SINGLENESS, MARRIAGE, AND HOLINESS

For as long as I can remember, I'd wanted to be a wife and a mother. On my sixteenth birthday, I asked God for a boyfriend (seeing as that was the logical first step toward attaining my heart's desire). In His grace, He let that request wait for another 9 years. In those years of waiting and hoping, I grew in my experience of God's personal presence and gained a deepened passion for sharing Christ with others. I let my dream of marriage lie dormant and decided to focus my energies on growing in my walk with God and serving people. Afterall, thinking about my struggle with singleness was rather painful and seemed counter-productive. Didn't Paul say that those who are single can focus themselves more fully on serving the Lord?

What I didn't realize was that I was slowly adopting a belief that singleness was somehow holier than being married; especially since it looked like God was heading me in the direction of full-time vocational overseas ministry and frankly, that limited even further my already slim chances of getting married (or so I thought). In a way, attaching holiness to singleness was a sort of consolation for my aching heart. But even in history, we see the tradition of monks and nuns renouncing marriage to devote themselves to the Lord in celibacy. And those who are married, we admire for their contributions to the Kingdom despite being married.

God began challenging this belief when Tim and I started courting. And reading Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas the last couple days has challenged me further. This book has helped me understand that marriage is another vehicle God uses to shape His character into our lives. That it isn't holier either way - remaining single or getting married. Serving the Lord by caring for a husband, doing dishes and laundry and other everyday tasks is just as precious to Him as serving Him by staying unmarried and going to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel. What matters is we become more like Him.

Holiness is something God wants to shape in us regardless of our circumstances. And in some ways, being married requires harder work and more selflessness. Living through the ups and downs of life while continuously seeking to love another requires commitment and humility. (I write these things as observations I've gathered from reading, but it makes sense to me.)

I remember once meeting a woman of God who had just decided to come back from the mission field so that she could get married. I couldn't understand then why she would choose that. I think I'm starting to see it now.

My purpose in writing is to...assure you that the grace of God is with you no matter what happens.
~1 Peter 5:12~