Reluctant Entertainers: Singles Can Offer Hospitality, Too

My comment is directed more toward the comments actually. When I read the article, as a single, 41 year old, I didn't find anything offensive about it. When the author wrote about relating to finding oneself in a state one doesn't want to be in, she was replying to a divorced woman who had commented she never thought she'd find herself in that position. The author obviously was thinking back to when she was single and wished she wasn't as well. I don't think that's implying that every single person feels like less of a person!

The two comments posted are valid perspectives on singleness but seem strange and defensive as responses to this article on singles entertaining.

Just my thoughts!

Wow! Talk about twisted perspective (IMO, of course)
"...no matter what state we are in. Please encourage someone single today..."

It makes singleness sound like a fatal mental disease, from which ONE will not recover.

I am a 38 y.o. woman, happy in my Christ-centered singleness; sure, I know that my path is in God's hands, and He will he reveal to me IF His plan for me includes marriage. I am who He has made me in His image: sufficient and independent (through Him, of course), happy in my "state of freedom" (shall I say?) and, yes, even entertaining. I could go on but space is limited... much, it seems, like the minds of those who want to "pray" out singleness. Maybe those persons/couples should read the words of 1 Corinthians ~ being single is bliss! :)

Why have I heard, many times, a married person wish s/he was single??

A great quote I once read (Maya Angelou, I believe)
“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in Christ, that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.”

I reject the implication of: "Accepting the state you are in when you don’t want to be there is tough.... "

This presumes that a normal single adult, particularly a young woman, is desperately wishing they had a mate. My single daughter is pretty, smart, and well employed but limps from a birth defect. She had one serious suitor who bailed out and none have followed.

At 40 she has accepted her status and does well with it everywhere but in church. They have no "singles ministry" she says, "just a ministry to the divorced."

She ran into a couple she knew before gaving up on church seven years ago. The first words out of their mouths were, "Are you married yet? No? Well the right one is out there and we'll pray for you." They automatically assume she is only half a person and to be pitied.

People who minister to singles should respect the "never marrieds" for who they are, not assume they are missing something God may never have intended.