"You must have the gift of singleness," he said to me.
I made the same face that I would have made if he had told me that I have the gift of chicken pox. You may have made the same face if you thought, like I did, that the gift of singleness is some sort of supernatural ability reserved for those who will never marry, enabling them to be content with the otherwise lonely and miserable existence of singleness. I was fairly certain that I did not want this gift. Out of all the gifts, you just had to get singleness. Prophesying? No. Serving? No. Teaching? No. Encouraging? No. Giving? Oh no. Leading? No. Showing mercy? No. Being single? Yup. Congratulations.
I am not sure what this particular person meant by suggesting that I have the gift of singleness, but having a super spiritual ability to be single forever did not sound appealing to me. I felt a mixture of anger and fear. Tired of married people consistently inviting themselves to make unsolicited comments about my relationship status, I was angry that the comment had even been made in the first place. In my hopes to one day be a wife and mother, I feared that the statement was actually true.
But the danger of thinking of the gift of singleness as a superpower is that it makes singleness look like a terrible condition rather than the gift that it is. As I began to realize that the gift of singleness is actually the singleness itself, I began to enjoy the gift more and more. Understanding that singleness is a gift, for both the recipient and for the entire Church, not a curse or a state of being that can only be tolerated by supernatural power, brings much joy to me as a single person.
Being single allows me to focus on God in ways that would be different if I were married and gives me time to dedicate to service, discipleship, and friendships in quantities that I would not have as a wife. The meals shared with my family regularly, the hundreds of hours spent planning lessons and field trips and study abroad programs, the quiet hours of the evening spent with an open Bible and a filling notebook, the unrushed phone calls and spur of the moment adventures, the rehearsals, the breakfast dates, the late night conversations over ice cream, being available at the drop of a hat to cover a shift or offer a ride, waking up every morning to encounter the reality that Christ is enough in my singleness... I treasure these parts of my life and some of it would look different if marriage was another piece of the puzzle.
Just like a marriage is a gift to the body of Christ in that it is a tangible representation of Christ's affection for and death defying dedication to his body, the Church, so my singleness is a representation of the sufficiency of Christ, showing that He alone is enough. The Church is full of these beautiful reminders of Christ's sufficiency in the lives of our single brothers and sisters: the unmarried businessman who entrusts his future to his Lord even though he always assumed that he would have gotten married by now, the single mother who prays for her children and relies on her sovereign savior to help her to raise and provide for her little ones, the widow whose faith rests on the one who will one day wipe every year from her eyes and abolish death and mourning forever, the divorced gentleman who daily pours his heart out to his all-sufficient savior in trust and surrender in the midst of heartbreak and pain, the never-married sister who has brought her sorrows and joys to the lover of her soul decade after decade. The sufficiency of Christ seen in singleness and his everlasting affection for his Church seen in marriage go hand-in-hand. Both represent reality and neither is able to fully portray life in Christ without the truth expressed in the other. The realest reality is Christ reigning as King, the all-sufficient living water who alone can satisfy the thirst of his beloved bride, the Church, for whom he gave himself and purified with his own blood. Embedded in this reality is the truth behind both singleness and marriage.
Instead of thinking of singleness as a gift, it is easy to think of singleness as loneliness and idolize marriage as the remedy. But singleness and marriage do not have to be opposites, one bad and the other good, one repulsive and the other desirable.
Because Jesus was single.
And to say that Jesus was lonely is to ignore the fact that he had complete and satisfying communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit until the moment on the cross when it was our sin, not his singleness, that separated him from the perfect unity that had existed since before the first sunrise. While we may feel the pangs of lonesomeness and deep desires for community during our lives, it is a spiritual impossibility for a Christian to be truly lonely because Jesus Christ endured separation from the Father so that we can abide with him forever.
Why do I idolize marriage when I worship a single, Middle Eastern, Jewish man who is more fully human than I have ever been? If anyone were to tell me that Jesus did not experience full humanity or abundant life because he was never married, I would laugh at the outrageous impossibility that the way, the truth, and the life himself could have missed out on the fullness of life. If Jesus was complete in his singleness, why do I consider myself to be incomplete in singleness? Marriage is not wrong. On the contrary, marriage is beautiful. Just like singleness is beautiful. Married and single people alike are created for relationship, and that longing for relationship can only be fulfilled in eternal community with Christ and with his bride, the Church.
So, do I have the gift of singleness? Yes. I have the gift of singleness because I am single. Being single is the gift. And it is a good gift. You have it, too, dear single friend. Enjoy it and use it, as you would any good gift, for as long as you have it.
And to the married friend listening in to the heart of this single sister, the gift that you have been given is good, too. Enjoy your marriage, and praise God for the representation of the sufficiency of Christ that you see in the lives of the single brothers and sisters around you.
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