It's taken me a long time to write this and even longer to decide to post it, so please take your time to read these first paragraphs before moving on to the rest.

If I'm honest, the only reason this will be published is that none of my family knows this blog exists. I don't write this dwelling in pity or looking for sympathy and I hope that your comments will reflect that. It was only through speaking to a Christian friend that I realised that others did feel this way even if nobody openly admits it. Instead I want to share part of my experience that I know others have faced, but I've never seen others write about it in the hope that it might help others in a similar position.

When I discovered that my little sister was pregnant, my very first reaction was not of joy or excitement but of pain. (There - I've said it. What do you think of me now?)

Why did I (and, as I was so thankful to discover, along with others) feel the pain of a burning skewer suddenly stabbing my heart? One part of it might be as the eldest daughter, I feel in some way that the first grandchild was my 'responsibility'. No-one in my family seems to realise that the little jokes that "She's beaten you to it" actually cause me pain.

Another aspect is my strong desire to be a wife and mother with no present opportunity to fulfill that. I have friends who are married who have struggled terribly with this as they try unsuccessfully to have children as everyone else around them seems to be having no difficulties. It makes me sad too that the birth of this child is not the completely joyous event that it should be. The emotions of our family have ranged from shock, anger, disappointment, concern and worry as much as joy, delight and excitement that a new baby will be born.

So how should we react to this? After discussion with girlfriends, it seems that the most helpful thing is to just sit quietly and pray without giving advice, rather like Job's friends did in the beginning (Job 2:11-13). Platitudes don't help and probably just serve to increase the guilt and shame of feeling like this. I don't know how to help women in this situation, so, remembering my thoughts in the second paragraph, I would appreciate your wisdom.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!
Psalm 27:14

For being someone who normally carefully considers things and never makes a rash decision, yesterday I behaved rather out of character.

On Friday, we were sent our rotas for the next few months and I was delighted to notice that I had been given 2 weeks off in a row in late Spring. Yesterday during lunch I suddenly decided that I should go away somewhere.

Like a revelation while eating my soup, I reflected on the benefits of not being married or having children and that I can just decide to go abroad without reference to others and with minimal fuss. I hope to get married some day, so I decided that I might as well grab these opportunities when they come, rather than, as in the Colin Hay song, "waiting for my real life to begin".

I spent the afternoon looking at adventure holidays on the Internet (my junior doctor was not busy either so I didn't feel too bad about it!), and then sorted out a trip to Morocco to visit Marrakesh and climb Mount Toubkal, which at 14,700 feet is the highest peak in North Africa! I've never even been to the cinema on my own, so I don't really know what I am doing going on holiday by myself but I am really excited. (To my mother's relief, I am going to be part of a small group in Morocco.)

But, I think it is important to try not to be one of these people who doesn't begin to live their real lives until marriage or acts like life doesn't begin until after marriage. Whether it is not buying our own homes, not buying nice crockery and glassware, not going on holiday, not taking part in church family activities, it is easy not to act in anticipation of doing these with someone. We act like our single life is just a "holding room", that we are treading water until someone rescues us. I think I will be a more interesting and well-rounded wife, mother, friend and doctor for travelling so it will have benefits for my future life whatever that brings - and I'll have some amazing photos to share with you in just a few months!

Photos © Lonely Planet Images (Photographers: Christine Osborne, David Wall)

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

How do we balance our belief in God's sovereignity over all of our lives and our responsibility to actively pursue God's will for our lives? It's the next subject dealt with in Debbie Maken's Getting Serious about Getting Married.

On one hand, there is God's sovereignity and the knowledge that his plan for our lives has been in place since before the world was created. This, however, does not mean that we are simply puppets, only able to act when God pulls our strings. Is refusing to actively pursue a marriage partner an example of acting like this? Maken describes it as "not trusting God. Rather it is refusing to follow his design for our lives."

She goes on to blame this partly on people's laziness but mainly on teaching from the church that "Singleness is a gift". If it is a gift, there are a lot of people who are not happy with it! Paul is clear that celibacy is a gift, but given to a select few set aside for a task that required them to be single. However, where does that leave the other millions of Christian singles?

