Most of my very best and dearest friends are single women in
their 30s. Two are very close to 40. Lovely,
beautiful, wise, warm, sexy, godly, spiritual, intelligent, brave single women.
They do things like bring in tens of
thousands of dollars for meaningful causes, volunteer each and every week for
children’s Sunday school, train and orchestrate for disaster relief efforts
world-wide with a major missions agency, project manage millions of dollars for
a massive company, sit with college students that are hungry for relationship
with God. I mean, these women kick-ass
and their lives are full.
Yet, there is something that I am increasingly aware of as I
have walked this journey of infertility.
As I have held this place of poverty, while believing and acting on the
dignity of my life as it is. That, just
as I sit each Sunday and hear the funny quips and antedotes about “my kid did
this” “when I became a father I finally
learned” “when I look in my daughters eyes and tuck her in at night,” these
women’s hearts also hear, “my wife taught me” “husbands, just ask your wives
how you really are” “sex the way God designed it.”
Now. I am not saying
that these jokes and examples are bad in and of themselves. Or that they are hurtful every time, or even
every other time. But, really, there are
just a lot of them. And innocently,
probably. I mean, that is who the evangelical
church trains and hires to do their teaching: young men who married in their
20s; or 30s at the latest. And typically
have children in due course. (Or, if
they don’t have children, questions would be asked. I mean, can you imagine a married couple in
ministry saying they did not want to have kids…I digress). So, really, these guys are just being
themselves and trying to be transparent with their struggles or messiness. I am down with that in many regards.
The reality, though, is that I have never heard a pastor
talk about infertility. Really. Never.
And I have been in the church pew my whole life. And I have only heard a few blurbs during
sermons on living singlely, and most of them are like, “hold on to hope until
you get married,” or “you have so much
free time right now…(until you get married?),” (and yes, there is a verse about
that…). And its like…really?
Really? Is this the best we have for examples of living fully and authentically? Ones that norm the Norm even more, Norm? Aren’t we supposed to be norming, or at a
minimum inviting, the margins in the
church? Even the micro-margins, if you
will? (I just made up that word, I
think).
And are the “margins” of the church really the margins of
society as a whole? I’m going to go
ahead and say no, Norm. I don’t know any
smart statistics, but a boatload of people are single later and later life; always
having been single or newly single.
And people are having babies later in life. And, like it or not, many people drop out of
church until they have babies. And, honestly,
I can see one potential contributing factor: there is a bit of a social
no-mans-land for people, couples or otherwise, in their 30s and 40s without
children in the church.
Solutions? I can tell
you that one of the reasons I went to my church was because they had a single,
woman elder in her 30s. And that, is a
really, really good start. And I am
doing my best to share my story and welcome people into my life and home who
are single and have kids, married and don’t have kids, recently divorced, in
their teens, 50s, 30s, 80s. I would also
love to see more women teaching. And
single men speaking. And childless or blended family couples preaching. From the
platform. Regularly. What do you say, Norm? Are we ready for that?
Lizzy, I love this. Thinking of sharing it with some folks at DCC. What do you think of that?
ReplyDeleteYes! With fear and trembling. And openness to any thoughts and conversations. XO.
ReplyDelete