What I Wish My Single Missionary Friends Knew

Single missionaries are my heroes. I was single in ministry for 16 years, and while every single missionary’s journey is different, I know a bit of what that’s like. I am no longer in full time vocational ministry and married my husband just shy of turning 42. But I still think about you all often. I want to sit down with you over coffee or a bubble tea and tell you the following things:

What I wish my single ministry friends knew:

 — You are courageous on a daily basis.

 — You are my social heroes. You are brave walking into a wedding, a party, or a support raising appointment without a date or a friend by your side. Not having a party buddy sucks.

 — You absorb unhelpful speech and actions from us married folk that you take in and never lash back.

 — I do not view you as single, but as human.

 — I do not expect you to visit me more than I visit you.

 — Part of me is genuinely sad that I cannot fully relate to your situation anymore, so you have at least one other person who “100% gets it.” Yes, I can attempt to enter your world as best as I know how, but it is not the same as when I was in the single trenches with you.

 — If I do wacko things to make you feel single, tell me. It might take me awhile to change, or I might have a different perspective, but tell me anyway.

 — I need you in my life in ways that my husband cannot fill. I need you not because you are single or to somehow brag that “I have single friends,” but because you are my friend and always will be whether you are married or single.

 — My husband likes you not because you are my friend, but because he likes you, and because you are awesome.

 — You can feel like a third wheel no matter how much I include you. Know that I never look at you as a third wheel. I look at you as a friend who is joining two other friends.

 — Your tears of being single and/or single in ministry are never wasted on me. I consider it an honor every time you let me into your heart.

 — When it comes to online dating: I saw me as desperate, but my friends saw me as brave. The same goes for you. I see you as brave.

 — The roller coaster of content vs. discontent is curvy and real.

I pray you remain tender and open when singleness tries to convince you to be independent and tough. Many times I wanted to shut off my heart. This quote from C.S. Lewis spoke to me then and now:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

Keep clinging to Jesus dear friend and I hope that I speak for your other married friends out there when I say that even though we are a work in progress in how we care for you, we are here to listen.