think like they do. When a woman crushes on a guy, she’s likely to get carried away by her imagination, dreaming about all the reasons why they’d be perfect together and  how awesome their lives would be if they got married. However, I’m not sure that most men think that way. Sure there are probably some guys who get just as carried away as we do, but I suspect a lot of guys are thinking, “Hey, she’s cute. I’d like to take her to dinner.” Period.

Women need to beware of assuming too much about interested men, and consequently raising the stakes to a frightful level. Asking for a date is not a marriage proposal. If you can keep that perspective in mind and maintain a cool head, you’re much more likely to respond as a responsible, godly women instead of making bad decisions out of fear.

With all of that in mind, I want to close with a final verse that speaks beautifully into this situation. It comes from 1 Peter 3:3-6 and advises the following:

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.”

The examples of women like Sarah (Abraham’s wife) remind us that sin is not far behind when fear takes the driver’s seat. We cannot let fear determine the way we treat others. Fear results in a fight or flight response. It causes us to lash out or trample feelings. It is not guided by wisdom or truth. And it is certainly not guided by love.

So if you’re reading this and you’re in the throes of the dating process, I truly sympathize. It is HARD and it is scary! But please don’t sin in your struggle. Respect your brothers and treat them as the wonderfully made members of the church that they are. Honor them according to the image of God in them. Be courageous. Anyone can date badly, but it takes a woman of real character, strength and devotion to Christ to date well.

Last week I was directed to a blog post written by a single woman about her struggle to live without physical intimacy in her life. Not only was the post refreshingly transparent, but it was also a helpful reminder to me as a now married woman. I still remember sitting in a Bible study full of married women, myself a single woman, as each member of the group bemoaned the chore of having sex with her husband. When they turned to me and apologized, “Oh sorry, Sharon! You must feel so awkward right now!” I replied, “Actually, I’m trying to figure out what you all are complaining about.”

It’s easy to take the comforts of marriage for granted. It’s also easy to forget the great struggles of being single. I hope the following excerpt will be an encouragement to those who find yourself at in the same place as the author. I also hope it will serve as an important reminder to those of us who seek to love you.

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In our culture it seems ‘healthy’ or ‘normal’ when women desire sex as a means to emotional intimacy.  But no one believes that a woman could struggle with the purely physical.  So, I’ll go ahead and put this blog out there just in case it might be an encouragement.  This struggle has provided for me the biggest challenge and deepest ‘suffering’ of singleness.

I believe that one day, I will look at my life and say with confidence that the single greatest blessing I have experienced of singleness has been pain of learning to live without physical intimacy.

Part of why it’s been so painful is it is probably the struggle that has confused me most.  It’s been (and is) a pretty hard sell to get my body on board with the idea that I’m not missing out on what I was created for.  It’s challenging to not feel entitled.  And in a moment of absolute vulnerability, it’s one of the things that has made it the hardest to trust my sweet and faithful God.  And in some ways – in dark and frightened places – I feel forgotten and betrayed and confused.

Because I know He knows me. I know He knows my body and my heart and I know He designed and wired this desire inside of me in the same way He wired my belly to grumble slightly around 11:02 AM.  My hunger is designed to prompt me to eat.  And so I do.  And yet, my Father has told me that when I am hungry in this sense I must trust Him and not find food for myself.  And He has seen fit not to give me any guarantee that this hunger will ever be satisfied.

There is pain.  There is pain in watching my friends be fed one after another with the thing I feel like I need the most.  There is pain in facing each morning with the knowledge that today there will be no daily bread for this hunger.  There is pain as I sit, feeling as though I am starving to death, and listen to my married friends try to explain to me that eating is overrated. [Emphasis added]

And the truth is: this is the biggest blessing of my life.

You know what it makes me think about?  Fasting.  Fasting is strange.  I think it’s weird that God is about physical fasting.  It involves a need that is seemingly purely physical.

When I am lonely, I ultimately want God.  When I am sad, only God can bring true joy.  When I am afraid, it points me to the promises of God.  When I feel rejected, unwanted, unloved, alone, in all these needs, God alone will bring true and lasting peace.

But, when I’m hungry, I want a cheeseburger and some fries.

