5 ways to better love the single people in your life

1. Stop asking dumb questions and start asking good questions. You don't need to ask if I have a boyfriend every time you see me. (Because I would likely tell you if I did). But you do need to ask me what I'm struggling with, or what God is teaching me, or what adventures I've been on lately. Ask about my life, not my love life. Because I need to remember that my life is more than my love life, and my value is not in my relationship status. 

2. Include single people in your community. I want to be part of your life. I want to know what is hard and what is good about being married, or being a parent, or being a girlfriend/boyfriend. I want to experience life with you, whatever that looks like. I want to sit at your dinner table, hold your sick baby, and play games with you and your spouse. I want to learn about how to love when it's hard and make sacrifices when every bone in my body just wants to be selfish. I want to watch you struggle to live out parenthood and marriage. I want to know you, and I want to be known by you. 

3. Be aware, and be intentional. Be aware of the singles around you, and how your words and actions may uniquely affect them. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to change the way in which you are living or doing something (although maybe you do?). But it does require that you look out for them and be sensitive to how they might react to the things you do or say, or the way in which you are interacting with your significant other in front of them. Be intentional in the way that you love and honor your single friends. Celebrate their achievements...don't wait until the rehearsal dinner or baby shower to celebrate who they are and the ways in which God has uniquely prepared them to impact the world. Be honest about your own struggles in times of waiting or loneliness. Send your single friend a card "just because" you appreciate his place in your life, or buy her a Valentine (because you don't have to be attached to appreciate a good box of chocolate or beautiful bouquet of flowers). Your single friends will notice and appreciate your awareness and your intentionality. 

4. Don't assume you have nothing to learn from each other. Singles have a unique view on the world, and though they may not have experienced the joys and difficulties you have faced in marriage and parenthood, they still have lessons to teach you. And they have lessons to learn from you. Engage them in relationship and conversation, and learn from each other. Don't assume they don't want to know about your parenting struggles or that fight you had with your spouse the other night. They do. They need your perspective on life and faith and relationships, and you need theirs. In order to have healthy and thriving community, we need each other. 

5. Be a truth-teller. My singleness will not kill me. Marriage and parenthood is not the be-all, end-all. I am complete in Christ, not in relationships with other human beings. I need to be reminded of these truths, because the culture is constantly feeding single people the opposite message, and sometimes that message seeps into the church. Don't get me wrong, I love family. God's design for relationships in a family unit is brilliant and incredibly beautiful. I would love to create my own family someday. But Jesus reminded us that family is not the most important thing (Matthew 12:46-50, Matthew 19:29, Luke 9:57-62). I'm gonna put my neck on the proverbial chopping block and say that sometimes we mix up our priorities and worship the family unit. Not only is this message contrary to what Jesus taught, it can be a message of exclusion. What of the single man, the widow, the divorcee, the infertile couple? We all need to remember that, in Christ, we have a new family...a family formed not by blood or by marriage, but by adoption. I don't need a spouse or kids to belong. You and me, we're family. 

My family is diverse. It is made up of single and dating men and women, babies I help feed and soothe, single moms I encourage, married couples I play games with, and dear sisters I run alongside. I love my family, and I love that we are diverse. I learn from you--each of you--every day. I see joy and courage and love in my family, and I am better for it. I am single, which can be a hard and lonely road to walk. But when my family invites me into their lives and homes and marriages, intentionally loving me, learning from me, speaking truth into my soul...I am changed for the better. And I hope you are too.