I like the analogy of job applications. While I believe that God has planned a job for me, I can't just sit around hoping that a phone call will mysteriously come to offer me my next post, blaming my unemployment on "God's will". Instead, I sort out my CV, fill in job applications and attend interviews. Perhaps we should be considering our relationships in the same way.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2

Continuing my study of Debbie Maken's Getting Serious about Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness, I have been looking at the fifth chapter, "What We've Been Taught". She opens with a story:

Suppose a young woman showed up at a church starving to death...The last thing we'd say is, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God"...To abuse Scripture in such a way would contradict God's own design as our Creator to satisfy hunger with food...Sadly we often refuse to employ the same logic when it comes to the hunger of singleness.

Any of us who have dealt with singleness and at all struggled with it will not argue that the church often replies with "radically inflated, politically correct, feel-good answers" that fail to get to the bottom of the upset people feel. Often the real issues are ignored as the church teaches that "marriage will just happen if only you'd stop worrying about it", or asks you "Is Jesus not enough?", or suggests you consider "are you called to singleness?" (quickly followed, almost immediately, by "So are you called to the mission field?").

As much as I initially liked the analogy, I have to disagree with it too. The hunger for food and the "hunger of singleness" just are not the same. Without food, we will die. The desire for marriage and a family, while causing people turmoil and upset, will not cause us to die. Life can indeed carry on without it and, until that day, we just need to learn to live with it.

Most of us in this situation do not feel called to a lifetime of celibacy which would makes things much easier. I try (and I stress that I try - I do not set myself up as someone who always gets this right, it being much easier to say than do something) to remember that singleness is the gift for today, and today is all I need to worry about. Maybe tomorrow will be different but, as I wrote a few days ago, we are commanded not to worry about tomorrow.

Leslie Ludy wrote of her sister-in-law, Krissy:

She didn't put her life on hold simply because she hadn't yet met her future husband. She gave herself to serve others, and lived a radiant, peaceful, vibrant life - content with where God had her. One day, someone asked Krissy if she felt she was "called" to singleness. After a moment of thought, Krissy replied, "Today I am."

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 8:3

What's the most important trip you want to take this year?

What an interesting question! Where do I need to go this year? Who do I need to catch up with? Where do I need to be? I haven't managed to come up with an answer but it has made me think.

I used to go on mission trips every summer, but now it is so difficult to get away for anything longer than a week with work. Ah, work does interfere with my social life! Perhaps I need to be organised with things for this summer to try to get back out there. Even though I am officially 'working', I find the concentrated Christian fellowship so refreshing. Of course, the sunshine and the good food doesn't hurt either!

This has also reminded me about all the people whom I need to visit. There are friends and family I need to see - letters, emails and phone calls are great, but it is not the same as seeing someone face-to-face and sharing with them.

Balanced against all of this is again the uncertainity of work after August. I have always planned to spend some time working abroad, so maybe this would be the time to do it. I'm conscious that many of my older friends and colleagues also planned to do medical mission work abroad before getting caught up in work, marriage and family and never doing it after all. I know that it is possible to do this after marriage and with children, but it is more difficult, so maybe I should embrace this season of life and crack on with it.

[The LORD your God] went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.
Deuteronomy 1:33

I grew up near where the Royal Family holidays in Balmoral Castle. As a result, and being a normal little girl, I used to dream that a prince would come and marry me and I would get to be a princess. Now it wasn't so much the prince I was thinking of, but all the pretty dresses, the crowns, the balls and the horses that seemed to just come with being a princess.

Sadly, I never got to become a princess, or so I thought! It wasn't until I was telling this story to some little girl friends of mine that I realised that I had become a princess! My Father is the King! When I became a Christian, I became part of his family and became a real princess! There is even a crown waiting for me in heaven!

With all this, I was interested to see an article from Crosswalk called When the Princess Is Ready, the Prince Will Appear by Dr David Hawkins. Some of the points were well made, but I have some difficulties with other things he says here.

It was good to be reminded that God's timing might well be different to what I want it to be, that too often women settle rather than waiting for someone who will really challenge and encourage them on to greater faithfulness and godliness, and that the states of my heart before God is the most important thing to be sorted before anything else.

However, I am not sure that I agree when he says that "When the princess is ready, the prince will appear." It sounds like all we need to do is fulfill a checklist of preparation and then our future husband will walk into our lives. It's in the same category as misguided advice I've heard give to single friends that "If you'll only stop thinking about it or accept your singleness, then God will allow you to marry." At best, this is discouraging. At worst, this is unbiblical and harmful.

And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

I Peter 5:4

The third chapter of Debbie Maken's Getting Serious About Getting Married deals with how marriage and singleness have been seen through history. It's true that there has been a major sea change in the last fifty years in the importance of marriage to couples, to the family unit and to society. Where was this starting point?

