If winter—with all of its Hallmark-couple coziness—romanticizes relationships and marriage, then summer has become the season for single women. Uninhibited fun. Sunshine. Adventure. Aren’t those the keys to living your best “Single Girl Summer”?
No other season of life allows for this kind of freedom. As a single woman, you get the group text from friends on a Friday morning, and by that afternoon you’re leaving your desk for a sandy destination or grabbing your bike to go on a long ride down a cool mountain. You fill all of your free hours after work with activities because you just want to soak up every drop of daylight—whether it’s with a stack of books by the pool or driving downtown for a night spent laughing with your closest friends.
Your calendar, your dating life—all of it feels more casual this time of year. You lean into what feels good and what will bring you the most happiness because you know this season won’t last forever. Summer will end. You might not be single next year, so shouldn’t you make the most of this time?
Rethinking Your Single-Girl Summer
Your desire to squeeze all you can out of this season isn’t inherently wrong, but it’s time to stop and consider if your motivations are misplaced. Depending on what is driving your summer agenda, you could be missing out on a deeper joy.
As a single woman, I’ve found that it doesn’t take much for selfishness to fuel my pursuits. When it comes to what I’m doing with my time, my energy, and my attention during the summer, the proof is in the pronoun: I’m tempted to see all of it as mine.
In the gospels, Jesus spent His single summers with a different approach. He wasn’t focused on getting what He could out of life in order to make Himself happy. Instead, He poured out all that He had in service to God “for the joy that lay before him” (Heb. 12:2). As His followers, we’re called to do the same.
What does it look like to use your summer in full pursuit of Christ, committed to serving Him with all your time, abilities, and energy? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth addressed that topic when she was still Nancy Leigh DeMoss, a single woman not yet married to Robert. The following excerpt is from her book Singled Out for Him, and it retains Nancy’s original language, including references to herself as being single.
As you read this excerpt, consider how you would redefine what it means to thrive as a single woman this time of year. May this chapter motivate you to spend your summer embracing the adventure and joy and absolute delight of serving Christ.
Singled Out for Him
In 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul addresses those who are unmarried. His words are challenging and clearly spell out God’s will for singles:
I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. . . . I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32–35 esv).
In the margin of my Bible I have written, “As a single woman, may I serve You, Jesus, with all my body and spirit.” You see, no one who has been redeemed by Christ has the right to be footloose and fancy-free. Singleness, whether for a few years or a lifetime, is not a time to be without responsibility but a time to serve Christ wholeheartedly and full time, regardless of our vocation.
The season of singleness is not a time in limbo, waiting for the right partner to come along so we can get on with our lives. Those years of singleness provide an incredible and unique opportunity to be devoted to Christ and His kingdom in a way that married men and women simply do not have the freedom to pursue.
Those of us who are single face a danger of becoming self-absorbed. Free from the constraints of family life, it is all too easy to become preoccupied with fulfilling our own social needs or consumed with our jobs or with making money. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with having friends or careers or making a living, but God is concerned about the heart motives of His children. Rather than devoting their lives to furthering the kingdom of Christ, many Christian singles have been caught in the trap of self-seeking and self-fulfillment.
Contrary to what the world tells us, the greatest happiness is not to be found in getting our own needs met but in giving to meet the needs of others. The greatest position is not at the top of some corporate ladder but as a bondservant of Jesus Christ. The greatest prestige is not human recognition but the “well done, thou good and faithful servant” of our Master.
One of my former pastors challenged the members of his church to “go for broke with God.” I like that. Tireless, reckless abandon to the will and work of God ought to characterize the Christian who is single.
Years ago, a Communist leader said, “We must train men and women who will devote to the revolution not merely their spare evening, but the whole of their lives.” The cause of Christ is far greater than any social or political revolution. The idea of an eight-hour workday, with “the rest of the time for myself,” ought to be foreign to the Christian single. Jesus deserves nothing less than the whole of our lives.
This does not mean that a single man or woman devoted to Christ never relaxes, takes a vacation, or has fun. It does mean that the whole of his life belongs to Christ and is devoted to pleasing Him. The older I get, the more I find myself evaluating my activities, my hobbies, my use of leisure time—every aspect of my life—in light of the price they will bring in eternity. From time to time, I sense the Lord directing me to cut back on, or eliminate altogether, certain legitimate activities that are robbing me of time to pursue Him and to make an eternal investment in the lives of people.
Henrietta Mears was a single woman of the past generation whose life and ministry challenged literally thousands of college students to devote “the whole of their lives” to Jesus Christ. As a teenager, I remember reading and being deeply stirred by a letter that Miss Mears had written years earlier, inviting college students to attend a “Briefing Conference.” She wrote:
I have come back from Europe and South America with an overwhelming sense of the crisis hour in which we live. The needs of the world are appalling. I believe that you are a young man of destiny, for who knows but that “you have come into the kingdom for just such a time as this.” I believe God has made no mistake and that He has a plan for you in this hour. As never before God is calling for expendables. He is watching for men to match the mountains of opportunity; He is looking for youth who will say, “I will face this hour and find my place in it, and if I perish, I perish.” We need men who will put God first.
. . . I would that we had young men driven along by a mighty vision of what God could do if only He possessed them. I believe young men of today are going to do things that will stagger this generation, but all this will pass. We must have young men to deal with things not of time, but of eternity.
Miss Mears had grasped the heart of the apostle Paul’s message to the Corinthians. She understood that we have not been put here on earth to be happy or to fulfill ourselves, but to love and serve the Lord Jesus with all our heart, strength, mind, and soul. To be possessed by Him, to live our lives in the light of eternity, to be His willing bondservant—that is to fulfill the purpose for which we were created and to know the greatest possible joy in this life and the next.
A Singled-Out Summer
At this time of year, you could scroll through my Google search history, and you’d probably find several websites with summer bucket list ideas: beaches to visit, restaurants to try, and concerts to see with friends.
You may be itching to fill up your calendar with similar activities. But before your days are booked for the rest of the summer, imagine what would happen if . . .
- You sat before the Lord and surrendered this season to Him.
- You asked Him to show you His love, joy, and purpose in a fresh way.
- You committed to serving others with your time and energy and resources.
- You focused not on spending your summer for yourself but on being spent for the sake of His kingdom.
None of us know how many “Single-Girl Summers” we have left, so let’s not waste this one. May it be said of us that we lived for more than sunny days and sunsets. This season, may we be caught living in the glorious light of eternity.
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