Single-Minded: Being single, whole and living life to the full

By Kate Wharton

Our world, and indeed our church, seem to be built around a -couples culture-. From popular music to supermarket offers to -family- events, being single can mean being the odd one out. Kate Wharton considers the challenges facing singles, addressing the issues of being complete without an -other half-, staying pure, being single again after divorce or bereavement, and dealing with pressures from both church and society. Kate reminds us that Jesus comes to bring -life to the full-, whatever our marital status. -When we are sold out for God,- she says, -then life will be the very best that it can be ' whether married or single, with children or without ' because we will be on our way to becoming who we were created to be.- Kate shows us how we can be single and whole.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Release date: Jun 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857214317

Kate Wharton

Kate is Vicar of St. George's Church in Everton, Liverpool. Before ordination she worked as a Speech & Language Therapist and then as a Church Pastoral Assistant. She enjoys travelling, playing badminton, watching football, and going out with friends. She is a regular speaker at New Wine. She has been single for 33 years!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Wholly single

Full life or half life?

Often it can feel as though being single is to be a half rather than a whole. Sometimes we see ourselves in that way, in our darker moments, when we feel lonely, and wish we had someone by our side with whom we could share life. Sometimes others see us in that way, and we feel judged by society for our singleness. When we have to fill in a form and tick a box marked single; when we have to pay a single room supplement for a holiday; when we are faced with 2 for 1 supermarket offers that we know we’ll end up throwing away; when we steel ourselves to enter a party alone; when we need someone to hold the other piece of the flatpack furniture we’re building; when we come home to an empty house and there is no one to tell about the highs and lows of our day – at these times, and at many others, being single can feel like the raw end of the deal.

But we are not half-people, we are whole people! We mustn’t fall into the trap of seeing ourselves in this way, and we mustn’t let anyone else do it either. Whether we are single or married; whether we have children or not; whether we live alone or with others – we are whole. Each one of us is a whole, complete person, made in the image of God, to reflect his glory.

I conducted a wedding once where the couple had a poem read in the service which contained the line We used to feel vaguely incomplete, now together we are whole.¹ I’ve also heard numerous pop songs and watched films that speak of being made complete when we finally find that special person to marry.

For some people, it seems as if perhaps marriage, or their spouse, or relationships in general, is their god, since that is where they find their security. But unless we know our security and our identity to be firmly placed in God then we will never be truly happy or fulfilled.

Jesus said I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.² That is the life that we are offered in Jesus Christ. Full life. Complete life. Whole life. Not a life which will only be complete when we find the missing other half of ourselves. Life that is full and complete and whole right now because it is life in him. Our identity is found in Jesus. A full life is one where we don’t miss out on any of what God has in store for us; where we make the most of every opportunity that he brings our way; where we spend as much time with him as we possibly can; where we seek to share his good news with as many people as we possibly can; where we are comfortable with who he has made us to be; where we are full of joy because of the amazing things he has done for us.

It’s fairly common to hear people introduce their spouse or partner as my other half . You’re bound to have heard it. This is something we have to be careful with. At its heart, it’s a biblical statement. In the creation account in Genesis we read that a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.³ Therefore, when someone gets married they don’t become in any way less themselves, but they do in a mysterious way become half of a whole unit.

At the same time, however, this can lead to those of us who aren’t married feeling as if we are somehow less than whole. It can feel this way if we’ve never been married, because we may see ourselves as one half waiting for its other half in order to become complete (and it’s not unusual to hear people actually talking in this kind of language). It can also feel this way if we’ve been married but are no longer – we may feel that our wholeness has been destroyed and we are back to being half a person. In both cases single people can end up feeling that by themselves they are only half a person – somehow unfinished.

