Welcome to summer, the most popular wedding season of the year. The Christian circle is big on the marriage game. And rightly so. Marriage and family are sacred and joyful establishments of God. The church is eager and willing to shepherd young couples, highlighting the many blessings of tying the knot and celebrating the relationship milestones. But when it comes to young singles, the silence reigns.

With all the (good) emphasis on getting married and having kids, single Christians can feel left out or overlooked. When marriage is an underlying expectation since childhood, unattached singles wonder if something is wrong with them when no partner turns up or significant relationships dissolve. It’s easy for them to experience isolation, as they become increasingly identified by what they don’t have than what they do. As one single humorously expressed (my humble paraphrase), “When you’re single at a certain age, it’s sort of like you’ve fallen into the abyss.”

Speaking as a single (though not quite abyss-stage), I was recently blessed by my pastor’s recent sermon on singleness and wanted to share some of the takeaways as encouragement to fellow Christians who find themselves in a party of one.

1) Everyone Starts Out Single

It sounds obvious, and it is, but it’s important to keep in mind. Every married person starts their life in singleness. And due to the nature of sin, there will be a time when one spouse returns to singleness again. Marriage is not guaranteed, but singleness always is. As the sermon noted, “The question, therefore, is not whether God has called me to live in singleness, but for how long? Has God called me to live a portion of my life in singleness, or the entirety of it?”

2) Marriage Is a Gift, Not a Right

Those are good questions to wrestle through — questions that don’t come with easy answers. Growing up, I unwittingly assumed getting married was a standard course of action, sort of like graduating high school or getting a job or finding a car. Now that I’m past the college years, I’m increasingly self-aware of my “singleness” season. Finding a spouse is not as simple as browsing the car lot or applying for college. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll receive what you are looking for. But marriage (biblically understood) is a gift, not an entitlement. No one is owed a soulmate.

Elizebeth Elliot, whose first husband was killed on the mission field after only three years of marriage, writes, “If you are single today, the portion assigned to you for today is singleness. It is God’s gift. Singleness ought not to be viewed as a problem, nor marriage as a right. God in his wisdom and love grants either as a gift.”

Both single and married Christians have the privilege of serving God in the station he has called them to. Marriage is not the Messiah. Rather, it is a beautiful and symbolic picture that points to the Messiah and his relationship with the church. God is the giver of this special relationship, just as he is the giver of singlehood.

We should decline the narrative that places a spouse as a source of happiness, or as that person who “completes” us; rather, we should ask whether a partner helps us better fulfill our mission of glorifying God. Idolizing the gift of marriage takes the blessings of matrimony and elevates it to the unattainable status of deliverer. Desiring to be married is a noble desire, but making marriage the “end goal” leads to disillusionment or frustration when it inevitably fails to be the savior it was never designed to be.

3) Discontentment Ignores the “Have’s”

As the bucket of unattached friends grows shallower each year, I can sense the unspoken pressure to join the marriage pool party. Well-meaning questions and comments from relatives or hairdressers about romantic interests can further highlight the apparent lack of such persons. Calley Sivils, a fellow Christian who has battled with undesired singleness, notes, “So often, we spout inane phrases to single people like ‘God will bring you the right guy.’ They reveal the heart so completely: I have to have a romantic relationship in my life at some point to be whole.”

The sermon emphasizes the danger of such pressure. “When we act like everybody needs to be married by a particular age, our attitude denies the very truth that’s being expressed in [1 Corinthians 7]. And in addition to that, our attitude suggests that there must be something wrong with a person who’s not married according to the artificial expectations we’re placing upon them. … [T]hese kinds of foolish and insensitive comments do a lot of harm, primarily because they don’t acknowledge that singleness is an honorable calling from the Lord. The people who ask these questions or make these comments are acting like singleness is a problem that needs to be fixed and in doing so, the person making these foolish statements isn’t upholding the value of the different gifts that God has given within the body of Christ.”

But even without outside pressure, observation and introspection can also crystalize the “have nots” of singleness. Katelynn Luedke shares, “Quicker than anticipated, I met someone. For a year and a half our friendship grew deeper, and it seemed like we were headed toward a serious relationship. I began to hope in him, believing that he was the realization of my new desires. Then, within a week, we both confessed feelings for one another — and then days later ended our friendship and any possibility of moving forward as a couple. … Older women admonished me to take advantage of my time as a single woman. This was not unwelcome advice, albeit confusing advice to process emotionally. As someone who had recently seen few disadvantages in singleness, I was now struggling to see any advantage in remaining single.”

When life twists unexpectedly, singleness can look like the bottom of the barrel. After all, the very nature of discontentment requires us to “not have” something we want. The “grass-is-greener” syndrome fails to account for the “have’s” of singleness and can rob us of the joy it provides. My encouragement to fellow singles is to make full use of the benefits of singlehood. Don’t fail to enjoy the season of life you’re in by longing for one that you don’t have. By all means, pursue marriage in righteous ways — just don’t overlook what you have in this moment. Fully enjoy your singleness and then fully enjoy your marriage if God calls you out of your current state. Don’t let discontentment rob you of the joy you can be experiencing now. Don’t lose sight of your “have’s” in your awareness of the “have-nots.”

As wedding season comes and goes, relationships shift, and questions about the future arise, the sermon concludes with this assurance: “You might be trying to discern whether God has called you to marriage or singleness. It’s easy to become discouraged in this endeavor when you don’t have a clear answer to this question. It’s easy to become discouraged when many of your peers are getting married and having children. … [B]ut what you can know with all certainty is that God has called you to be single right now. So embrace it. Receive it as his wise and loving plan for you right now. God has not made a mistake. He has a reason and a purpose for why you are where you are today. So don’t assume that something’s wrong. Don’t let people’s foolish comments discourage you. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your happiness relies on being married or completed by another person.”

Being single isn’t always easy, and neither is being married. Both singlehood and marriage come with their blessings and challenges. God gives good gifts (and the grace to handle them), so why not welcome what he’s given us today?