Singleness is a long hike up a steep hill. Chances are, you’re either on the hike yourself or you know someone else who is. Everyone has stories to tell of it. (It’s that kind of hike. It’s that kind of hill.)

I’m so grateful for my 34-year ascent up that Beautiful Arduous Hill. It was harder than I can describe, and I’m left with some hardy callouses and a few long-term injuries. But I look back at that climb as one of the greatest experiences God has ever entrusted to me.

I’ve been married for nine years now (I didn’t hike nearly as far as some), yet I still smell strongly of the dirt and pine of that hill. Contrary to popular opinion, I didn’t “arrive” when I finally married; life didn’t “begin” when I got a ring on my finger and a baby in my womb. The terrain altered significantly, yes—but the Goal and the Guide remained the same.

I’m grateful for my single years, but it’s not as if I’ve left them behind me. They shaped me, how I think, how I experience the love of Jesus, even how I still occasionally dream. In a crowd of people, I’m drawn to the woman who also knows the ways of the hill. Her climb is unique—in fact, you could talk to a hundred different single women and get a hundred different versions of this hike—but we agree on one thing: We’re not meant to go it alone.

We are, every one of us, meant for joyful relationship with Jesus and his people. Our one great good is God himself, and we experience him better by being in relationship with each other.

The psalmist David put it this way:

I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you.” As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones. All my delight is in them. (Psalm 16:2-3, emphasis mine)

These two things can sound contrary, but in fact they perfectly coexist: God is our only good, and his people are all our delight.

And an uphill climb requires gargantuan good and strong doses of delight.

This relational joy we share with God and each other enables us to do feats otherwise impossible. And, at least in my own experience, singleness sometimes felt like an impossible feat. I knew it was part of God’s perfect plan for me, and it was the conduit of incredible blessings in my life, but it wasn’t at all what I’d prepared for, and it was anything but the norm in my social circles.

The problem was actually a good one: as a single woman who loved Jesus and his church, I held a high view of marriage, sex, and children. I was convinced God is the creator and sustainer of these sacred gifts—gifts he chooses to give most women.

I also understood that marriage would not be the answer to all my problems. And I wasn’t duped by the notion that a man (or children) would fulfill my deepest desires. Only Jesus could do that.

But when every friend but one had married and had children, and I was left standing on the sidelines with a collection of bridesmaid dresses—I felt disoriented, even occasionally distressed, as I figured out how to live outside the natural order of things. I deeply wanted what God wanted for me, and on those days when I didn’t want it, I asked him to help me want it. But I was a square peg in a round hole. I didn’t know how to fit into a world made for couples and families.

It wasn’t that I lacked friends. I had an ever-expanding social circle and more relationships than I knew what to do with. I was surrounded by family, colleagues, friends, church community, and roommates, and my days were filled with meaningful work and ministry. But for all practical purposes, I was flying solo. I paid my own bills, haggled with the repairman at the car shop, made all those housing and insurance calls, held down stressful full-time jobs, and ate countless meals by myself. (Day after day, year after year.)

One of my roommates, Sarah, expressed it best when she said: “The hardest part of being single is knowing I’m no one’s first priority.” Sarah was not one to view singleness as suffering, but she grieved the reality that there wasn’t one main person to do life with and for. I’ve had many single friends echo this sentiment. I felt it keenly myself.

But the absence of a “first priority relationship” meant that Jesus became more to me—he became my First Love. And I truly felt like his beloved as I experienced his presence palpably and enjoyed him as a husband (Isaiah 54:5). As much as I didn’t like the Apostle Paul’s enthusiasm for singleness, I had to admit he was right: I was enjoying a unique and beautiful devotion to Christ (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).

