character, the better your life. And as a single woman, you have lots of discretionary time to hammer it out.
Second, as a single woman, you should spend your time developing your career abilities. Somehow Christianity has been tagged as anticareer in regard to women, but the fact is, every Christian woman should maximize her career potential. After all, it is God Himself who gave you that potential, and you never know how He might choose to use you. Holding back your abilities is like stopping yourself at the doorway to the arena in which you were born to perform. Let yourself go! Run free and hard into all the great things you can do and achieve. Even as I write, my single daughter Rebekah is serving as a teacher in Rwanda with internationals and children of the genocide. The skills she has developed during her singleness make this doable. Many of the skills and abilities you develop as a single will come back and bless you and others again and again in new ways in the following seasons. You may be surprised at the people and the opportunities that come calling. So give yourself to skill development.
I strongly suggest you use a number of the wonderful personality and vocational testing profiles available to help you identify both who you are and the gifts and talents you possess. Some I have used are www.strengthfinder.com from theGallup organization, www.aimstesting.org (Aptitude Inventory Measurement Services), and www.youruniquedesign.com. Each of these offers tremendous help in knowing yourself, your strengths, and what settings those strengths are best released in. Your single years, from a personality and abilities perspective, are the best time to discover who you are, who you're not (sometimes this is even more important than knowing who you are), and what kinds of things make you come alive.
Third, you have more time now than ever to focus on your spiritual life. There are incredible spiritual opportunities for you to explore for growth and maturity as a believer in Christ. Don't cram your schedule full of empty busyness. Sure, you should enjoy life. See places, do things, go though doors that open only once. But put God at the center of it all. Link up with other passionate Christians. Study God's Word together. Develop a consistent time with God alone. Use your gifts in serving others and advancing His kingdom. Make the most of your time and be watchful for the roles you can play in God's unfolding drama.
Finally, your single years are the right time to investigate that strange male creature to whom you are drawn. I strongly recommend you read good books that dissect the male personality, his needs, and his slant on life. Master the insights you find there. Become male smart and live from this informed perspective. Get past the stereotypes and the caricatures and find out what really makes a man tick. Learn what authentic manhood is and discover how to judge a man by it. Know what to look for in a man before you find one of them bowed before you with a ring in his hand and a glint in his eye. Remember this: the best way to find a good man and keep him is to become a good woman (1 Tim. 4:12).
Single and Engaged
Love. There's nothing like it, especially in this season of life when it glows red-hot. Life is now about “togetherness.” You and _________. It's a time consumed with drawing close. And that's where you need to be careful. Feelings often dominate this time. And though there is nothing wrong with that, it's important to realize that true closeness and close feelings are not necessarily the same thing.
Real closeness comes about only when two people value and embrace the same things. As the psalmist expressed thousands of years ago in Psalm 133:1–3, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! … for there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forever.” What applies to brothers also applies to marriage partners. Unity is life-giving. No two people can
Second, as a single woman, you should spend your time developing your career abilities. Somehow Christianity has been tagged as anticareer in regard to women, but the fact is, every Christian woman should maximize her career potential. After all, it is God Himself who gave you that potential, and you never know how He might choose to use you. Holding back your abilities is like stopping yourself at the doorway to the arena in which you were born to perform. Let yourself go! Run free and hard into all the great things you can do and achieve. Even as I write, my single daughter Rebekah is serving as a teacher in Rwanda with internationals and children of the genocide. The skills she has developed during her singleness make this doable. Many of the skills and abilities you develop as a single will come back and bless you and others again and again in new ways in the following seasons. You may be surprised at the people and the opportunities that come calling. So give yourself to skill development.
I strongly suggest you use a number of the wonderful personality and vocational testing profiles available to help you identify both who you are and the gifts and talents you possess. Some I have used are www.strengthfinder.com from theGallup organization, www.aimstesting.org (Aptitude Inventory Measurement Services), and www.youruniquedesign.com. Each of these offers tremendous help in knowing yourself, your strengths, and what settings those strengths are best released in. Your single years, from a personality and abilities perspective, are the best time to discover who you are, who you're not (sometimes this is even more important than knowing who you are), and what kinds of things make you come alive.
Third, you have more time now than ever to focus on your spiritual life. There are incredible spiritual opportunities for you to explore for growth and maturity as a believer in Christ. Don't cram your schedule full of empty busyness. Sure, you should enjoy life. See places, do things, go though doors that open only once. But put God at the center of it all. Link up with other passionate Christians. Study God's Word together. Develop a consistent time with God alone. Use your gifts in serving others and advancing His kingdom. Make the most of your time and be watchful for the roles you can play in God's unfolding drama.
Finally, your single years are the right time to investigate that strange male creature to whom you are drawn. I strongly recommend you read good books that dissect the male personality, his needs, and his slant on life. Master the insights you find there. Become male smart and live from this informed perspective. Get past the stereotypes and the caricatures and find out what really makes a man tick. Learn what authentic manhood is and discover how to judge a man by it. Know what to look for in a man before you find one of them bowed before you with a ring in his hand and a glint in his eye. Remember this: the best way to find a good man and keep him is to become a good woman (1 Tim. 4:12).
Single and Engaged
Love. There's nothing like it, especially in this season of life when it glows red-hot. Life is now about “togetherness.” You and _________. It's a time consumed with drawing close. And that's where you need to be careful. Feelings often dominate this time. And though there is nothing wrong with that, it's important to realize that true closeness and close feelings are not necessarily the same thing.
Real closeness comes about only when two people value and embrace the same things. As the psalmist expressed thousands of years ago in Psalm 133:1–3, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! … for there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forever.” What applies to brothers also applies to marriage partners. Unity is life-giving. No two people can
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