Safe on the Other Side

It’s February 15, and I have safely traversed yet another Valentine’s Day–this year, the smoothest trip yet.

I can’t know precisely, but I think it helped that I wasn’t forced to sit through a youth group “Love Month.”

This year, I didn’t have to listen to anyone tell me to “don’t worry, you’ll get married someday.” I guess maybe it’s easier to not have to continually remind myself that just because well-intentioned believers promise me marriage doesn’t mean God has promised me marriage.

This year, I didn’t have to listen to anyone tell me that the trick to getting married is “being content in your singleness.” Apparently, they were really fast learners–they figured out how to be content in the entire six months they were single after high school.

This year, I didn’t have to listen to anyone tell me that “some people are called to be single–which means they’ll be single for the rest of their lives.” I didn’t have remind them that all of us were originally called to be single. And that singleness is a gift every single person has–until God decides to exchange the gift of singleness for marriage, should he choose to do so.

It’s amazing how much easier it is to be content with singleness when I’m not being told, explicitly or implicity, that singleness is second best.

I grew up in the church, attended youth group every week, sponsored for the youth group for several years during college, and estimate that I have heard at least 40 “Love Month” sermons or teachings. And I’m pretty sure that I am a better person for not having heard them this time around.

The creators of “love month” had good intentions. They thought they’d use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to talk about touchy subjects. The problem is, they were too uncomfortable to talk about the really important touchy subjects–so they conjured up unimportant dream worlds to talk about instead.

“Love Month”–at least as I remember it–included one teaching that wasn’t quite on sex (often relegated to a video), one teaching on praying and preparing for your future spouse, one teaching on courting (NEVER dating), and one evening where girls and boys split up to discuss “gender-related issues.” The boys talked about lust, pornography, and masturbation. The girls talked about modesty.

The problem with the sex talk was that no one really talked about it frankly. They euphemized and trivialized and glossed over things to the point that the only take home message you could get was that apparently girls and boys were not supposed to do anything together. Or something like that. Oh, there were a few good points–“If he loves you, he won’t try taking advantage of you” being a key example.

But by and large, the really important (although somewhat awkward) points weren’t made. Nobody talked about the serious medical complications associated with STDs. Plenty of people mentioned not kissing until you were engaged, or married or whatever–because it was the fad thing in the church in those days (maybe it still is, I don’t know). But nobody shared that some STDs can be shared through kissing, without genital contact. Now that’s information that might come in handy. Nobody talked about how every time you have sex with a person, it’s like you’re having sex with every person they’ve had sex with before.

They talked about praying and preparing for your future spouse. They shared the sweet story of our pastor’s wife, who prayed eight years for her future husband before she and Jason got married. They talked about keeping your room clean and not being a slob. I don’t remember exactly what else they thought was “preparation for marriage.”

I do know that they didn’t say anything about how to live the single life. They didn’t talk about learning how to have healthy relationships with your own sex. They didn’t talk about learning to be hospitable. They didn’t talk about learning how to manage your time and money wisely. They didn’t talk about using your giftings. They didn’t talk about humbling yourself and submitting to authority. Preparation for marriage is all right and good–but since marriage isn’t a guarantee and singleness (at least for a time) is, wouldn’t it be better to prepare for singleness? (Especially since by “preparing for singleness” I mean preparing for adulthood?)

They talked about courtship and not DATING. They talked about how the guy talks to the father and they’re both serious about marriage and blah-da-de-blah. They didn’t talk about how nobody needs to be worrying about dating OR courting in high school. They didn’t encourage the students to discover their callings and giftings and passions before they started looking for a mate. They didn’t caution students to not base their life’s course on a guy or a gal.

And then they split the guys and the girls up for some frank talk about issues. Or at least so the guys could have a frank talk about issues. The guys talked about lust, pornography, and masturbation. The girls talked about not causing their brothers to sin by being immodest. Once, they were especially bold and let me talk to the girls about guarding their hearts.

What they didn’t ever discuss with the girls? Lust. Pornography. Masturbation. Yes, we heard that guys were visual–that’s why we were supposed to cover up. But we never heard that girls can lust too. We never heard that we too need to guard our eyes and our thoughts. We were never cautioned against sexually explicit novels, intimacy-laden movies, and daydreaming about guys. Nobody would countenance mentioning masturbation to the girls. After all, what if some of them didn’t know what it was and got ideas?

So we were led to believe that lust was man’s sin. Immodesty was woman’s. The girls weren’t given any tools with which to fight the lust that attacked us. Thinking that we were abnormal and unnatural, we tried to fight the battle alone–or gave up on trying to fight. If a leader couldn’t even mention the word masturbation, how could a girl gain the confidence to go to the leader for prayer and accountability?

Just thinking about it gets me riled.

Perhaps now you can understand why not having to do “love month” has made February a great deal easier for me?

Even if not, allow me to share a few quick tips for talking “relationships” with single people:

• Don’t make promises you can’t keep–Don’t promise them marriage when God hasn’t done so.
• Redirect their focus back to what God has made clear is their calling right now. That means encouraging them to learn to be the best student, child, roommate, friend, or employee they can be. That means encouraging them to discover their purpose and passions and to get connected within the church.
• Be willing to speak frankly, and listen openly about the many issues they’re dealing with. Don’t give quick, pat answers. Talk about lust. Talk about the joys of marriage (honoring your spouse by not going too far, of course). Talk about the trials of marriage (once again, honoring your spouse by not going into details). Go ahead and remind them that marriage is great but it’s not the promised land. Learn for yourself, if you need to, that a spouse is not the answer to all of life’s problems.
• Above all, work to keep the focus on God–and their relationship with God. Don’t encourage single people to “be content in their singleness” (especially not as a means to marriage)–instead encourage them to discover God’s purpose in their singleness. Keep redirecting the focus of your conversations about relationships back to God.

Thanks for bearing with my little rant–and thanks to all of you who have been such a blessing to me (single person though I am ;-) Oh–and thank you, Lord, for the privelege of being a single woman (and that I didn’t have to do another “Love Month” this year).