Already Whole: Why Being Single doesn't Mean You're Inferior or Incomplete

One evening, my sister and I went to dinner with some friends. During our chatting and catching up, my sister shared with our friends that she’d gone on a few dates with someone.

Our friends were excited for her and began asking her questions, interested to hear about how she’d met this date, what this person was like, and how things were going.

After several minutes, they turned to me and asked, “Anything new with you?”

Based on how they communicated this question, they were more than likely really asking me, Anything new with you in the area of dating and romance and meeting potential significant others?

There wasn’t.

But since the actual question they verbalized wasn’t so specific as their tone and mannerisms suggested, I decided to answer with something else that was new with me and that I was so, so, so excited about: getting to travel again to Rwanda that summer.

I’d gone on missions trips to Rwanda before, and now had another opportunity to return and serve with the same ministries, travel with some of the same teammates, and see some of the same children, families, and ministry leaders I had met before.

So I responded to their question with joy and enthusiasm: “I’m going back to Rwanda!”

They smiled like they were happy for me, said something along the lines of “That’s great!”… and then turned back to my sister with further questions about her date.

I felt myself deflate, all the enthusiasm and excitement sighing out of me. Whether intentionally or not (and I know these wonderful friends well enough to know it wasn’t intentional), their response signaled to me that what was happening in my life didn’t matter as much to them as what was happening in my sister’s life, because what was happening in my life was happening within my singleness, and without dating and romance.

At times (or maybe for you most of the time), because of things said to us, ways we’re treated, and the structures and dynamics within culture, our families, and even our churches, we as single people can feel like we don’t matter as much as those who are coupled.

And maybe in ways, we believe this: our singleness means we’re inferior or incomplete in some way; as single people, our hopes, our needs, our opinions, our joys, our hardships, our growth are less significant and less worthy of support and celebration; and the thing that would give us full significance and worth would be to become un-single.

How do we navigate these situations, these feelings of insignificance in our singleness, these beliefs that single means less-than?

It’s a lot.

It’s hard. It’s frustrating. And it hurts.

There’s no quick and easy fix, because there are perceptions and beliefs about singleness within the very structures of society and the church that need to be remade, and that's going to take time and the effort of many.

Yet we needn’t lose heart. As we see the need and pray for and seek this remaking, in the meantime we don’t have to resign ourselves to the lies that say singleness is less-than, and that we as single people are inferior.

We can, as a way of participating in this remaking in our own hearts and minds, root our perceptions and beliefs about singleness, and about who we are as single people, in the truth of Christ.

So friend, here are 3 truths from God’s Word I want to share with you about why your singleness doesn’t mean you’re inferior or incomplete, to encourage you when you’re feeling this way, and to participate in my own way in the remaking of the church’s perceptions and beliefs about singleness:

1. Your worth isn’t found in your relationship status, but in that you were created for relationship

​When God created human beings, He created us in His image:

​"Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us...' So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:26-27

​The “Us” in these verses refers to the Trinity: God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Three in One eternally living in perfect communion and union with one another.

God created us to enter into communion with Him—a relationship in which we draw ever nearer, grow ever deeper, become ever more intimate.

God also created us to be His image-bearers—to have relationships with other people in which we reflect His character (Eph. 5:1).

Being created in the image of God means we are created for relationship—in love, by love, and for love.

So it isn’t a relationship status of single or dating or engaged or married or widowed or divorced or “it’s complicated” that determines our worth.

​It is this being made in God’s image, this being created for relationship, this being loved into being, that says we already have worth.

2. Your wholeness isn’t found in romance, but in relationship with your Redeemer

Because of sin, the image of God in us is broken, and so we are broken—because in our sin, we’re separated from the relationship of intimacy with God for which we were made, and outside of this relationship, we cannot truly reflect God’s character in our relationships with others.

So our real need isn’t a ring-on-our-finger, but a Redeemer.

This is why Jesus came. He died the death we deserve to save us from sin, so we could be made righteous and have relationship with God. (1 Cor. 5:21)  He rose victorious over sin and death, so we too can be raised to new life as co-heirs with Him. (Eph. 2:6; Rom. 8:17) He sent His Spirit to join with our spirits and affirm that we are God’s children, empowering us be imitators of Him and walk in love. (Rom. 8:16; Eph. 5:1-2)

When we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, all of this becomes true in our lives, and we grow in wholeness and holiness as we grow in relationship with Him.

3. You’re singleness isn’t insignificant, but a testament

Scripture tells us that marriage is significant and sacred because it is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-33).

Singleness, too, has beautiful and beneficial theological significance and sacredness.*

In Luke 20:34-36, Jesus says in the New Heaven and New Earth, there won’t be human marriage; there will be the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-9)—a relationship that is so much bigger, better, more; a relationship that nothing could ever surpass, because it will be complete and whole, lacking nothing. There will be joy and peace and belonging and delight and intimacy and trust and security and love in their realest, truest, most perfect forms.

This is the relationship—with our Triune God as brothers and sisters in Christ—for which we were created.

Singleness, too, is a reflection of this deep, intimate, fulfilling relationship—a testament to a covenant that is more enduring than marriage, to a love that is deeper than romance, to an intimacy that is closer than sex.

Through Christ, we as single people (for however long we’re single and even as we may still desire marriage) have the opportunity to testify to where our, where everyone’s, true worth, wholeness, and belonging are found: in Christ.

Yes, when we’re treated as inferior, when we experience those situations in which we seem not to matter in our singleness, when we navigate those dynamics and structures that place us lower than those who are coupled, it will be hard. It will be frustrating. It will hurt.

But I believe as we more and more see our singleness and ourselves as Jesus does (and remember, Jesus lived His life on earth as a single person!), as we grow in our relationship with God and in Christ-likeness in our relationships with others, we’ll be empowered by the Holy Spirit to give grace when we’re upset and hurting, to have conversations with our families and friends and churches about the significance of singleness and our needs as single people, and to be a part of helping all people know they matter to God and have a place of belonging and significance in His family.

*for a deep dive into the theology of singleness, I highly recommend Danielle Treweek's The Meaning of Singleness