Worried That Success Is Keeping You Single?

The story of wanting to fit in and to be good enough is a story that plays out in all of humanity.  For both woman and men.  Men compare and measure themselves based on career success, money, fame, accolades and things like cars.  As women we compare ourselves with other women in regards to our body shape, our hair, our clothes, the number of friends we have and on and on.  Those are sweeping generalizations but none the less, we all compare and measure ourselves against others of our own sex and the opposite sex.

The story is told of a couple in their 70’s celebrating a mile-stone anniversary and were reflecting on their engagement.  He was sharing the story and told that after dating for a while his girlfriend, now wife, asked him…” So, are you going to ask me to marry you or do I have to get a job?”  It’s cringy to think that a young woman would think that those are her only two options…get a job or get married.

So, what are you as a single woman to do?  Play small and pray to get married?  Or use your God given talents and desires to become someone else?  Does it have to be one or the other?  Married, a wife and just right or single, successful and thus too much?  I offer up three concepts, scriptures and ideas for to consider as you navigate through this part of your single journey. 

Matthew 5:16

This is Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus taught “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”  The truth that Jesus taught is for you.  Rather than toning down your “good works” you let them shine! 

You were not endowed with the gifts and talents that you have to keep them secret or toned down.  You were gifted to glorify God, to do good works and to shine!  I am not saying to be arrogant and prideful, but I am saying to, “increase in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man” just as Jesus did. (see Luke 2:52)

Consider that the gifts that you have been endowed with were given to you so that you would use them to help make this world and the people you share it with better with you having been here.  You know what your gifts are.  You feel them in your soul.  Your mind lights up when you allow yourself to dream of all the possibilities of what you can do with your gifts. 

I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that when God was handing out giftings, talents and intellect that he gave all of it to men!  And by extension that it is a man who will discover the cure for cancer, or any other advance in science that will bless all of humanity.  That is just craziness to me.

What if you are the one who will figure out how to cure MS, or you are the one who will get us to Mars and beyond, or you are the one who will mediate peace in the middle East?  What if it is you?  If it is not you, it may very well be your daughter or granddaughter. 

Stopping the generational fiction that women need to “tone it down” to get married, begins with each one of us.  And I believe that you can have it all!  I believe that you can marry, have babies, and share your giftings with the world.  It is not one or the other.  God gave you the desire to marry, to have babies and your giftings which means you have the capacity for all of it.  This doesn’t mean you have to do it all all at once.  Topic for another day.

Pres. Russell M. Nelson,

President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Secondly, rather than listening to the voices that tell you to maybe “tone it down” I encourage you to listen to the voices that are encouraging and inviting you to speak up.  God’s living prophet, Russell M. Nelson pleas with us as women.  In his 2015 General Conference address he says the following…

“We, need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices. 

“We need women who are organized and women who can organize.  We need women with executive ability who can plan and direct and administer; women who can teach, women who can speak out…

“We need women with the gift of discernment who can view the trends of the world and detect those that, however popular, are shallow or dangerous.

“We need women who know how to make important things happen…”

Stating the obvious…those things don’t happen when you “tone it down”.  They happened when you do the opposite…you follow Jesus’ example and increase in wisdom and stature with God and man.

Who will you be

Lastly, consider that your life is more, much more, than your marital status.  Before you are anything else, you are a daughter of God.  You are an individual.  You are you. 

Before you become a wife and mother, you have a life that is meant to be lived.  And afterwards also.  You are meant to evolve, progress, learn and develop into a newer and newer version of yourself with each passing day, month and year. 

A question to you is who do you want to be when he arrives?  When you walk into the life of the man you want to spend your life with; who do you want to be?  Who do you want him to be?  Do you want to be equally yoked? 

Do you want a man who is secure and excited about how smart and accomplished you are?  A man who sees you as his partner his equal in intellect and worth who cheers you on as you “make important things happen?”  Do you want to marry a man who believes that you are amazing, talented and gifted? Confirm that by choosing a man who believes that you are.

Or do you want to marry a man who believes that you should “tone it down” and therefore, in doing so you believe that you should “tone it down” …agreeing with him.

Is your desire to date and find love a good enough reason to play small in your life?  How long are you willing to do that?  If you do “tone it down” and play small as a way to get married, please realize that you will need to live that lie the rest of your married life in order to ease your man’s insecurities.  Is that what you want?

Is being married worth that price?

This, like most parts of our human experience, is not clearly black and white.  Life is complex and complicated.  As it was designed to be.  You have more choice than the young women who believed she had just two – get a job or get married.  It isn’t one or the other. 

As you continue your journey and are faced with the option and opinion to “tone it down”, remember Matthew 5:16, read the words and encouragement of those voices telling you to speak out, and consider you are more, much more, than your marital status.