When I was 5 years old, I told everyone I wanted to be a Mommy when I grew up. When I became a teenager, I told everyone my goal career was to be a wife and mother. I wanted to stay at home with my children, home school them and care of my home and husband. Throughout my upbringing my parents never pushed this on me, it was something I wanted on my own. As a child this goal is sweet and wonderful, as a teenager people didn't understand why I would want to stay home with my children and not work for someone else making money. As an adult, most people don't get it. Now that I am married, I feel the need to address one of the hardest times I faced.
In our society women are taught to be independent. Not in the way of educating themselves so they can be better people, but rather in the way of proving something to men and to the world, that "we don't need them". This philosophy is new, since the feminist movement, and it is not biblical. Women have been pulling away from their children and husbands for years saying they need to be their own person. This also, is not biblical.
The Bible teaches us that women are to honor and obey God and to fear Him. This is their way of devotion and obedience to God.
Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7:34-35 (chapter 7 as a whole talks about marriage) that an unmarried women is concerned about the affairs of God, but if she marries she does not sin. He talks about that if someone decides to marry, they are then devoted to that person.
When having a desire to be married and have a family and being a young adult collide, the result a lot of times can feel like brokenness. The world mocks the biblical family, and the position of a God-fearing wife. Society tells women to have careers and don't wait for men. Our world has been degrading men and you can see it in movies and tv shows. Luckily, there are Godly men still out there who are students of God's Word and desire a biblical marriage as well. Most men are brainwashed by the world philosophy that they can't protect or take care of women, and you can see it when a wife tells her husband hes stupid and you can see the husband cower to her rule and no longer fight for anything.
With all of this going on in today's world, it is hard to be a single young woman who has a god given desire to be married and have children, specially when age is increasing. A lot of times these women isolate themselves to church groups, or a younger crowd in hopes of not facing the world. But, it is almost impossible for a human man, who probably has a nice personality, to find a girl hiding in a crowd like that.
I learned ways to gain wonderful friendships with men and women by opening my circle of friends to all ages of people and often made it a point to step into the world, because I knew God could accomplish at least 2 things He wouldn't be able to accomplish with me sitting at home all the time. 1) I could be an encouragement to others 2) I could meet more godly men so that I knew what the false ones looked like. I made friendships with many godly men who some I still consider like brothers to me. In opening up my circle of friends and stepping out of my comfort zone I no longer just wanted to get married and have children...God opened up my eyes to a greater need, and that was to love people. The more new people I met, the more I saw how beautiful they were and how much God loved them. I decided that I wouldn't be looking for a husband or "waiting for him to finally find me", I decided to fall in love with the family of God, and learn how to really truly just love people.
Without that experience, I may not have learned how to truly love my husband and see him as a man of God and my brother in Christ. For too long my only focus was getting married, but I had a lot more lessons to learn before I was really ready to actually physically SEE who my husband was, get to know him and love him. And those were lesson I couldn't learn in my room, or with younger people, or just at church on Sunday. I had to step out in order to be ready to step into marriage.
That being said, I still guarded myself. I didn't run into the world and go crazy. I still stayed with people who were Christians, and I still didn't go on dates with guys. Making friends has nothing to do with dating. And if you grow a really wonderful friendship, you find out a lot more about the person without ever having to be exclusive. I also didn't push myself into a job. I figured out how much money I needed to make and looked into jobs where I could gain skills and knowledge that would help me be a wife and mother.
Titus 2 teaches us about older women teaching younger women. I surrounded myself with counsel from older christian women, and not just my Mom's friends, though most of them were my Moms' age or older. I didn't want to hear about raising babies, I wanted to hear the 20-30 years married woman tell me about the trials and what got her through. And I realized in all my counseling that they all sought God personally so they could be better wives to their husbands. I knew, that the best way I could serve my husband was to pursue God with a passion in my personal life.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 tells us that we should be focused on making sure our lives are in order so that those who look at us, hear us or are friends with us will respect us. If we are focusing on what we don't have, acting like married people are annoying (I've been there) or taking our frustrations out on people just because we are not married yet, how does that win their respect? How does that focus us on our relationship with God? It doesn't.
If we do desire what God has for us, we need to look at what He has for us RIGHT NOW not just in the future. Right now, we all have people in our lives who need us and our encouragement. Right now, we all could better our relationship with Him. Right now, we all could step out of our comfort zone and learn a new lesson. Right now, we all could gain skills and knowledge that will last.
It's hard being a single young woman in this world. It's hard waiting. But God has a plan for each and very step. And each stepping stone helps us with the next one.
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