What Not to Say to Your Single Christian Friend

Back in the days before I met my husband, and was wondering if any one would ever want to marry  me, I remember being told: “God will give you the desires of your heart,” and “if God gave you the desire he will fulfil it.”

After I heard that, I spent ages trying to work out if the desire for a husband was one that was from God, or not. After all, if it was actually from God then I would get it. Wouldn’t I? I guess in my mind it was almost like having a crystal ball, work out if the desire is from God or not, and you have figured out your future.

I guess the people who were saying these things were trying to be helpful. But they really weren’t that helpful to me.

Now I know that God can and will fulfil our deepest desires, (it says so in the bible, after all) but was the desire for a husband really my deepest desire, or the desire or was it the desire to be loved?

Many Christian counsellors agree that God does put in our hearts the desire to be loved, and the desire to be significant. The thing is, ultimately the only one who can fulfil those desires is him. He does give us thiste desires of our hearts, but just not always in the way we want him to.

Another well intentioned thing I was told, whilst I was single, was to seek God and then a husband would come along. What a load of poo! If this was true then how come there are holy people who never get married and awful people who manage to find a husband.

I don’t think the people who say these things realise the damage they are doing with these words. It made me question my own spirituality, as if the reason I hadn’t met someone yet was because I wasn’t holy enough yet, making me doubly insecure. I don’t think the popular quote “a woman’s heart should be so lost in God that a man has to seek God to find her.” Please be really careful about saying this one, because I know it’s one of those things that sounds really spiritual, after all, we all need to get closer to God. But please never make anyone feel like the reason they are single is because they aren’t holy enough.

Finally, this is one I had never personally heard (thankfully) but that seems to have become popular recently, I have seen it floating around the internet. And that is……….. Just Wait For Your Boaz. This is eisegesis (reading into the text something that was never there, (yes, I went to bible college and know long words!)) in the worst possible form! It makes absolutely no sense in the context of the story, to the point where I pull out my hair just wondering where this phrase could have possibly come from!

It’s taken from the book of Ruth. She is a widow, who moves with her mother in law, Naomi (also widowed) to her home country, a land Ruth has never been to before. These two women are destitute to the point where the only way they can feed themselves is by picking up grains that have been dropped by the farm workers. (Something which is outlined in books of the law.) Fortunately Naomi has a single, rich, relative named Boaz.

Now, after hearing that you might think that Boaz swept in and swept Ruth of her feet.

He didn’t. He was kind to her, but in no way did he sweep her off her feet.

Naomi had to tell her to get tarted up, put on some perfume, and then literally climb into his bed and lay at his feet, before he made the offer of marriage.

I can’t see how climbing into someones bed to seduce them could ever be described as waiting for them! How can anyone claim the phrase wait for your Boaz, like it’s a beautiful thing, when Ruth never waited for her Boaz!

She was married previous, to man we’ve no reason to believe she didn’t love, and then lived in tough conditions with her mother in law and then finally had to climb into bed with a man in order to seduce him!

This phrase is so nonsensical, but the strange thing is women even bizzarly believe it, and then take is so out of context that they seem to think it means they should just sit around waiting for a husband! Ruth didn’t sit around waiting. She was proactive.*

The truth of the matter is that not every will get married. I know that’s a really sad thing to say and hear, and one that I had to wrestle with when I was single. But unfortunately, it’s the truth.

God never promised us a spouse. But he did demonstrate his love for us in dying for us. And that is the greatest love you can ever know.

I know when everyone around you is getting married, it can seem so like a lame consolation prize. But it’s not, its the best love you can ever experience, its a love that will never let you down and a love that will last forever. Please, try and grasp hold of this whether you are single or not, and please never make someone who is single feel as if they are somehow worth less, whether intentionally or not. That just is not true.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this, or any weird things you have been told.

*Please don’t think I’m telling you to do what Ruth did, it prabably wont end well!