Physical desires seemingly terminate on physical things.  And that’s the beauty of fasting.  God commands us to fast, not so that He can prove He is as good as a cheeseburger by making our hunger go away. God commands us to fast so that we learn to feel hungry and trust Him in the midst of that gnawing sense of need.

The goal of fasting is not for God to remove our hunger, but for us to learn that in the midst of hunger He is trustworthy.  The feeling of hunger is the point of the fast.  God wants us to feel hunger so that we are reminded that we are not supposed to be satisfied and we are supposed to long for Him.  We fast to reflect that we trust God regardless of what our bodies tell us.  He is our authority, not our bodies.

Today, my body wants something tangible and physical.  My body doesn’t know that God will satisfy all my needs.  It just wants what it was made to have.  And today, I don’t get to have that.  And so the line is drawn in the sand and the challenge is made.  Today, what will be my source of truth?  Who will be the one who determines what I need?  My body?  Or my God?  Who knows my needs better?  Me or Jesus?  When I feel so clearly what I ‘need’, will I trust Him that there is a greater need?  Will I learn to be hungry so that I can trust Him in hunger, not just in plenty?

There is no area in my life that makes me more likely to doubt the promises of God than this area.  I have told friends through tears that many days I do not feel like I have everything I need for life and godliness because of this.  I do not know how I am going to persevere in light of my hunger and in light of my Father’s gracious call to purity.

And so, this pain, more than anything else will teach me to trust.  Each day, as the sun goes down and I still find myself securely held in the arms of the Father, my faith is built.    He doesn’t promise to give me everything I need to never be hungry.  He promises to give me everything I need to not starve to death on the road home to Him.  And today I’m alive; He has proved Himself faithful.  He doesn’t promise to give me everything I need to never ever falter.  He promises to give me everything I need to finish this race.  And today I love Him; He has proved Himself faithful.  He will finish the good work He began in me.  There is only one thing I really need.  And it is secure.

To read the rest of this post, click here.

I will be out of the country just a few more days, and during this time I’ve really enjoyed revisiting some of my older posts, especially from my days as a single gal. Below is a post I wrote to challenge myself in my season of singleness, but I honestly find it to be just as great a challenge today. Regardless of where you are in life, we can all learn from the triumphs and mistakes of Eve.

Eve is a unique character in the Bible. She is unique in that she is frequently referenced as a prototype for ALL women. The rest of the women in the Bible are used to highlight certain attributes of women (with the exception of the Proverbs 31 woman, perhaps), but Eve embodies them all. She is the source of all womanhood, so Scripture and Church tradition alike have looked to her as a model for what women should, and should not, do. For this reason, Christian women throughout the Church’s history have looked at Eve for direction and identity. She was the first woman, and is therefore the definitive woman.

With all of that in mind, I was deeply dismayed when I came to a startling realization: Eve was never single. Eve was the prototype for all women who followed her, yet her life was defined by only two key phases: marriage and motherhood. She was created into marriage, therefore by-passing singleness, so the only way we ever really talk about Eve is in relation to Adam. In fact, her first sin was in being independent from Adam.

So if Eve is the definitive woman, and her entire life is articulated in light of her relationship to Adam, how are we single gals to relate? Does this mean we are only fully women once we get married and start having babies? Surely that can’t be true since God does not ordain that all women get married. That being said, what does Eve’s life have to say about singleness? How are we to understand Eve’s life in a way that embodies ALL women, no matter their stage in life?

The answer to this question can be found by shifting the way in which we look at Eve’s life. Instead of dividing her life into the two stages of marriage and motherhood, we must divide her life between the stages of obedience and disobedience, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, Paradise and Fallenness. There was the period of time in which she lived in perfect bliss with Adam, and the time in which she lived in sin outside the Garden. It is these two stages, rather than marriage and motherhood, that are the most important stages in Eve’s life, and the two stages that we women need to note.

Why is such a shift in perspective necesssary? Because communion with God will always and forever be more important than marriage and motherhood. Marriage and motherhood are gifts, as well as a means for serving God, but they do not make us who we are. God alone determines that. Our identity as women comes first and foremost from our relationship with God, not a husband or any other man, and that is the bridge with which all women can connect with Eve.

With that in mind, Eve is the definitive woman in that her life illustrates two types of womanhood: a woman in pursuit of God, or a woman in disobedience to God. In the Garden of Eden, Eve’s happiness was primarily connected to her relationship with God. After the Fall, her unhappiness was a direct result of her alienation from God. In a sense, Adam’s presence was merely circumstantial. Yes, the way in which she related to Adam was a way of honoring God, but ultimately it was all about God, Adam or not.

