Have you ever felt like God’s blessing has passed you by? The feeling is a constant companion for me. Ever since I was young, I not only desired but expected to one day get married and have children. That expectation has led to years of wrestling with God. I’ve asked myself agonizing questions: Has God forgotten me? Does he care about my desires? Have I prayed wrong, done something wrong? Am I being punished? Am I simply not worthy?

When I was a teenager, a youth leader told me she believed God would either bring her a husband or take away her desire to be married. I internalized that statement more than I realized at the time. Years later, I found myself crying out to God, believing he must be cruel for doing neither—yet simultaneously knowing that wasn’t true of him. The tension left me lost and confused. As a youth leader myself now, I am painfully aware of how the things we say can have a long-lasting impact. I wrestle with wanting to be as real as possible with my students while also striving to never cause someone a crisis of faith down the line.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I know I’m not alone. Many single Christians have confided similar struggles, though not all share my exact perspective. Singleness is not a monolithic experience, and my intent here is not to speak for everyone. Instead, I write from a place of longing—to be seen, to be understood, to foster empathy within the church, and perhaps even to spark change in how we approach singleness in Christian communities.

For me, being single in my late 30s often feels shameful. I feel like I’m a disappointment to my family, pitied by married friends, maybe even judged by strangers at church who see me sitting alone. Marriage wasn’t just my personal hope and expectation for myself—it was an expectation shaped by growing up in the church. And it’s one I have failed to meet.

Our broader society can be a difficult place for a single person financially, socially and other myriad ways. The church is no different. And yet as the secular population is now more than half single (meaning never married, divorced or widowed), the population of singles in church is about 25 percent. Why such a large difference? Are Christians better at finding love and getting married? Or are the Christian singles not attending church? I admit, I don’t know enough about the statistics, but I do know single believers who have stepped away from brick-and-mortar churches because they feel unable to connect, isolated and overlooked, or simply exhausted by triggering messages or encounters.

Marriage has long been treated as the default path, while singleness is an “other.” I’ve heard sermons on marriage and parenting, watched as churches host marriage conferences and parenting conferences, and felt left out from church events designed exclusively for families. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have these things, but if that’s all that’s offered, where does it leave those of us who don’t fit that mold?

I have worked hard to process my own bitterness and take responsibility for my triggers. But it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that church can feel deeply and painfully isolating for singles. And the thing is, though 25 percent is not a majority, it’s still a significant demographic. It’s still 1 in 4 people sitting around you on a Sunday morning wanting to belong.

The language we use around singleness, when we talk about it at all, doesn’t help. Most people are well-meaning but just tone-deaf to the complex emotional and spiritual struggle that long-term singleness can present. Some phrases we need to be careful with:

‘Season of singleness‘

It might be a “season” for some singles. For others, it might be a lifetime. When I try to think of it as a “season” it creates or exacerbates an impatience that my “season” has lasted decades. In fact, it would be more appropriate to say “season of marriage” because Matthew 22:30 teaches us that marriage is only a temporary state this side of Heaven.

‘Season of waiting‘

This can cause a harmful belief that our actual lives won’t start until we say, “I do.” Instead, God wants for all of us to live abundantly (John 10:10), not to put life on hold just because we are unmarried.

‘Gift of singleness’

This may be a direct quote from Paul, but when said as a platitude to those of us struggling with singleness, it feels like it’s meant to silence our pain or shame us for our discontentment.

‘Marriage is hard, too‘

It’s true, but in this context it minimizes the struggle of singles and ignores the fact that the church is already providing significantly more spiritual support for marriage.

‘If you’re still single, God still has work to do in you‘

This one is the worst one I’ve heard. It implies that once you are married, your character is complete and good. Or that if you are unmarried, you are not whole, not complete, maybe not even a real adult.

So what can we do to support our singles?

First, we need to see singles as full and whole members of the Body of Christ; to acknowledge we occupy a difficult space in a culture that prioritizes marriage and to approach us with empathy; and to see our path, whether chosen or unchosen, as equally valid.

Second is to create space for us. That means designing more events or programs for a broader audience that transcends marital status, life stage, gender or background. It means considering ways of relating with one another—whether from the pulpit or from the pew—beyond the nuclear family. I recently heard speaker/author Greg Coles describe a beautiful picture of the church family, one in which …

“all of us … step up our game and start to be more concretely family to one another, to actually open up the boundaries of our homes and our lives, the way that we walk this world together, so that we’re not just family in some abstract, passive sense, but we are really and concretely a hundred-fold, everything that we have given up to follow Jesus.”

Third, we ought to reconsider our understanding of contentment. It’s risky to talk about being dissatisfied and sad about where we’ve ended up, and to mourn the life we imagined we’d have, without feeling like we are now failing in our faith. But I don’t believe that’s what Jesus expects of us when he calls us to be content. I don’t believe he ever asks us to pretend our pain is not real. Maybe your pain is singleness. Maybe it’s an unanswered prayer. Maybe it’s the loss of someone dear, the loss of a relationship or a job. Maybe it’s a chronic or unexplained health issue, or a loved one who has strayed from the Lord. Feeling this pain doesn’t make us bad Christians. It makes us exactly the kind of people Jesus came to heal and restore. I think contentment means leaning into God in the midst of our pain and trusting that he is moving even when it’s hard to see.

Marriage isn’t promised. Nor is the removal of deep sorrow. But God is still good, and he is still at work. That is something I lean on more every day as I learn to sit with the pain, the longing, the unanswered prayers. And to those who know me personally—this may be a side of me you haven’t seen much, but it’s as real as the me you do see. No matter who you are, or what season you’re in, you are loved—fully and completely—by our Father. You are worthy of the abundant life he offers, no matter your path.