I make a habit out of reading or listening to anything that Sam Allberry puts out. Listening is particularly fun since he has an English accent, but he is also a very winsome writer that draws a reader into what Jesus has for them. I enjoyed reading 7 Myths about Singleness as a way to celebrate and appreciate the single people who invest in me and my family deeply. I was raised by a single mom and some of our family’s dearest friends are single and we want to love them well. This is an area that the church can miss…and it’s a big hole! Jesus himself was single! At the church our family is a part of, I’m grateful that singles are in leadership and serving in every area of the church!
If you want to love and serve a single friend or family member well, I highly recommend this book. I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- As a single person, I have a stake in the health of the marriages in my church family. And those who are married have a stake in the health of my singleness. p. 15
- As C.S. Lewis once put it, friendship is “the lease natural of loves; the least instinctive, organic, biological, gregarious, and necessary….The species, biologically considered, has not need of it.” My friend Ray Ortlund makes the distinction this way: “A brother is stuck with you. A brother is obligated to be some kind of safety net. That is what family is for. But a friend chooses you. When someone loves you at all times, good and bad, and they don’t have to but they choose to–that person is a friend.” p. 55
- By its very nature friendship is a wonderful form of intimacy. The friend is the person who knows you at your sparkling best and shameful worst and yet still loves you. To be so deeply known and so deeply loved is precious. p. 60
- The presence of singles who find their fullest meaning and satisfaction in Christ is a visible, physical testimony to the fact that the end of all of our longing comes in Jesus. p. 121
- Some of this might just be my personality type, but having people to do nothing with is quite important for singles. p. 133
- When Jesus teaches us to pray, he doesn’t seek to bend God to our ways, but to bend ourselves to his. We pray for his name, his kingdom, and his will. Not only are we to pray for these, but as we do so, we find ourselves increasingly longing for them. p. 148
