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Overview
Did you enter adulthood thinking marriage would naturally find you, only to end up at a second-cousin’s wedding, dodging yet another bouquet the night before you turned thirty? Maybe you’ve started wondering, is this the best the single life has to offer? Joy Beth Smith says it’s not. The single life doesn’t have to be the runner-up version of God’s best. It doesn’t have to leave you constantly waiting for “real life” to begin. Party of One offers a trade: let go of the tired lies weighing you down and turn toward truth. Understand that:
- You don’t have to be married to be wise. You don’t have to be a mother to have supernatural love. You don’t have to own a home to be hospitable.
- Singleness is not meant to be pitied, shamed, fixed, or even ignored. It is to be celebrated.
- God doesn’t promise you a husband, but he does promise comfort, intimacy, and satisfaction.
With humor, self-awareness, and been-there perspective, Party of One delves into the insecurities and struggles of singleness and encourages you to find the good, the true, and the beautiful, to dive headfirst into community, and to stop pressing pause on a life you never expected.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780718094058 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nelson, Thomas, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 02/06/2018 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Sales rank: | 759,612 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
GOD DOESN'T OWE YOU A HUSBAND
I had to pause, yet again, to stretch out my fingers. I could type for hours a day, yet writing with even my best pens for more than fifteen minutes left my hand cramped. But I had to keep going — I had to finish the letter. I pushed through the pain, using it to fuel my last words, words full of passion and love and promises of a future together. With a flourish, I signed the bottom of the page, "Love you always, Your Wife."
I folded the letter carefully and slipped it inside an envelope scented with my favorite perfume (a lovely floral number that Glamour told me most men prefer in a blind smell test). I quickly scrawled "To My Husband" on the front as I said a little prayer and slid it into the large hatbox where it rested next to hundreds of its siblings.
I had written a letter to my future husband at least once a month for the past fifteen years. These letters, if compiled and published, could act as one of the most prolific (or most embarrassing) coming-of-age missives in recent history. They're full of heartbreak and longing, questions of faith, and milestones in my academic life and career. In the course of writing these letters, I shopped for a prom dress, graduated high school, excelled at college, changed my major (three times), and then finally attended grad school. They followed me through painful years of unrequited love and crushes that lived up to their name. I wrote about horrible dates and dreams of what was to come. But in recent months these letters had grown increasingly skeptical. Not of the Lord delivering a husband, as one might assume. Rather, the letters seemed to be in the middle of an existential crisis, questioning their own purpose and existence.
I had spent untold hours recording the details of my existence for a man who, statistically speaking, probably wouldn't enjoy the stream-of-conscious minutia of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader. But I had read about this idea in a book, how the wife wrote letters to her husband and then gave them to him on their wedding day, and they both cried. While the sentiment is indeed very romantic, I can't imagine many men really enjoying the experience of reading hundreds of repetitive letters peppered with the egregious misspellings, poor reasoning, and spotty theology of youth. I imagine marrying a man who would much prefer a pocket watch or organic beard oil as a wedding present.
One day, tired of my own antics in preparation for the husband I had yet to meet, I burned the letters. All of them. I took my lavender-scented candle and lit the edge of one envelope on fire. Then, after nearly burning my hand while caught up in my own melodrama, I dropped it into a metal trash can and began the process again — over and over until all my words were nothing more than ash. Even as I was in the process of burning the last of the letters, I concocted some kind of poetic beauty from the ashes, imagining what phoenix may arise next.
I've yet to see the phoenix, but I did realize that day how much time I spent pining for more than what I had — for what I liked to think was the inevitable but in reality is not. Here's the thing: Marriage is not inevitable. Motherhood is not inevitable. And yet, at any given family gathering, I hear this phrase at least once: "God's got such a wonderful husband in store for you. Just wait. Keep being faithful."
In reality, God has promised me many, many things: joy, intimacy with him, comfort, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, just to name a few. But I'll never find the promise of a husband, of a beautiful, fulfilling marriage, tucked away in the back of James or even alluded to in Psalms. As much as I long for this thing — this good, beautiful thing — I am not entitled to it. God never promises me a God-fearing husband, satisfaction guaranteed.
The problem is, I've believed this unscriptural promise for years. And if we're being honest, we all have to some extent. So many lies about singleness are ingrained in our religious culture — even embedded in the very infrastructure of the church. Some are easy to spot, while others are so tightly woven in that it feels impossible to find a way around them. But if we are to live the full lives God has given us, we can't simply follow along with what we've been told. We need to dig deep into Scripture and find the truth, distinguishing between what is biblical and what is merely cultural — or even flat-out wrong.
The first lie we should eliminate, as I mentioned earlier, is the way we assume marriage is coming for us. For the better part of my life I felt that it was almost owed to me. But marriage, like so many other parts of life, is a gift that God has the right to withhold, should he so desire. I deeply believe that the Lord is good, that he is faithful and sovereign. Yet somehow I have to reconcile this understanding with the facts: some women will spend their lives desperately wanting a husband only to never receive one.
