Q: What advice would you give a person who is the only single person in her entire church and is feeling left out and lonely?  —Lisa

A: A single person is popularly defined as “one who is above 30 and unmarried.” I would prefer to see a single as “any person who is not in a marital relationship.” This would include anyone who is 18 to 100years old—the young adult still living with parents, the unattached, the single-again, the divorced, and the widowed. In other words, there are more singles in our midst than we might recognize. Surely singles make up a significant proportion of people in most churches. But even if you are the only single person in your entire church, you’re not the only person who has experienced the pangs of loneliness.

In fact, single people are not the only people who experience loneliness. There are married couples—families even—in our churches who feel left out. Even in the early church, Luke told of widows who had been neglected (Acts 6:1). Loneliness affects everyone, not just singles. Being neglected and being lonely are not the consequences of being single. They’re the consequences of sin and living in a fallen world.

God made us relational beings and gave us a capacity and a great need for friendship and companionship. And as a Christian, there are radically new relational realities that we must come to embrace more fully. First and foremost, we’re made for fellowship and intimacy with our Creator who is also our heavenly Father (1 John 1:3,6). Second, we have Jesus as our Friend (John 15:15). And third, God established His Church as our spiritual family here on earth. You’re a precious child of God and a precious member of the church family—every Christian in the church is your brother or sister. There will be times you feel otherwise, such as how you are feeling now. But it’s during times like these that you can seek to embrace your heavenly Father and church family all the more tightly. You can’t afford to withdraw from this family without further isolating yourself, hurting yourself, and adversely impacting the rest of the church family (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

Often we perceive being single as being more problematic than being married. But Paul gives us a much-needed corrective. Paul indeed warns that the married person will have a much greater burden to bear (1 Corinthians 7:26-35). He says that a married person will be much distracted in his devotion to the Lord. Paul says, “An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him.But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife.His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband.I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible” (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).

May these words of Paul encourage you and lift you up to see that you’re not disadvantaged because you’re single. On the contrary, you have an edge. And you need not be alone, for you have a loving Father, a devoted Friend, and a dear family who love you and whom you can love. There’s so much you can do for God and for your church family!  —K.T. Sim

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