What's Wrong with You?

I left the coffee house satisfied that we had met. It was a good conversation. He was a nice guy trying to find love in this world. After a few minutes of cordial small-talk about what we are doing with our lives, he asked me a question. He asked it with a bit of a sigh, hoping that he had found a soul who could identify with what he has experienced. The question: "Do your parents and friends wonder what's up and why you aren't married yet?" Now, I consider myself very lucky that for the most part my parents have let me alone on this topic and with the exception of that one time I visited and found my mother had conveniently left a bridal magazine in the bedroom where I was staying, they haven't questioned me or pushed me to find a husband. I felt for this man sitting across the high-top table from me. As he explained, he felt uncomfortable around his married friends and traditional Latino family. I could tell that whether someone had come straight out and said it to him or not, he felt like something was wrong with him.

Why is that? Why must older singles (and I do not mean 29 year olds) feel like because they haven't yet connected with someone with whom they wish to "settle down," that clearly they have an issue. What surprised me most about my new friend's dilemma is that he didn't indicate that he had any religious faith or attend church regularly.  I've known for a long time that the conservative American church places cultural pressure on individuals to identify a life-partner at an early age.  But evidently those outside the church feel a cultural pressure as well.

Singleness is not a disease. There's really no explanation as to why you're single. It just happens. It happens to some of the best people. It's not that you're weird or strange (okay, maybe some of you are), but not everyone who is single is odd.  Some of the best people I know are still single.  Often times it's the married people who are weird for committing themselves to someone else for a lifetime - especially if they aren't mature and ready to make such a sacrifice. And it's just that - a sacrifice. Unless you know that your life is not your own; your life is in Christ, it's difficult to offer that selfless love to another. Until you have embarrassed the unconditional love of Jesus and know that all your needs are met in him, you'll continually look for another to meet your needs and be disappointed again and again when they don't live up to your expectations.

So, if you're single, stop thinking that something's wrong with you.  There's no more wrong with you than with your married friends.  If you are born-again in Christ, there is nothing and I repeat, nothing wrong with being single. The church has to get over it. There is something wrong with the church and its labeling of single people as individuals that just haven't figured out how to keep a relationship long enough to put a ring on it.

Enjoy the gift of singleness! You never know when you'll lose it.