Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness

by Joy Beth Smith

There is so much life God has given me to live, with or without a husband, and I can’t waste it sitting in my disappointments. In fact, I refuse to. Instead, I want to drink deeply of life and let go of all the rest. And I want to do it with my sisters, bringing community to those who feel isolated, hope to those who feel desperate, and truth to those who feel deceived. Together, I hope we can excavate the harmful assumptions that have permeated the church for far too long, rooting them out and planting truth in their place.

At the end of the day, I want my people to want the glory of God in my life more than they want me to be married.

As much as we know and feel that it’s not good for man to be alone, we might not be an Eve with an Adam. We might be an Esther with a Mordecai. A Hannah with a Samuel. A Jesus with a John. A Paul with a Timothy. You weren’t meant to fight through this life alone, to do battle by yourself—but the companion promised to you won’t necessarily wear a platinum wedding band and fold towels the wrong way.

We need to actively cling to promises that are in Scripture: promises that God will never leave us, promises of his control in all things, promises of his goodness, promises that the trials of this world pale in comparison to the glory of what is to come. These are sure things. A husband is not a sure thing.

God giving you a husband does not prove his goodness—marriage isn’t even inherently good. But God is good, always. He is good in your singleness. He is good in your foolishness when you make stupid decisions because of singleness. And if you’re in this same place ten years from now, he will still be good.

If you don’t glean anything else from this chapter, even this book, I hope this sinks straight into your soul: singleness is not simply a season to be weathered, a waiting room, or a holding cell. It’s not temporal by design, and it doesn’t exist only to usher you into something greater. Singleness is a valid life stage, one in which you can experience as much joy, spiritual growth, and fulfillment as any married person.

When we treat singleness like an elevator ride, a necessary interlude to a desired destination, we reduce our contributions, relationships, and ministries to elevator music and idle chitchat with strangers while we wait for the floors to zoom past. What a waste. This stage of your life, even if it lasts for your entire life, is something so much greater than a funnel to marriage.

anyway. Longing for winter, for the next thing, becomes a problem only when we’re unable to then enjoy and fully live in the present. A large part of the struggle to steward our singleness

When you reduce yourself to the want—or pursuit—of a husband, you are choosing to define yourself by what you lack instead of what you are.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

After years of wondering what kind of character deficiency or unknown flaw would cause the Lord to keep a husband from me, I realized it doesn’t really work that way. That’s turning the God of the universe into a Coca-Cola machine that exists to dispense happiness.

The only desire with guaranteed delivery in this life is God himself: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). That’s it—and that’s everything we’ll ever need.

If I believed God were doing this, it would undermine everything I know to be true about grace and mercy and righteousnesses that are like filthy rags because I can do nothing to earn salvation, I can do nothing to earn the love of God, and I can do nothing to earn a husband. While it might not sound like that’s what your friends’ bad advice is claiming, it’s exactly what it’s offering: Become more holy, more ready, and God will reward you with a husband. He’s holding out until you get your life straightened out. God’s keeping a good thing from you in order to improve your behavior or your spiritual walk, but once that’s in check, he’s going to lavish you with a healthy marriage and a happy family.

The more we believe in the prosperity gospel, the more we tend to sound like the Pharisees who said the reason the man was born blind was because of his parents’ sin. . . .

We try our hardest to save ourselves from pain altogether. Because if you’re in pain, that means someone made a mistake—someone has to be wrong. Either you didn’t guard your heart, or the other guy was a jerk, or life is cruel and unyielding. And maybe life can be cruel, but we are resilient. Like how a bone grows back stronger once it’s broken, I feel stronger and better able to handle other difficult things in my life because my heart was used as a table to tap-dance on for several years.

Let’s leave room for lament, for mourning as the years pass and childbearing becomes more and more unlikely. As John Piper says, “Occasionally weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Then wash your face. Trust God. And embrace the life you have.”3