My first surprising discovery was that marriage was considered to be a solemn and necessary duty and commanded of all Christian men and women for, in the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the 'procreation of children' and as 'a remedy against sin'.

This was supported by the teaching of the Longer Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, based on Scriptural teaching in Proverbs 5:18, Malachi 2:14-15 and Joel 1:8.

Marriage was thought to be preferable to singleness, with the Puritans exhorting spouses to look to each other "to be better fitted for God's service and bring them closer to God" because married life was "far more excellent than the condition of the single life."

Individuals, the church and society at large all had this duty to marry and to encourage the institution of marriage. This was shown in the laws and statutes that laid down the proper conditions for marriage and the value and protection that it commanded. Now we have a situation where marriage is being eroded as outdated and unnecessary and, rather than challenge these views, the church is going along with the rest of society.

Malachi 2:15

Continuing my book study, I have struggled with the latest chapter of Debbie Maken's book. Chapter 2 is entitled "What the Bible says about being single", but I am not sure if it really does say what she says it does.

The main focus for this chapter is first Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19:4-11. Martin Luther wrote that only those people who were physically unable to participate in marriage or who had received a special direction from God to be single were exempt from the creation ordinance of marriage so "apart from these groups, let no man presume to be without a spouse." Maken takes it another step further saying that "Being single without meeting the necessary criteria...is just as unbiblical as sexual activity outside marriage." Strong stuff, but I am not sure that she is justified in taking this point so far.

Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 is tackled too. I agree with her point that we have to take this passage and interpret it in light of the rest of Scripture, including Paul's own writings, where the importance and value of marriage is extolled.

Maken suggests that it was written for a particular situation faced by the Corinthian church so should not be used to form a complete 'policy' on marriage and singleness. It is difficult to know in what circumstances this letter was written. Commentators disagree on what the "present distress" might be. Some suggest that this refers to a particularly difficult period of famine and persecution faced by the Corinthian church, while others say this is the general trouble that comes with following the Lord.

John Calvin, in his commentary that "here you have two things worthy of observation. The first is, for what purpose celibacy is to be desired - not on its own account, nor on the ground of its being a state that is nearer to perfection, but that we may cleave to God without distraction - that being the one thing that a Christian man ought exclusively to look to during his whole life. The second thing is, that no snare must be put upon men's consciences, so as to keep back any one from marriage, but that every one must have liberty allowed him."

I am used to the subtle teaching within the church that there is almost a higher spiritual state achievable by single people, so I was interested to read this chapter. While I want to agree with her basic principles, I have real difficulty justifying this from Scripture. In the meantime, I will be again enouraged by Calvin who said, "the Apostle would wish those who are at present practicing chastity, to continue in it and persevere; but as they have no security for the continuance of the gift, he exhorts all to consider carefully what has been given them."

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
I Corinthians 7:17

Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him, and he will act.
Psalm 37:4-5

I love reading. I always have done. I just gobble books up! From Enid Blyton and CS Lewis, to Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, to JK Rowling and Alexandre Dumas...from JI Packer and Paul Brand, to Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, to Helen Roseveare and George Herbert - a random selection from the piles of books that surround me reflecting an electic collection! I try to read a wide variety of books from all sorts of writers on all sorts of topics to inform, educate and challenge me. But with my tendency to read quickly and my limited time, I maybe don't spend as much time as I should pondering.

With this in mind, I have decided to start a new habit. Inspired by a good friend who does this, I have decided to read my next book with my notebook in my lap and my pen in my hand. I am going to try to take time each day to sit and read slowly, savouring the words and the ideas, jotting down useful sentences and adding my own questions and thoughts to it.

As for the next book? Well, it is one which has been greeted by such controversy! I've read so many articles by people I respect either praising or denouncing the author for her ideas. "Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness" by Deborah Maken challenges the prevailing view of the Evangelical church that singleness is a 'gift from God', saying instead that it is unnatural and goes as far to say that it is actually unbiblical and against God's plan!

It was given to me by a friend who wanted to know my thoughts on it. I did my usual quick readthrough and found myself wavering on where to stand - I think there is a lot of truth in there but I felt that sometimes she took things too far. So let's see if the notes help to clarify or clutter my mind! In the meantime, see what some others thought: Camerin Courtney, Tim Challies, Candice Z Watters

The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all people. You need to read ... Paul cries, "Bring the books" -- join in the cry.
Charles Hadden Spurgeon (1832-1894)