Hope and Singleness

A friend recently asked me the question "What gives you hope?". It came up during a discussion about my outlook on marriage. I expressed that I don't have a pull to get married, and in fact I don't suspect that it is God's will for me to do so in the foreseeable future, and likely ever. It struck me that what my friend was really expressing through this question was his view that without a spouse I was facing a future of uncertainty, loneliness and incompleteness; that I was somehow falling short of God's plan for His children.

It has been my observation that the church in general does a rather poor job of expressing God's gift of singleness to people.  Christians often make assumptions that singleness is a temporary condition.  Temporary in that, under "normal" circumstances, it is only to be experienced while one seeks out that significant person to join with in marriage.  This attitude implies that marriage is the highest of callings and leaves singleness as some sort of inferior state of existence.  I also see the idea expressed, often subtly, that upon reaching a certain age, one who is still single must be in that situation because they are somehow damaged, are sinful, or otherwise "broken".  Even those well intentioned phrases of referring to one's spouse as "my other half", or the statement that the marriage partner "completes me" further perpetuates this myth of single people being somehow only half a person or incomplete.