This, then, is what women are to learn from Eve: No matter where you are in life, single, or married, your primary concern is God. Ultimately, nothing else defines you as a woman except your discipleship. You are the fullest embodiment of a woman when you are submitting yourself to God in all that you do. You will also be most content when you are obedient to Him. We see what this kind of womanhood looks like in the Garden, and we see what fallen womanhood looks like after the Garden. And in addition to that, we are reminded that there is a danger in defining yourself any other way. If you think Christ-centered womanhood only comes with marriage and motherhood, then you commit the same sin as Eve: finding your identity in something other than God.

Thus Eve’s life is a reminder to us all, regardless of where we are in life. It is comforting for us singles, reassuring us that we are just as much women as anyone else, but it is also a form of accountability for wives and mothers, for whom it is easy to get swept up in the commitments of those roles. Neither singleness, marriage or motherhood make us women. God alone can make us into the women He created us to be, so it is a waste to seek for our identities in anything else.

Recently I’ve been doing some investigative research into the male mind. What I’ve learned has important implications for my single readers, but it impacts married people as well. It all began a few months ago when I saw a movie with my husband in which a number of married men were discussing whether the “highlight reel” constituted cheating. I honestly wasn’t sure what they were talking about, so I brushed it off and never thought about it again.

Until last week. I was sitting in a waiting room so I picked up a magazine and began thumbing through it. I stumbled upon an article that was written by a man, explaining to women the phenomenon of the “highlight reel.” He referenced the movie that I’d seen several months prior, and he explained it like this:

The highlight reel is a series of visual memories of past intimate encounters with other women. Unfortunately, the highlight reel is most frequently used to stimulate a man when he is being intimate with his wife (or committed partner). In fact, the writer of the article (who was not a Christian) said that for most men, this practice is the rule, not the exception. And what was particularly interesting about his article is that he specified the reel’s “contents” as primarily being composed of memories from past relationships, not random visual images of women they’d seen on t.v.

After reading this article I decided to ask my own husband if this was true. Do men really do this? My husband confessed that it’s an ever-present temptation, but for men like him it is only that: a temptation. He works hard to guard against allowing those images to creep in when he is trying to focus on me alone. Even so, the temptation is there.

Having this information, I first wanted to share it with my single friends who are navigating the rough waters of physical intimacy before marriage. Until you have actually said the words “I do,” you don’t know if the person you are with is the person you will actually marry. Which means you risk featuring yourself on the highlight reel of some other person’s marriage. But even more troubling is that your physical intimacy before marriage will haunt you later on in your own marriage as well. For men, it is a constant struggle to command your thoughts and be present with your wife. For women, the memories of past physical relationships can also be a problem in the bedroom but in an entirely different way. Unlike men, who have to resist using these images to excite themselves, the memories of the past often have the reverse effect on a woman’s arousal: hitting the breaks.

So if you want to guard against the ghosts of boyfriends and girlfriends past, watch what you do now. You cannot unsee things. Once they enter your brain, they are there forever.

And in case it’s unclear why this is such a big deal, the first reason is obvious–it is extremely hurtful if your partner is mentally with someone else while you are together. But the main reason the highlight reel is so dangerous is that it hinders intimacy. Not only does it bring other people into a space that is designed for a husband and wife to share alone, but it also invites a standard of comparison. Intimacy cannot thrive if a man (or woman) is constantly comparing their spouse to past partners, even if the comparison is unintentional.

Unlike the writer of the article, who felt this phenomenon was completely natural and that us women should not be threatened by it, he is sorely mistaken, if not grossly naive. The highlight reel is just one example of why sin is so dangerous. It is not a finite action that we can tuck away and forget about when it’s over. Sin is like a virus that affects every part of your life, and though it may sometimes lie dormant for a time, it will always cause sickness and harm. So if you’re single, guard your future marriage today. And if you’re married, encourage your husband in this battle by guarding what you watch on t.v. and in movies. No matter where you are on the relationship spectrum, be the kind of sister in Christ who encourages her brothers to think only on that which is noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. (Phil. 4:8) It is a call that begins in singleness, but will continue the rest of your life.

