Think for a moment of your friends and family who are single. What assumptions have you made about their life? Have you perhaps unknowingly made it even harder for them to be single? Are you a safe, validating place for them to share their struggles? Can you confidently say you’ve been a champion for their contentment?

Be Compassionate – This Is Uniquely Hard

• The longer they’ve been single, the more time they’ve had to get their heart broken by multiple relationships and/or the longer they’ve had to put up with comments about why they don’t date or have a girlfriend or boyfriend. This can also make them vulnerable to compromising their values and principles.
• Your single friends and family members might be weary of being in wedding after wedding without so much as a step of movement towards their own. Even harder, they may find themselves in the wedding of a friend or sibling they never expected to be married before them.
• They might have painful memories such as past holidays spent alone or feeling lonesome among a crowd.
• One-by-one, they may have watched all their closest friends find romantic relationships.
• They could have been left out of invitations because all the other attendees were couples.
• It might seem as if their social media profile is in stark contrast to their newlywed friends’ or married friends’ postings, and they likely find it impossible not to compare.
• In this age of soaring mental health issues, they may suffer with depression/anxiety in the lonely dark of night and may have to wait until morning to reach out to someone.

Be Sensitive – It Can Be A “Marrieds’ World”

• Watch your displays of affection with your spouse when your single loved ones are around.
• Consider how you structure holidays and whether you need to implement some changes to your traditions that don’t make single family members feel uncomfortable, or as if their preferences for celebrating the season are less important than those who are married and have children. Be willing to sacrifice your first choice for their best interest. Think about how you would feel and the challenges you would face if you were in their situation.
• Don’t assume their dating life (or lack thereof) is just anyone’s business. Unless you have the kind of relationship where you’re sharing about your marriage with them or they’ve given you permission, don’t ask them questions, make comments, or give “advice” about dating.
• If you’re talking to others about your single friends and how to “fix them up,” it will get back to them. And it will hurt. Being single is not a flaw. And if they have significant growth areas, marriage should not be your offered solution; that’s a false gospel.
• Online dating isn’t required. Be respectful if that isn’t considered an option to them.
• Remember their identity is far more than their “relationship status.”
• Just because marriage helped you grow, doesn’t mean that’s the process God uses for everyone. Trust in God’s sanctification process in singles as much as in marrieds.
• Some may not have a desire for marriage. Give them space to be tuned into what the Lord is doing personally in their hearts.

Be Aware – Corruption Is Hovering Around Them

• The world loudly and repeatedly preaches harsh, wicked messages to singles. Messages like, “You need to try out sex before marriage to make sure you’re a good fit,” “You’re the only virgin left and there’s no way your spouse has waited for you,” and “God isn’t going to drop a spouse in your lap. You need to make it happen.” Make sure you only communicate accurate Biblical truths.
• The sexualized culture uses normal hormones and temptations to capitalize on the weaknesses of singles in the most troubling of ways. Please pray protection for them. And click here and here for helpful resources on the cultural, influential mindset about pornography.

What Other Ways Can You Show Support?

• Be their biggest fan. Get to know their passions, gifts, and interests and encourage them. Don’t make them feel like something is wrong with them for not dating or heading to the altar.
• Go easy on your siblings. Sure, you may have teased them relentlessly in childhood, but now is the time to be a true friend to them. If you’re dating or married, and your sibling is not, go out of your way to treat them how you would want to be treated.
• If you are mentoring any singles, help them locate robust Christian articles and books that encourage them to use this time of singlehood to grow as a person mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. (Some great resources include boundless.org, girldefined.com, and setapartgirl.com). Remind them of all the unique opportunities they have as a single person that will change once/if they get married (1 Cor. 7:8). Be willing to study these topics with them.
• Go out of your way to include your single friends and family on a trip or holiday, and then make sure there are activities planned where couples are not paired together.
• Make events and holidays a time of cherishing each individual there, married or not.
• Don’t wait for a birthday or Christmas to shower them with love and attention.
• Help them cultivate new friendships. Expand your personal community with them in mind. Think of who you know that they might really enjoy. You never know what God might do through more and more times of interaction with a variety of people, and what doors could open up for your single loved ones. But don’t try to force anything; there’s more to fellowship than romance. The purpose is their gain for the richness of friendship; not to “set them up.”
• Remember your single adult children and grandchildren fall into this category too. You may forget to see them in this light – as a single adult waiting on God for their future mate – but the most honoring, loving way you can be a parent or grandparent to them now is to refrain from teasing, pressuring, or “helping” them in this area. They’ve got the rest of the world on stand-by to make them feel bad. From you, the best gift you can give them is peaceful acceptance for who they are.
• Ask the Lord to help you add more ideas to this list that is personalized for your special, single friends and family. Then follow through.
• Don’t neglect this mission right before you. Your encouragement and ministry to the singles in your life could literally be a lifeline for them during this season, and for the rest of their lives.

As we have opportunity, let us do good to all… (Gal. 6:2)