My friend Stephanie once shared a quote with me, and those words have stuck with me over the years: “Church is the loneliest place for a single woman.” I don’t know who originated those words, but I believe them to be true with all my heart.
I’ve battled the loneliness myself. It takes a lot out of a person to attend week after week alone. I pump myself up on the drive to church with worship tunes and arrive in the sanctuary with my spirits high. I search out a familiar face, in hopes of sitting with a friend and often do, but I also long to meet other people and expand my circle of friends. I seek out more accountability not less. I want to build on my connections and mingle with other singles and married couples alike.
I’m a pretty friendly person, and I love meeting new people. Normally, I don’t mind starting conversations with complete strangers, but over the years, I’ve become intimidated to do so in my own church. I’ve had people shut down the conversation and look for someone else (anyone else) to talk to when they found out I was single. Literally, I’ve seen the light go out of their eyes and watched them scan the horizon for someone else to talk to. It is as if upon learning that my marital status was at empty, meant that the conversation or burgeoning friendship could go no further. FULL STOP! She’s single, hence we have nothing in common – walk away quickly. HA!
I attended a singles Sunday school class, but it was not for me. It felt more like a college age class, and I felt too old and grown up there. Yet somehow, I didn’t feel gutsy enough to try the other class for singles or newly singles where the median age was about 15-20 years older than I was either.
I volunteered in the nursery and child care ministries for a while, but unfortunately, I’d usually end up missing all of 3 services because of a lack of workers, or I’d make it to the last service after the worship had ended. It was discouraging.
I joined a small group Bible study for a few months. Here I thought I could really get to know the people in my church, but it didn’t work out that way. I was too different. I tried to get to know the couples in our group through conversations, but no one would really talk to me. In fact, I’d often feel like everyone was talking around me. I was the odd ball out. I didn’t come as part of a matching pair, and apparently this party was for complete sets only.
I tried some of the ladies only events at church. We are all women after all, and so it should be easy to make conversation, right? Oddly enough, it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. The singles and married women didn’t mingle all that much at those functions, and when I tried to start a conversation, that “shut down” mode thing happened again when I explained that I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, didn’t drive a mini van, etc. Suddenly, they saw their dear friend so-and-so across the room and needed to go catch up with her. It was frustrating because deep down I knew that we might have much more in common if both of us could just stop getting hung up on my empty ring finger.
As for the single men, well, it’s hard to meet them at church when most of the Christian men of my acquaintance that are my age or older have dropped out of church altogether. Sadly, I know so many great single guys that are absent from the church. Perhaps they found it a lonely place to be, too, and opted for other outlets to meet their social and spiritual needs.
Personally, I have found it hard to acknowledge how lonely it can be out there in the church without sounding like I am complaining or whining, but I’ve encountered other singles that have felt the same, and so I know I’m not alone. There are more of us puzzle pieces longing to fill in the blanks, but we find that we don’t fit into the bigger picture. In a way, we’re aliens living in a sea of matching units. We’re not wired the same way. We’re not part of a matching set or even a clique. Yep, we’re broken and incomplete, but in fact, aren’t we all?
Now I know that there is no church here that will ever be a perfect fit. I’m just not gonna find it this side of Heaven, but I firmly believe…WAIT! Let me rephrase that: I KNOW WE (as the CHURCH) CAN DO BETTER!
2 comments:
I know I've heard a lot of people talk about these kind of things. Strangely enough I haven't really run into them myself, so I don't totally understand or relate. I do know that everyone seems to want to interact with other people who are most like themselves. We seem to continue subdividing people. We have high school then college aged, young adults (20-something), younger singles, older singles, young couples, older couples, etc. etc. It's kind of funny to me how many people who are mid twenties don't want to hang out with the people who are only a couple of years younger but still in college, or only a few years older because they're too old (in their minds). For the last five years or so I've been hanging out with a lot of college and 20-something people. It works for me since I am still in about the same position in life (single and don't have a career). I don't tell people how old I am though because I'm afraid that they would be more stand off-ish.
Thanks for your thoughts, Doug! Yes, I think it is true that we tend to predominantly interact with people that are like us...I'm trying to get away from that practice myself. I'll just have to see how all this plays out!
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