One of the things I have appreciated most from my husband is the knowledge that he’s always in my corner. No matter what people say to me or about me, I can always trust that he’s got my back. It’s not that he’s a passive yes-man who tells me what I wanna hear–I can also trust him to be honest. But he’s my personal pep talker. He builds me up and affirms me in all that I do. He helps me to hope and persevere. He speaks truth into my mind and my heart.

As a warrior in a spiritual battle, having a spouse is a major asset. You’re fighting alongside one another, you can protect one another, pick one another up when you fall, and help one another to heal.

Knowing this, I’ve been convicted about the vulnerability of my single friends, who don’t have this same built-in support system. At least, not as frequently. I was reminded of this yesterday as I listened to one of my single friends confess her struggles and pains. She was tempted to believe a whole host of lies about herself, but she lives alone so she is often isolated with these thoughts. Whereas my husband is always right next to me helping me to combat the lies I am tempted to believe, my friend doesn’t have the same resource. As a result, she’s been a lot more vulnerable to attack.

As I listened to her, I was struck by the significance of the marital language used to describe Christ’s relationship with his church. My husband models that relationship for me every day, but not everyone has a supportive husband. In fact, not all married women have supportive husbands. It is in that gap that the church is supposed to step in. Our single friends should not be going it alone. They are still pursued by a Lover, and we serve as His hands and feet. While their relationship status might read “Single,” they’re not really single at all.

The only voice of support that really matters is Christ’s. My husband often serves as a vehicle for that voice, but husbands aren’t the only ones who can. The church can and should as well. As the hands of feet of Christ, we must do the work of the bridegroom in loving his bride. Countless women need to hear truth in the face of lies, insecurities and shame. We should be the bearers of that truth.

So if you have single friends, get involved in their lives! Know what’s going on with them. Don’t hole up in married world and shut them out. They need you as much as you need your husband. Speak truth to them and build them up. That is what it means to be the church to your single friends, so be there for them. Your husband may be your teammate, but we’re all soldiers in the same fight. Make sure you’re not sending your single friends out to battle alone.

Another popular post of mine deals with a very frequent practice among both single men and women. Because it’s so common, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback for helping provide it a name. I should also note that the anonymous friend mentioned at the start of this blog helped me to launch my new blog design!

I am blessed to have a friend in my life who is not inhibited by social graces like tact. If I ever need an opinion, I can depend on him to speak hard truth into my life, generally in the most blunt form possible. Fortunately, he is almost always dead-on in his observations, which is why I go back to him again and again, regardless of the form in which his wisdom is dispensed.

For example, he recently introduced me to a term that I have since found to be both descriptive and extremely accurate. The term is “girlfriend place-holder.”

According to my friend, a lot of guys will have a female friend in their life that functions as a girlfriend in virtually every way–they talk a lot, spend a great deal of one-on-one time together, even go on pseudo-dates and act flirtatious. For all intents and purposes it would seem that the guy is interested, yet he never actually wants to commit. In fact, he never even broaches the topic of dating.

Why? Because, as my friend describes it, this girl is serving as a “girlfriend place-holder.” Though probably doing so unintentionally, some guys will keep a female friend around to hold the place of a girlfriend. In a sense, they are filling their time until they meet the girl they *really* want to date.

As my friend explained it, we all want companionship in some form or another, so even if we haven’t met Mr. or Mrs. Right just yet, many of us will find someone to meet those desires until the “real thing” comes along. And guys aren’t the only ones guilty of doing this. Girls do it just as much. Ladies, I’m sure you can think back to someone in your past, if not someone RIGHT NOW, who is serving as a boyfriend place-holder for you. He’s great because he’ll pay for things when you go out, and he’s always available if you’re bored, but you have absolutely no intention of dating him.

What is interesting about this form of guy-girl relationship is that it is deceptively intimate. Unlike blatant serial flirting in which you can easily spot the players you need to avoid, place-holding seems more real and more deep. After all, it is based upon an actual friendship, so there is more to it than simply having fun.

And that is what often keeps the “place-holders” hanging on so long–because there is depth to the relationship, they hold out hope that sooner or later the guy or girl will snap out of it: “One of these days he’s going to wake up and realize what a good thing he has right in front of him.” That sort of thing. In this way, these relationships can actually result in far greater emotional damage than shallower versions of its kind. Place-holders will more easily open up and make themselves vulnerable since they feel they can trust the other person.

