Where Hannah Writes

"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 re...

Dear married people in the church, Please stop telling single people in the church that someday they will meet a really special person. It's awkward and we don't know what to say, so we usually just nod and smile. Please stop trying to set us up with your single nieces and nephews and grandchildren and sons and daughters and neighbors and cousins and coworkers and uncles and aunts and god children and barbers and insurance agents and mechanics and personal trainers and bankers and hair stylists and car salesmen and neighbor's uncle's mailmen. Please stop telling us not to worry, that it'll happen when we least expect it. That you can't believe that we are single. That it's okay to be single, it's really okay. That you had a friend who was single for a really long time, and then she met the most wonderful and godly gentleman. That you're praying for our future spouse and that you just know that it's going to be a really amazing person becaus...