This is not an easy truth to face. It reminds me of that portion of 2 Samuel 6 where God kills Uzzah for trying to steady the ark of the covenant after an ox stumbles. God struck him dead. I can't understand that. It's hard for me. Like it's hard for me to know that marriage is a good thing — especially a marriage that honors God through two people growing to be more like him — but he doesn't always give us all the good things, even when we really, really want them.
Honestly, it's crushing to live under the constant weight of unmet desires. It's hard to long for something you have little to no control over actually obtaining. It's hard to see people in happy marriages. It's hard to sit alone in your apartment on Thanksgiving wishing you had rolls to burn or a pie to botch and a husband to console you afterward.
Even though I'm no longer spending my evenings writing letters to a faceless figment of my imagination who strongly resembles a bearded Clark Kent, I'll often find myself daydreaming of a husband. That's silly and embarrassing to admit, but it's true. It's usually in the mundane moments when I feel the absence of a husband most profoundly. On my drive home from work when I want to pop into a store and pick up a surprise treat for dessert, just because I know it's his favorite. During those extra-long weekends as I'm choosing an outfit, trying to remember which blue shirt it was that he complimented. As I sit in church and feel a physical ache in my hands from where I want to be holding his. But I'm learning that indulging these daydreams is fuel for discontentment, and I can't afford that right now. There is so much life God has given me to live, with or without a husband, and I can't waste it sitting in my disappointments. In fact, I refuse to.
Instead, I want to drink deeply of life and let go of all the rest. And I want to do it with my sisters, bringing community to those who feel isolated, hope to those who feel desperate, and truth to those who feel deceived. Together, I hope we can excavate the harmful assumptions that have permeated the church for far too long, rooting them out and planting truth in their place.
MAKING ROOM AT THE TABLE
Tables are significant to me. Because I'm an extreme extrovert, they represent the place where I recharge, where I find people I can connect with, where food gets cold because we can't stop talking or laughing long enough to shovel it in. Tables are for community building and healing. So when I set out to write this book, I wanted to do so in the context of this community. I had my own experiences with being a Christian single, but I wanted to go beyond that and seek out others with different perspectives to contribute. I did many one-on-one interviews, but the shared communal experience felt more significant. I thought something important would happen in gathering women around a table.
Before I even got the contract for this book deal, when the idea was still in the proposal stage, I gathered a group of ten women in Chicago, where I lived. Each of us nursed a cup of coffee, tea, or, for those adventurous ones, mint hot chocolate. Most of us were strangers — even I had only met three of the women previously. And in coming together in a safe place, with drinks and food and laughter ringing around the rafters, we had a little taste of heaven on earth. Something important did happen.
Over the course of three hours, we laughed and cried. We acted as intercessors and confessors. We received one another's heartaches with weight and grace. And then we left, and most of us haven't seen one another since. But many of us (thanks to social media) remain deeply connected, forged by a bond of mutual respect and appreciation that comes from having gone to war together. We've fought through something significant, and now we're braver and better for it.
We realized that at the table, truth comes out. Ultimately, we'd come together for one purpose: we wanted to talk about singleness. How it's so hard. Why it's so difficult. How we're coping. What we're doing. How we're struggling.
Because honestly, if you're single, you're probably struggling in some way. You might be perfectly well-adjusted and incredibly content and utterly at peace with your situation, but you're still struggling. Maybe you struggle to bear the hopes that family or well-meaning small-group members place on you, that heavy mantle of the expectation of marriage. Maybe it's that you feel called to be a wife and a mom, and now you're in a place where you're hopelessly helpless to make it happen. Or maybe you feel isolated in your singleness, feeling as if you're the only one who's actually not okay.
That's what I wanted these women to know — that it's okay not to be okay. That I'm not okay. And that only by having frank conversations can we open up to one another, share one another's burdens, stories, wounds, and wisdom, and begin to heal. A salve comes from friendship and shared experiences that is sweet and powerful.
So we gathered around a table, these women and I, and we talked. Though we'd just met, that didn't hinder the conversation in the least; if anything, it was freeing. What would you say about your fears and insecurities to a group of women if you never had to see them again — if you knew that they experienced the same things?
THE REDEFINING NATURE OF MARRIAGE
As I opened the discussion by recalling the all-too-common, painful practice of people promising a husband is in store for me, Patty, a thirtysomething public school teacher, interjected: "What store? Where can I find it? I'll go shopping! Do they have a Black Friday sale? Two for one?"
We all laughed, but the truth of her words hit me. There is no store. And no one can claim what's "in store" for me, as if there's some catalog and they have an advance copy. As Patty went on to explain, when people say this, when they assure us of a future that is unassurable, "It hurts. Because if these are people who love me, they know that I'm waiting for whatever God has for me — no matter what that is. But the truth is that we don't know what's in store; none of us does."