This ultimately leaves the “place-holder” feeling confused and hurt, and sometimes devastated. I have a number of girl friends right now who are in this exact situation. They have a close guy friend that they spend a great deal of time with, but he just won’t commit. In fact, he won’t even bring up any sort of conversation relating to the romantic nature of their relationship. Perhaps the guy is simply afraid of commitment, but in many cases, as my guy friend explains it, these guys have no intention of dating at all. They are unintentionally using these young women as girlfriend place-holders.

Now I think it’s pretty obvious that this kind of relationship is not honoring to the “place-holder” involved, so if you can think of someone in your life who plays that role, then you should seriously consider cutting it off. Even if you are both using each other, and neither person necessarily has the upper hand, you are still not treating them as the brother and sister in Christ that they are. And more importantly, if you think a guy or girl might be treating YOU as a place-holder, then get out of that relationship, and fast! That is NOT how God intended you to be treated–you are to be loved and desired extravagantly, so anyone who makes you feel inadequate or unworthy of love is falling way short of that mark.

In addition to all that, if you have a friend who is treating someone as a place-holder, call them out! Guys, don’t let your friends treat girls that way–if you look the other way when your friends do this, then you are no better than they are since you clearly don’t respect your sister enough to stand up for her. And ladies, the same goes for you. No guy deserves to be strung along, so hold your friends accountable on their behalf.

And finally, don’t forget to reflect on why it is you need a place-holder in the first place. God is always sufficient, so if He hasn’t provided you with a spouse yet, He is still more than enough for you to be content. At the end of the day, that is the key issue here, so be sure not to cover it up with a girlfriend or boyfriend place-holder. Place-holding is little more than the symptom of a dissatisfied heart.

As I continue my “Best of She Worships” week I thought I’d include a blog that is in the top 5 for one reason alone: It’s one of the most frequently googled questions that brings people to my blog. This is a big issue for single women who are wrestling with their futures, so I hope it can speak truth and encouragement into your heart if that’s where you find yourself now. And if you’re not one of those women, I urge you to be compassionate. Singleness can be a gift, but it can also be a challenge.

As a single woman, I remember going to Christian concerts or conferences or seminars in which I would watch a young, good looking guy on stage who seemed so in love with the Lord, and so passionate and articulate about his faith, that it made my heart flutter. THAT was the guy for me!

I just knew we were supposed to get married, and I day-dreamed about the way that we would meet–maybe he would see me across the lobby later on that night, be captivated by my beauty and just HAVE to talk to me. Or, he would see me in the audience, and I would look so worshipful and in love with God that he would know we were meant to be together. He’d never seen anyone look so beautiful as she worshiped God!

And we’d get married and travel the world together telling people about Jesus–maybe he would lead worship, and then I would be the main speaker at arena events. Kind of a Chris Tomlin-Beth Moore combo.That is how I knew my life would play out. That is, until I made the horrible discovery. I looked down at his hand, and there it was–a wedding ring.

My entire life plans were crushed in an instant.

As a result of experiences such as these, I frequently found myself asking, “Why are all the godly men already married?” I figured that there must have been some sort of fire sale while I was in college, and if you didn’t snatch up your husband then, the supply ran out. All that was left were the guys that nobody else wanted.

As a single woman, it’s very easy to feel this way, and to such an extent that it feels VERY real. In my more sane moments I knew that there were, in fact, plenty of solid, single Christian guys around, but it was on the lonely days that I genuinely feared there weren’t any left.

So in the face of this fear, on those days when it seems as though all the godly men have gone off and gotten married, leaving an over-abundance of single gals behind, how are women to respond?The first is to open your eyes and look around you. Maybe you don’t know any Chris Tomlin types, and maybe all the pastors at your church are married, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any godly, single men left. Being godly does not equal being on stage.

I have single guy friends who serve in the youth ministry, the college ministry, the children’s ministry, the new members ministry, organizing mission trips, and teaching Sunday school classes. Their jobs may be less visible, but their commitment to serve, even when it’s not glamorous, says a great deal about their character.

So on behalf of all my single guy friends who are totally on fire for the Lord, I’ve gotta give a shout out to them. Ladies, they are definitely out there, and they are DEFINITELY worth waiting for.

