Musings on singleness

Did you know that C.S. Lewis didn’t get married until he was in his fifties?  According to the C.S. Lewis institute’s website, Lewis was born in 1898 and he married Joy Davidson in 1956.  Joy died of cancer four years later, and Lewis himself died three years after that in 1963 (on the same day President Kennedy was assassinated).  I wonder what your response to that Lewis trivia is.  I know of some people who might subconsciously think that there must have been something wrong with Lewis or he would have married at 21 like everyone else is allegedly supposed to.

I can relate to Lewis in this regard.  In June I’m going to be 30 years old; the likelihood is I’m still going to be single.  I have encountered some people who peg me as someone who is afraid of commitment or someone who has a fear of romantic intimacy.  Whether they intended to or not, they conveyed this message to me: “There must be something wrong with this guy if he is still unmarried at his age.”

This kind of attitude is problematic.  To coin an expression: everyone’s story is different.  In other words, just because one person’s life circumstance plays out in a particular way doesn’t mean that everyone else’s will.  Or to put it another way: just because some people get married at 21 doesn’t mean that everyone is supposed to do so.  Some may get married at 25, 30, or even (in C.S. Lewis’ case) 50 something.  In fact, the Bible tells us that there are some folks who are called to be single forever.  These people have concluded that they can better serve God as a single person than as a married person.

So please do us unmarried people a favor and don't inadvertently make your single friends feel inferior by conveying the attitude that singles are odd if they haven't married when they reach a certain age.  Don't say things like, "You are such a nice person; I just don't understand why you're not married yet."  Such sentiments do not help anyone.  An article from got questions.org puts it this way: "Singleness should not be viewed that there is "something wrong" with the single man or woman...a single Christian is is no sense a "second class" Christian"

Furthermore, if you have crossed paths with a single person who is called to be a lifelong single, don’t look at them with scorn or disapproval; rather applaud them for choosing to live out their lives in faithful service to God.  Give them the encouragement that they need.  They are simply trying to be obedient to God’s calling on their lives.

Kevin Bauer

(1 Corinthians 7:17)

Check out the got questions.org article that I quoted from here: http://www.gotquestions.org/single-Christian.html