Out of this precious relationship came unexpected gifts: I had time and love to invest in hundreds of junior high, high school, and college girls. My days overflowed with the joy of these relationships and my life was filled with purpose that can only come from loving and serving others for Jesus. Although the deepest desires of my heart went unfulfilled, I could plainly see how rich

—

Over the years, I came to be known as a strong, self-sufficient woman (an identity not without its own issues), but still there was this underlying tone in many people’s comments to me—an unintentional message that I was not as complete or mature as my married and mommied friends. We’ve all been guilty of saying stupid things in our eagerness to help a friend, yes? (In my twenties, I practically buried people alive with my opinions and advice.) But ignorant counsel is a lot like a knife in the hand of a drunkard (Proverbs 26:9), and many a single woman has been cut by comments such as…

“Motherhood is the most sanctifying thing in the world! I was so selfish and immature before I had kids!”

“Marriage is so hard. Don’t get your hopes up…”

“You’re so lucky to be single! I’d give anything to have a day all to myself!”

“As soon as you’re perfectly content, God will bring along your husband.”

“Maybe you should…” (try online dating, lower your standards, change churches, flirt, put yourself out there more, etc.)

Because it takes time to truly listen to someone’s story and pursue knowing them past our own limited experiences, singleness is often misunderstood by married people—and the single woman can be treated as a problem to solve or a lesser citizen, instead of an example to emulate and a vital part of the community.

My single friends who are lovers of Jesus and his Word are wellsprings of wisdom and maturity. They live out their faith in secular workplaces and high-profile ministries. They know how to navigate demanding days and myriad relationships. They love Jesus and serve his people in selfless, often uncelebrated ways. They are women of God’s Word—and the psalmist understood that it’s this Word, not a particular status in life, that forms wisdom and maturity in us.

I have more insight than all my teachers because your decrees are my meditation. I understand more than the elders because I obey your precepts. (Psalm 119:99-100)

Yes, marriage and motherhood mature us in big ways. We could even say they are the normative method for maturity. But when God chooses to work outside the norm, does he leave his beloved daughter stuck in a lower life-cycle? Should we automatically assume the 40-year-old single woman has less wisdom than the 40-year-old wife with three kids? Of course not. God desires all of his daughters to grow up into his fullness—and he shows them the way to complete maturity:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)

So all of us, in every season of life, have the same shot at maturity—as we remain in the Word and in relationship with each other, and we endure with joy.

—

Singleness, like hiking, is a feat of endurance. And endurance comes in a variety of forms, one of which is the pursuit of purity in a sexually crazed culture. For the single woman who believes that God has created sex as a sacred gift for a man and woman to enjoy only within the covenant of marriage—regardless of whether she has heterosexual or gay desires—she faces a Sisyphean task. (Although, unlike Sisyphus, her task is eternally fruitful, not futile.)

What’s more, as intense as her struggle is, the single woman does most of her battling alone in this sexual arena.

When I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, I began sending out regular email updates with specific ways people could pray for our family. To a certain extent, people “get cancer”—they know what’s at stake and understand the vocabulary. Words like invasive, aggressive, and chemotherapy communicated our family’s grave reality, and as a result, we received an outpouring of love and support.

In stark contrast, I felt incredibly isolated and without a vocabulary for my sexual reality in singleness. How could I describe what it was like to daily deny the strong impulses of my flesh—without sounding disturbing, inappropriate, or desperate? How could I share my struggle just enough to not feel so alone?

But again, grief is accompanied by gift, and when God called me to something as difficult (i.e., humanly impossible) as singleness and abstinence into my mid-thirties, he gave me an experience of his love that surpassed even my most ravenous sexual desires and infused ginormous meaning into my husbandless, childless life. During those years, I knew that Isaiah words had been written just for me:

You will no longer be called Deserted,
And your land will not be called Desolate;
Instead, you will be called My Delight Is in Her….
As a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:4-5)

Rejoice, childless one, who did not give birth;
burst into song and shout,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than the children of the married woman,”
says the Lord.

Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame;
don’t be humiliated, for you will not be disgraced.
For you will forget the shame of your youth,
and you will no longer remember
the disgrace of your widowhood.
Indeed, your husband is your Maker… (Isaiah 54:1,4)