Emerging Africa

Hi Stray

Here we go. Finally (drum roll)- a response to the first chapter of your book. Not that I am in any way an expert, but I'll give my little old opinion for what it's worth. I'm not necessarily writing everything in response to your book, just blabbing on about singleness in general.

I don't have an airtight theory on singleness, but I do have a few thoughts rattling around in my brain. I don't know if there are other christians out there who've had similar experiences, but the church I came from had a relationship policy that went something like this:

1. Pretend you never have feelings of attraction for anyone. Feel bad if you do. Ignore them.

2. One day a booming voice from heaven will say: "You see that boy over there? He's more than just your brother! Have coffee with him!!"

3. Then after a couple of months / years of having coffee, he holds your hand.

4. You get married, and as you say your vows, you progress to a peck on the cheek.

5. Heaven knows what happens on the wedding night!!

So that's my background.

Two weeks ago, I picked up a book that my friend was reading called "How to Have a Date Worth Keeping", written by the one of the authors who wrote "Boundaries" (Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend - most christians I chat to seem to have heard of their book). He proposed a radically different approach for singles. He says he meets countless singles (women mostly!!) who sigh and shrug their shoulders and say that "God just hasn't brought the right one along yet." At which point he challenges them, and asks "What are you doing about it?"

I don't know if I agree with everything in his book, and I haven't finished reading it yet, but it was quite an eye-opener to read something that came from the completely opposite angle.

Basically, the theory goes that we are pro-active about every area of our life, except our singleness. We pray and ask God for the right job, but then we don't sit at home and wait for some company to miraculously find out about us and knock on our door. We write CV's. We scan the papers. We apply! We go for interviews. Yet we adopt a super-spiritual approach when it comes to finding a marriage partner.

There might be some truth to what he is saying...

He doesn't advocate the casual dating system where you try people on for size and discard them at will, but he has a much more 'practical' approach to finding a life partner. It's an interesting read...

I agree with you, Stray, that finding a marriage partner should never become an idolatrous obsession, and that it should never be seen as a ticket to happiness. But I wonder if we don't over-spiritualise that too, sometimes?

To know and be known - deeply and intimately - is surely one of the most rewarding and exhilirating experiences a person can have. Marriage is the highest form of that. When a couple are struggling to have a baby, we don't tell them 'to find their joy in God. They don't need a child to be happy, anyway'. We sympathise with them over their real loss. It's an innate human desire to want a family! Yet when it comes to singleness, we take a different view. Yes, even in a situation where a couple can't conceive, or where someone who desires marriage remains single, God is big enough to sustain them and give them joy, but can't we acknowledge that it is a loss?

When I say it is a 'loss', I'm speaking about people who want to get married. Although it's completey incomprehensible to me (!), I do have a friend who really and truly wants to remain single. Really, really, really? I asked her. Really! And I believe her. So that's different. But for the vast majority of people, the desire for intimacy, belonging and family is as natural as the desire for food. When someone is hungry, we don't offer them platitudes about God being enough for them, we GIVE THEM FOOD! Sure, if there is no food available, we find our joy in God, but we don't overspiritualise to the point of saying that we don't need food. We don't stop looking for food!
I know that food and marriage aren't exactly comparable equals - forgive me. It's just that I think the God-given desires shouldn't be denied or overspiritualised. And sometimes I need God with skin on! There is just no substitue for a REAL hug, from flesh-and-blood arms. And we all know that God specifically designed men to kill scary bugs, and open particularly stubborn jars of peanut butter:)

On a different note and completely unrelated to your book...

As a single, I believe it's really important to connect deeply with friends. What frustrates me is that there is, well certainly from my church background, such an unnatural pressure attached to opposite sex friendships. I need men in my life! And I'm not talking romantically. As a single woman with no father, no brothers, no uncles, there is a HUGE space in my life that needs to be filled. Men bring a different element from women. I need meaningful relationships with BOTH. But often the fear of 'inappropriateness' prevents such meaninful interactions from taking place. My previous church legislated 'side hugs only' between the sexes. This made me feel like either I was some dangerous femme fatale that was out to trap some poor unsuspecting man in my honeyed web, or that men were sex-obsessed maniacs who were unable to even give a friend a meaningful hug without being led down some dangerous, seedy path. (I don't believe either, by the way).

Can't we just be normal!

I'm completely open to changing my views, and maybe I'm just not as mature as you are, Stray:) Maybe I do need to learn how to find my joy in God more. But maybe, just maybe, there's something to Dr Townsend's theory.