Serving Each Other: A Message to Both Single and Married Women

Single women and married women tend to move in different circles. The married women want to chat about their husbands and their babies with each other, and the single women form their own cliques around hobbies, school, ministries, or the single lifestyle itself.

I think that’s wrong. 

Just. Plain. Wrong.

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We Single Women Need Married Women.

We need to learn that marriage can be hard, so that we can cultivate realistic expectations and train for the permanence of commitment for our own future marriages.

We need to learn that marriage can be delightful, so that we are encouraged to make wise choices that lead to lively and God-fulfilled romance, should we ever marry.

We need to hear the ups and downs of pregnancy and motherhood, so that we can prepare to raise our own families.

We need to learn how to cast aside our envy of a woman’s married status, and enter into her joys and sorrows, seeing her simply as a woman whom we can serve and love as a friend and a sister.

Married Women Need Us Single Women.

They need to learn the lessons that long-term singleness brings. Most of my friends married between the ages of 19 and 24. Do they know what it is like to be single at 25 or beyond? No. And trust me, singleness is very different in the later 20s than it is in the early 20s. The gifts of longer-term singleness are often ignored, but they could be so valuable to the Body of Christ!

Those of us who are single for longer learn certain lessons that could not be learned otherwise. We learn about contentment, about service, and—yes—even about love, in ways that married women simply cannot experience. Married women need to be encouraged by the unique perspectives of the single women. 

Are you willing to learn from the single women in your life?

Accept It As a Challenge.

Single women, what can you share with a married woman today that would strengthen her in her role or help her identify areas she can improve upon?

Married women, what can you share with a single sister today that would strengthen her in her role and help her identify areas she can improve upon?

How can both groups serve each other?

Single and Married--Sisters in Christ

Single sisters, please do not hold yourselves back from making friends with married women, even if those women seem so wrapped up in their romances that you feel left out. 

Recently, my sister and my best friend spent a whole afternoon chatting with each other about married life and pregnancy. My sister called me afterward with some concern. “Was I inconsiderate? Was it unkind of us to speak so much about married life and motherhood? Did it make you feel left out?”

I know there have been times in the past when I did feel left out, and when the important things of my life seemed so pathetic in comparison with wifehood and motherhood. But involving myself in the lives of others, whether they are married or not, has nurtured a deeper contentment than I ever expected.

I was able to answer my sister truthfully.

“I can’t connect with either of you in that way, as I haven’t experienced it myself, but it didn’t stop me from appreciating the conversation. I was delighted to see you two enjoying yourselves so much!”

Married women, strive to be considerate and accepting of your single sisters. Single women, strive to be genuinely happy for and accepting of your married sisters. Let us lay aside differences, and simply love and appreciate each other for who we are.