The worst part comes when they're so sure of this conviction that God must have a husband in store that they decide to go shopping for you. Oh, how quickly the marrieds forget what it's like to be single. They try to pair you off with any man who has all his teeth and a functioning liver, but the reality is that only a year ago you were in a small group with that well-meaning couple when they were both single, and they never would have tried to get you to go out with Trevor, the accountant with gingivitis and a wandering eye. But marriage happens, and relationship dynamics change. And suddenly marriage is supposed to happen for all the single people as well, so the playing field can be leveled once again (and so their relationships will be easier to manage and understand, even if it means you dating Trevor).
This well-intentioned act conveys a different message. When people try to pair us up, two by two, and shove us in the ark of the marrieds, it feels as though we're being pawned off, as if we're compromising the potential of what God has for us. Instead of being excited for our lives and willing to sit with us in our singleness, they're anxious for this season to end. In reality, our goals should be the same: to honor God, in singleness and in marriage. And very rarely does that look like spending every Friday night rotating through a panel of dates who make us question our education system and the increasing neglect of cologne. At the end of the day, I want my people to want the glory of God in my life more than they want me to be married. But is that actually what's playing out in conversations and activities?
People offer placating words, and often they come from a good place, but every once in a while they're simply knee-jerk responses. Perhaps, for instance, in a moment of weakness, after you've gotten your car stuck on yet another snowdrift and have to wait for AAA to come tow you out while you battle hypothermia, you finally get up the courage to voice one of your deepest fears to some close friends: "What if I never meet someone?"
And then someone responds too quickly, almost flippantly, "Oh, you'll get married."
"But that is so presumptuous," Katelyn Beaty, author of A Woman's Place, said at a roundtable. "I know a ton of wonderful women you would have said that to ten years ago, and they're still not married. I think it's some naiveté speaking: 'This was my experience, I got married at twenty-six, so this will happen for you.' There's good intention there, but it's claiming to know something that they can't possibly know. And it's not actually helpful."
As the girls and I rattled on about our experiences of people using this barb almost as a weapon against our doubts of the future, Doni, a thirty-seven-year-old marketing guru, brought us back to reality, back to hope. "I think we should ground this discussion in some truth," she said, and we all prepared ourselves, because anyone who dresses so stylishly and has such great hair must have something important to say. "We can hope in marriage, because it is promised, but it's not an earthly one. We are part of the bride; our bridegroom awaits, and he has gone to make a better place and to prepare a home for us.
"I think it's beautiful that we can hold to this idea of marriage and oneness for all eternity — it's just not the limited scope of one man and one woman. It's us, the bride, and the King of kings and Lord of lords. We will be married one day, just maybe not in the earthly sense."
And you know what? Doni's right. She's more right than we can ever imagine. There is a good man in store for me — the best man who ever walked this earth, in fact. I have a marriage in store. I have a union and oneness waiting for me. That is the truth on which I should be basing my assumptions, hopes, and dreams. The earthly marriage? That may come (and I hope and pray that it does). But the eternal marriage of the church and the Bridegroom? That's a ceremony you're all invited to, so save the date.
YES, THE STRUGGLE IS REAL
We all know that Genesis opens with God creating Adam. Remember how Adam lost a rib and gained a wife? As much as we know and feel that it's not good for man to be alone, we might not be an Eve with an Adam. We might be an Esther with a Mordecai. A Hannah with a Samuel. A Jesus with a John. A Paul with a Timothy. You weren't meant to fight through this life alone, to do battle by yourself — but the companion promised to you won't necessarily wear a platinum wedding band and fold towels the wrong way.
Or, you know what? He just might.
I think that's the hardest part about being single: never knowing when this time will end. Every day could be the day your life changes. Every unmarried man you meet could be the man you spend the rest of your life with. Every message you get on the sketchy dating site could be the message that starts a conversation that leads to a meeting that ends at an altar. Or you could think this way every single day for ten years, but none of these things happen. Men come and go, messages are sent with no reply, and day by day, your singleness grows into a thing that feels cumbersome and heavy and threatening.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Party of One"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Joy Beth Smith.
Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword xiii
Part I Unfulfilled Promises
1 God Doesn't Owe You a Husband 3
2 Singleness Isn't Seasonal 17
3 Marriage Can't be the Greatest Source of Joy 31
4 Jesus Might Not Meet All Your Needs 45
5 Sorry, God Might Not Give You Your Heart's Desires 59
Part II Sex and Other Stumbling Blocks
6 What Is Sexuality? (and was Jesus Sexual?) 81
7 Masturbation, Porn, and Other Big-Ticket Items 99
8 Sexuality Isn't a Science 121
Part III Hopeless Dating with Hopes for Marriage
9 Bad Dating Advice Abounds 141
10 Dating is a Cesspool, and Other Lessons 157
11 Maybe I Am Too Intimidating 169
12 Don't Spend Your Singleness Preparing for Marriage 183
13 Don't Wait for Marriage 199
Conclusion 211
Acknowledgments 215
About the Author 219
Notes 221
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