I wasn’t sure how to respond. My friend had just admitted to fighting with her spouse -in detail- and my kneejerk thought was, “Is their marriage in trouble?” I kept trying to put a sunny spin on it, give her an opportunity to backtrack or change her words. She didn’t, and what floored me the most is this didn’t seem to bother her. I had never had a married friend be so open about their marital struggles, and it was jarring to me. I thought because I’d never heard anyone else admit to such things, if she was admitting them, surely they were on the brink of divorce.
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“I mean…I get why they don’t want to be single.”
I was having a conversation with a different set of married friends about Christian singles, particularly gay singles. The thought of demanding that anyone stay unmarried, especially when we have such a difficult time loving and including single people in the church, is a deeply discomforting thought to me.
We sat in silence for a while.
“Why can’t men and women in the church be friends? Why can’t I have relationship with brothers?”
We talked about our culture for a while – why it’s so difficult for men and women to connect as friends – and then she mentioned Lisa and Harold* as an example of the exception. “They’re really good friends.”
“But what about when one of them gets married?”
He shrugged. “It’ll change. It has to.”
He went on to outline the complications of single women being close friends with married men, and vice versa, citing the scripture that exhorts us to avoid the appearance of evil.
I started to question him. “But what if-”
He continued, answering my question before I finished it. “Even if our culture is to blame for attributing inappropriate behavior to an innocent relationship, we have the responsibility as believers to avoid that.”
……..
“Why should married people be the only ones to experience relational intimacy? It’s not fair.”
She shook her head. “It’s not.”
……..
“Sometimes I wonder if, for all this talk about how singleness is a ‘gift’, married people don’t go to bed at night thanking God they escaped it. I imagine you guys laying down next to each other and saying, “aren’t you glad it’s not us?”
She laughed. “I promise that’s not what happens.”
……..
“And…what can we do? What hope is there for those of us who may never have spouses or families?”
His answer caught me off guard. “Sharing the table, and everything that entails. Married people and families need to make singles a part of their lives.”
We sat in silence a bit longer.
“And…what can singles do for the married people in the church?”
She answered. “You can pray for us, and include us in things.”
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I have been thinking deeply about the family of God and what a need we have for each other, particularly the relationships between us singles and our married brothers and sisters. I’ve been wondering what His design was originally for us all to fit together, and how far we’ve come from that.
I’m trying to put to words the two things that are bothering me the most, and it might not come out right, so bear with me.
On the one side, everyone knows how hard it can be to be single. We’ve all experienced it at one point. Singles are free to lament, grieve, and even complain about how lonely we are, and people have compassion on us…most of the time. However, I perceive that our married counterparts have significantly less freedom.
As a single, it’s frustrating to me that my married brothers and sisters aren’t free to openly acknowledge when they’re struggling in their marriages.
When did marriage adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?
Why is it that marital strife (Which I no longer assume is abnormal, given that marriages are only ever between two deeply flawed people) is kept so under wraps?
Why do we heap shame on men and women who have the courage to admit that their spouses aren’t perfect, and that they have needs which cannot be met by that one person? I’ve come to treasure the honesty of my friend who shared where she was at in her marriage, and wishing all of my married friends were free to do the same in the context of safe community instead of suffering silently. (By the way, this friend is still faithfully and, as far as I can tell, happily married.)
On the other side, as a single, it’s really frustrating to me that we are so pitied by our brothers and sisters…and that we so often pity ourselves. We have become like our culture by idolizing marriage to the detriment of both singles and marrieds. My next blog is going to expand on this, but for now, let me say…
As of lately, I have this vision of what the church could be. I see married people being able to talk openly about their struggles without fear of rejection or shaming. I see single people being valued as whole people, equal image bearers and equal representatives of Christ and His bride. I see us sharing life together, sisters and brothers, lifting each other up and engaging each other in vulnerability and truth. Sharing the table, as my brother so eloquently put it. Communion. Koininea. I pray it comes on this side of His return. We’ll be better for it.
-A
Mismatched Miss 