Philippa is in her thirties and has always been single. She’s part of a large church with a high proportion of single people, and the church is good at encouraging people to connect together in groups and support one another. She finds that where there are difficulties in understanding it tends to be between young families and single people, often because they don’t spend enough time together to really understand one another’s issues and concerns. She values the freedom being single gives her to be generous with time and money – being able to give a great deal to friends because there are no further demands waiting back at home. The difficulties she finds are when big things have been discussed at work that married people can go home to share with spouses, as she has no one with whom to share those things. She also feels that this is an area in which the church should invest more time and do more teaching – as a church we take care to prepare people for marriage, and we should do the same to prepare people for what may be a whole life lived as a single person.

Recently an article was published on the BBC News Magazine pages by a man describing his experience of being single. Tellingly, the article was entitled Why are couples so mean to single people? He considers the viewpoint that being single is to have somehow failed, and reflects that, You see, no one is supposed to be single. If we are, we must account for our deficiencies.⁴

The way we need to look at this is that as single people we are whole by ourselves – it’s not true that we’re incomplete unless or until we get married. We’re children of God, made in his image and that’s just the same whether we are single or married. However when two people get married, two whole people come together and a new whole is created – the marriage unit is greater than the sum of its parts.

I wonder whether you’ve ever been asked the question Have you got a family? I find that I get asked that quite a lot, especially when I’m being introduced to someone for the first time. If I’m feeling bolshy I might reply, Yes I have – I’ve got a mum and dad, a grandma, five cousins… , but if I haven’t got the energy for it then I’ll probably just weakly mutter No, I haven’t… You see, what is really being asked is Are you married with children? In that question, family equals spouse and children. If you haven’t got them, then the underlying assumption seems to be that you aren’t a family, you haven’t got a family, and all is somehow not quite right.

Maybe you’ve also been asked So, are you still single? with the emphasis on the still as though there’s something a bit odd about you for not having had the decency to get yourself married yet. Sometimes we fall into the trap ourselves, and we might say that we’re single at the moment, as if we’re somehow ashamed to admit it out loud. Our society, and even our churches, can sometimes seem to give the impression that when we grow up we should get married – that it’s just one step in the journey of normal life. I’ve even heard people run those two quite separate life events together and talk to children about what they’ll do when they grow up and get married – somehow seeming to infer that not doing the second of those things means that the first hasn’t quite been achieved either.

And yet if we allow ourselves to think like that, and if we allow such stereotypes to go unchallenged, then it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of seeing our single life as some sort of waiting room for when the proper life of marriage begins. I wonder if you recognize that sense of thinking your life will really begin when you meet that special someone whom you want to marry, and who wants to marry you. Maybe you’re aware that at some point in your life you have felt like that, or maybe you would say that’s how you feel right now.

Kerry is in her forties and has never married. She is very involved in her church and feels that there are people who understand some of the issues around being single, and ask about her life and work so she has someone to share with. Plus they give good hugs! However, many also think that being single she will have much more time than those who are married, and somehow be able to help with everything. She would also like it if they consciously thought more about the issues around singleness and sought to address them, rather than seeing it as a phase. She has many married friends who welcome her into their family, help with practical tasks, and appreciate me in my singleness and the gifts that that can bring. She enjoys the freedom and independence that singleness brings, in terms of how she spends her time and money, but is also aware of the things that she misses out on, such as sharing food and drink with another person, and having someone to share dreams and plans with.

Odd one out?

When I hear poems, songs or film lines like those mentioned earlier, or when I get asked one of those questions, or others like them, I feel a bit sad and a bit angry. I feel that way because of the assumption contained within them that all single people are just sort of flailing aimlessly around having a half-hearted attempt at living life, until they can be rescued by a marriage partner and made whole. It’s clearly nonsense when it’s put like that. It’s an assumption that I’m sure those asking the questions wouldn’t consciously wish to make. And yet how many of us actually live our lives in some way being shaped and influenced by that attitude?

And I don’t think that it’s completely our fault. Society – and unfortunately also the church – just sort of funnels us into thinking in that way. Very often it can feel to us as though everyone around us expects us to be paired off and part of a couple, and that maybe we’re seen as just a little bit odd if that’s not the case. And I think because of that we also can end up viewing marriage as the norm and can make it our goal, so we can easily fall into the trap of putting our lives on hold and constantly saying "When I get married I