Monday, January 19, 2004

I spent a little more time working on the closed post from yesterday. I decided that while that particular post will remain closed, I’m going to talk about my single life a little bit more here at the blog. Mostly because I know there are others in the blogosphere who struggle with being single and lonely. And because I know that maybe I can help to encourage someone who’s in a place that I’ve perservered through in my journey to contentment. So here’s the first post in the new category “All By Myself.”

In the closed post I made reference to two books I’ve read in the past couple of years about Christian singleness. Sadly, most books on the shelves in Christian (as in secular) bookstores are how-to manuals - how to date, how not to date, how to find your mate, how to help your mate find you, how to whatever....The following are not handbooks on how not to be single. Rather, they are excellent encouragements written by singles who are living full, contented, faithful lives without a spouse.

Single and Content: Experiencing Singleness in a Paired-Off World by Dana Anders, Nathan Clement, Chris Conti, and Lana Trent is a compilation of essays by several singles with funny polls and random quotes from prominent Christian singles. A snippet from the chapter called Not Yet Promoted to the Grown-Up Table:

Chris - ...Often I’d be talking to Mom on the phone and I’d hear Dad joking, say, “Ask her if she’s married yet.” When I was in college, he’d say it so often that one time, when I was frustrated, I told him that I wouldn’t visit anymore if he kept bothering me. He stopped for a while....

They just want me to be happy. But why does the world see marriage as “happy” when more than 50 percent end in a devastating divorce? Though we don’t have an abundance of divorces in my family tree, we don’t exactly have the happily-ever-after stories either.

...I never, ever share regrets about not having anyone in my life...nothing to give them the impression that I’m not happy with my life. I am happy with my life. So why do I need to be fixed?

Living Whole Without a Better Half by Wendy Widder - is an excellent reminder that singles are whole in Christ, despite what the couples-centric world may lead us to believe. A snippet:

Content. The root of the word means “contained.” Dr. Warren Wiersbe says it describes a “man whose resources are within him so that he does not have to depend on substitutes without.” It’s the portrait of a person who withstands the blows of life by drawing upon what’s inside. New Agers would applaud such a statement, but the truth is that only God supplies such internal resources. God in us provides more than an adequate supply of spiritual strength.

[...]

The secret of contentment begins with acknowledging that God is sovereign and that God is sufficient.

UPDATE (7:20pm): I’ve added a bit to the beginning of this post. Just wanted it to be known that the post isn’t what it originally was.