Dear friend,
But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. This I say for your own benefit, not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.
I keep thinking about how navigating being single gets treated as a waiting room, as though the real life is scheduled to start once the door opens on something else.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians about singleness as its own undivided condition, not a lesser one, and he was direct about the practical freedom in it, the attention that does not have to be split. I notice he never calls marriage the mature choice and singleness the immature one. He describes two different shapes a life can take, each with its own weight to carry and its own room to move.
In 1983 I was twenty and unmarried and a woman at church told me she was praying my situation would resolve soon, as if I were a sum left undone on a chalkboard. I did not have language then for how much that cost me, though I smiled and thanked her. I understand now that she meant well and understood almost nothing.
Your life this year is not a situation awaiting resolution. It is Tuesday, and Thursday, and the particular shape of your attention, undivided, going toward what it chooses. What would it change to stop treating your days as provisional?
A prayer
God, You see the whole shape of her days, undivided and full in their own right. Take from her any sense that she is incomplete, and give her something today worth her full attention. Amen.