Single and Christian?

I'm a big fan of resources that apply the Way of Jesus to specific life circumstances. Sometimes we need simple and general reminders like "all you need is to love God and love others," but often it is helpful to dig deeper into the specific ways of how to apply those general teachings. People are so diverse—different ages, stages, personalities, etc.—and we need help knowing how to "love God and love others" in the specific circumstances of our life.

All of this is a lead-up to saying I was really pleased when I stumbled across the works of Mary B Safrit, Bridget Gee, and Kat Harris. Although they are each doing their own thing in their own way (to my knowledge they're not associated with each other), they all offer a wealth of resources and thoughts regarding being single and Christian.

I want to be clear that I haven't gone through their resources too extensively because I am not their target market. Their target market would be single women and I'm neither of those. So like a lot of the other stuff on this blog I can't give my 100% seal of approval on everything they've said, but from what I have explored their stuff seems to be really authentic and helpful. (By the way, although their stuff is more geared to females I'm sure single males would also benefit.)

The Church has not always handled singleness well. Which is sort of funny because Jesus himself was single. Paul was single and thinks very highly of the single life (see 1 Cor 7:32). The majority of the great Christian saints and thinkers through history were all single. But despite all that we in the modern Western Christian world have come to prize romance, marriage, and families. It is basically assumed that everyone will marry, and if an adult is not married our tendency is to feel sorry for them. Many of our church ministries, teachings, and groups are either explicitly or implicitly geared towards couples. None of this is good but it is often reality. For this reason I'm glad there are resources for those trying to navigate this landscape.

The three women each have social media profiles, websites, books, blogs, and podcasts, so I'll just share a few links here and allow you to explore the rest if you are interested.

Mary B Safrit: https://marybsafrit.com/about

Bridget Gee:

Kat Harris: https://therefinedwoman.com/about