Is singleness a legitmate means of suffering?

The decision to bring one more thought to the singleness and suffering table came from a recent comment posted by a new visitor to my little corner. I was going to let it go, but because he touched on some things about singleness and suffering that I am currently in the process of putting into words myself, I began to write a comment that was turning into a blog! So, I thought it might be better for all to see.

Before I go any farther, in the case of the suffering being legitimate to singles, let me clarify who we are not talking about:

We are not talking about the single person who before God has no heart desires for marriage or family.

There are some people who legitimately have none of those desires. I would venture to say that for them, singleness is not suffering.

In order to understand this better, let’s look at Prov. 13:12, brought to the table by our new visitor:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

In the Hebrew, hope deferred has the idea of affliction that comes as a result of actively being drawn or lifted out; being dragged along (like a person roped to the back of a truck and being dragged along). When hope or expectation or desire is a longing unfulfilled (“the heart sick”), this person is bearing a form of suffering or affliction. Adam Clarke offers this commentary on Proverbs 13:12:

When once a good is discovered, want of it felt, strong desire for the possession excited, and the promise of attainment made on grounds unsuspected, so that the reality of the thing and the certainty of the promise are manifest, hope posts forward to realize the blessing. Delay in the gratification pains the mind; the increase of the delay prostrates and sickens the heart; and if delay sickens the heart, ultimate disappointment kills it. But when the thing desired, hoped for, and expected comes, it is a tree of life, ets chaiyim, "the tree of lives;" it comforts and invigorates both body and soul. To the tree of lives, in the midst of the gardens of paradise, how frequent are the allusions in the writings of Solomon, and in other parts of the Holy Scriptures! What deep, and perhaps yet unknown, mysteries were in this tree!

I think most of us have a picture in our heads that suffering is a heirarchy of pain/loss...kind of a "rock, paper, scissors" thing –

• broken arm trumps paper cut
• love lost trumps broken arm
• fighting cancer trumps love lost
• sudden death of a loved one trumps fighting cancer
  

Now, hear me out, those things ARE suffering. I’m just not sure getting caught up in the hierarchy of types of suffering should define what is suffering. And while there certainly are circumstances/pain that some people suffer that are so much harder than singleness, I don’t think it’s necessary to equate it with other forms of suffering to either invalidate it or legitimatize it.

While it’s obvious that I disagree with some of the points made that there is no suffering in singleness, I agree with the comments made that point out a response to suffering. That is what the latter half of Prov. 13:12 speaks to: “…a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Where our longings have found their satisfactions is a tree of life. In all suffering there is a response – how am I going to allow this pain/trauma/hurt/loss, etc to work itself out in my life in such a way that its place in my life transforms me and grows me as a person?

For the believer, I think response to suffering is especially critical! Second Cor. 1:3-7 says,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.

You see, suffering (or affliction as it’s referred to here) is in the life of every person who walks this planet. In the Greek, the word affliction has the idea of “pressing together, pressure” as well as metaphorically or literally, “oppression, affliction, tribulation, distress, straits.” Yes, even hope deferred. What 2 Corinthians is saying here is that all types of suffering enter into everyone’s lives differently. Critical for those who know Christ is:

1. How have they allowed themselves to be comforted by God, the Father of all comfort?
2. How will they use how they’ve been comforted by God to comfort others with the same comfort they’ve received?

As believers, what we’re talking about here is learning to develop a perspective in suffering that enables us to identify with those who either don’t yet know Christ or do know Him but are having a hard time laying hold of His purpose for this event in their lives. Why? Because it was through suffering that Jesus identified with the people He came to die for:

For it was fitting, in bringing many sons to glory, that He, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the source of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Heb. 2:10-11)

Jesus identifies with every human being through suffering. The idea here is humility. It moves us out of the “I’ve arrived” kind of mentality and allows us to be on the same page with those the Lord brings along each of our paths. As ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:16-21), this is the ministry attitude bestowed upon our lives:

• Jesus identifies with my suffering
  
• Jesus comforts me in this area
  
• Jesus wants to comfort others through me

A question was posed earlier in the discussion,

What if you allowed yourself to see your singleness as something worthy of being called suffering?

That question brings great delight to my heart because I know that my response to the kind of woman I want to be in my singleness is affirming it! If you were to ask me when I was a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have eagerly responded, “I want to be a wife and a mom.” In college, I thought marriage and family were a given. Since then, there were a couple of significant years where "hope deferred makes the heart sick" was the most glaring thing about me – I was hurt, angry, hopeless. I was a beast for Him (Psalm 73). I felt gypped by God as I sat on the singleness sidelines and watched college students who were getting younger and younger get married and have babies while I only seemed to get older and farther away from seeing that hope realized in my life. Hope deferred made my heart sick. And yet, in all of this, I found myself running to Jesus. Through those times of blatant honesty with Him, He brought comfort to a heart weary in her affliction.

The point to all of this is this: if I had not been going to Jesus during these last 10 years since college with all of my unfulfilled longing laid open before Him AND if I had not allowed myself to be truly comforted by Him, I would have missed the opportunities He’s given to comfort many others who’ve wrestled with similar heart afflictions!

Does this change the fact that my single heart longs for marriage and family? No way! Does this change the way I view Christ in my life and the ministry He lays across my path? You better believe it. For the single, hope deferred can be such a tree of life – living with these unfulfilled desires in a way that brings Christ center stage and reveals that our satisfaction comes from Him.

That’s what I want my life to be known by…that’s the kind of woman I want to be – one that lives life fully in face of unfulfilled longings.

"But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Thy works." Ps. 73:28