Dear Singles: Your Pain Is Valid

Posted on Jun 23, 2020 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Women's Christian Living

One of the most helpful articles about the difficulty of singleness I found while doing research for my upcoming book, Getting Naked Later, is called “My Secret Grief: Over Thirty-Five, Single, and Childless” by Melanie Notkin.

This article put into words the pain I have experienced for years: “[The grief of singleness], grief that is not accepted or that is silent, is referred to as disenfranchised grief,” Melanie writes. “It’s the grief you don’t feel allowed to mourn, because your loss isn’t clear or understood. You didn’t lose a sibling or a spouse or a parent. But losses that others don’t recognize can be as powerful as the kind that is socially acceptable.”

Church culture reflects most people’s unawareness of our disenfranchised loss—not in what they do give us, but in what they don’t give us. The sermons that aren’t preached, the prayers that aren’t offered, the books that aren’t written. I remember going to a church service where a pastor tearfully prayed for people in different predicaments: “Lord, I pray for the married people who are struggling through the difficulties of relationship right now. For the divorced people who are wrestling with rejection. And for the single people who (cue chuckling) don’t know how good they have it.” Sometimes the pain of our singleness is treated like it shouldn’t affect us, or like it’s not a real problem at all.

But if you are experiencing this disenfranchised grief, God is looking upon you with mercy right now. He is giving you permission to mourn, to have compassion on yourself, and to know that you are experiencing a true, deep loss. Even if it is “disenfranchised,” it is real and painful. It is valid for you to say, “I don’t believe this is my fault. It is something I don’t understand. And it aches so much, Lord. Please, please, hear my cry. But in the midst of this trial, I still choose to worship you.”

God does not mock your pain. He loves you even in your weakness. He bends down to hold you when you cry. He cries with you because he aches with you. He is so proud of the way you’ve trusted him through this, one of the longest, hardest trials of your life, how you’ve loved him without always understanding his ways.

Tomorrow, after we have allowed ourselves time to mourn, it would be wise for us to wake up, take a shower, have coffee with some friends, and remember that life is still beautiful. If we don’t choose to have balance, we will get depressed. We don’t want to be stuck in this grief on a constant basis. But in the meantime, we can crawl into our father’s lap, let him call us by name, and remember that he is the God who will love us through our pain.