But the second thing you need to consider in the face of this fear is its root. Where is the fear coming from? To become so afraid of something that you begin to think irrationally is a clear indicator of a spiritual issue. Even if you are not controlled by this fear, even if you have only had this thought in passing, you need to take a good, hard look at it.What does this fear say about your belief that God is in control? Are you afraid that God wanted to provide you with a husband, but accidentally ran out of men? Does God only reward those women who go out and hunt for a husband early on? Or another thought I had as a young woman–was I not pretty enough to get married straight out of college?

All of these questions, and there are many more, are rooted in lies and misconceptions about God, and ourselves. We are not trusting that God will provide, and we are wondering if there is something inherently wrong with us. The fear that “all the godly men are married” is just a symptom of this spiritual confusion.

So if you find yourself asking this question, stop yourself and instead reflect upon why you are asking it. No, all the godly men are not married, and even if you don’t know a single Christian man in your entire city, if God wants you to get married then He is certainly capable of making that happen. After all, He pulled a rib out of Adam’s side to give him a mate, so I think God can handle your love life.

So the main question is whether you are being fulfilled in Christ NOW. As long as you allow that void in your heart to dwell, then those fears will continue to creep in on you. But if you fill that void with Christ, then those fears will have no foothold. You will simply have nothing to fear.

*And for further reading on this topic, check out Exodus, and the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Both are stories of scarcity, and God’s over-abundant provision in response. It is a good reminder about the character of the God who created you.

For many women, the idea of trusting a man TOTALLY in marriage is a scary thing. It’s not that their husbands aren’t trustworthy or that they don’t trust their husbands in some things. But the idea of submitting when you think you’re in the right, or when something really life-changing is on the line? That can be hard.

And that’s why so many women find themselves wrestling with a tendency to take control. Stasi Eldredge describes this battle in her book, Captivating. She gets to the heart of this ever-raging struggle as she writes:

“Aren’t your deepest worries and heartaches relational–aren’t they connected to someone? Even when things are good, is your vast capacity for intimacy ever filled in a lasting way? There is an emptiness in us that we continually try to feed. And can’t you see how much you need to have things under control–whether it’s a project or a ministry or a marriage? Are you comfortable trusting your well-being to someone else? And haven’t you felt…your vulnerability as a woman to be a liability? Most women hate their vulnerability….Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves, and control our worlds to have some sense of security.”

Control is a major issue that women struggle to surrender in marriage, but as Eldredge points out, this is not a problem that begins in marriage. It begins long before.

Submission is a discipline that you must work on cultivating now, as a single woman. Think about it this way…

It really is no wonder that the transition from the single life to married life can be so rocky–they generally encompass two completely different mindsets! As a single woman, you learn to be independent and look out for yourself. But then you get married and you’re supposed to let someone else take care of you.

You go from being independent to dependent. What was once a virtue becomes a vice. A practice that once guarded your lifestyle can now sabotage your lifestyle. What are we to make of this discrepancy?

The problem here is that the predominant mindset of single women today is in direct conflict with the Christian life. The idea that single women are somehow independent and must fend for themselves is a mindset that conflicts with the sovereignty of God. If we profess Christ, then there is no independent. There is no “fend for yourself.” And there is no “I am in control.”

On the contrary, it is God who is in control. God takes care of you. To be Christian is to be dependent on Him.

An unhealthy independence is easy to hide when you’re on your own, but it quickly becomes apparent when your life is intertwined with another. It is a mindset that short-circuits your ability to trust others because it is founded upon a trust in yourself alone. That said, if you have thoroughly ingrained in your heart and mind a spirit of independence, then you set yourself up for failure in all relationships, not the least of which is your relationship with God.

With all of this in mind, an inability to trust a husband in marriage is not necessarily a marital problem. It is a spiritual one. It comes from years and years of not trusting God to provide and take care of you. When you live in the knowledge that God is in control, it takes a lot of pressure off of trusting others. A trust in God makes all other forms of trust possible.

So if you are single now, begin the hard work of learning submission–submission to God. Regardless of whether or not you get married one day, this is a discipline that will factor into your job, your church, and your family relationships. It is the difference between relating to others in fear, or relating to others in freedom.

That is a struggle that every woman must face and fight, no matter her marital status.