Many believers wonder how to approach staying faithful to Christ while being single, dating, and waiting for marriage.
Dr. Clarence Shuler, an author, minister, and relationship coach shares his insights on how to pursue a godly life while being single and preparing for marriage with UrbanFaith. More on his book Single and Free to Be Me! which explores the joys and challenges of a godly single life is below.
In his book, Single and Free to Be Me, Dr. Clarence Shuler gives male and female singles of all ages practical and biblical tools on how to navigate the many phases of singlehood, from the art of flying solo and some of its struggles to learning how to deal with relationships with the opposite sex, all the way to preparing for marriage while still single.Single and Free to Be Me is a handy companion for anyone at any phase of singlehood. “Most books focus on a particular aspect of singlehood like dating or finding the One,” says Dr. Clarence Shuler. “But, singlehood has different cycles like discovering who you are, feeling lonely, healing a broken heart, dealing with the pressure to date or marry, learning how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex and for some, discerning a potential marriage partner.”Adding to the book’s research, singles’ personal accounts and biblical examples, Dr. Shuler opens up about his own struggles shared by many singles including yearning for marriage, pornography, masturbation, rejection, and other issues. His more than 30 years of counseling singles and married couples as well as his nearly 30 years of marriage provide relevant insight and principles that will help many singles find freedom from society’s and self-imposed pressures.
From the breakup of a relationship to losing a loved one, people are often told to find “closure” after traumatic things happen.
But what is closure? And should it really be the goal for individuals seeking relief or healing, even in these traumatic times of global pandemic, war in Ukraine and mass shootings in the U.S.?
Closure is an elusive concept. There is no agreed-upon definition for what closure means or how one is supposed to find it. Although there are numerous interpretations of closure, it usually relates to some type of ending to a difficult experience.
As a grief expert and author of “Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us,” I have learned that the language of closure can often create confusion and false hope for those experiencing loss. Individuals who are grieving feel more supported when they are allowed time to learn to live with their loss and not pushed to find closure.
Why did closure become popular?
Closure is entrenched in popular culture not because it is a well-defined, understood concept that people need, but rather because the idea of closure can be used to sell products, services and even political agendas.
The funeral industry started using closure as an important selling point after it was criticized harshly in the 1960s for charging too much for funerals. To justify their high prices, funeral homes began claiming that their services helped with grief too. Closure eventually became a neat package to explain those services.
In the 1990s, death penalty advocates used the concept of closure to reshape their political discourse. Arguing that the death penalty would bring closure for victims’ family members was an attempt to appeal to a broader audience. However, research continues to show that executions do not bring closure.
Still today, journalists, politicians, businesses and other professionals use the rhetoric of closure to appeal to people’s emotions related to trauma and loss.
So what is the problem with closure?
It is not the mere presence of closure as a concept that is a problem. The concern comes when people believe closure must be found in order to move forward.
Closure represents a set of expectations for responding after bad things happen. If people believe they need closure in order to heal but cannot find it, they may feel something is wrong with them. Because so many others may tell those grieving they need closure, they often feel a pressure to either end grief or hide it. This pressure can lead to further isolation.
Privately, many people may resent the idea of closure because they do not want to forget their loved ones or have their grief minimized. I hear this frustration from people I interview.
Closure frequently becomes a one-word description of what individuals are supposed to find at the end of the grieving process. The concept of closure taps into a desire to have things ordered and simple, but experiences with grief and loss are often longer-term and complex.
If not closure, then what?
As a grief researcher and public speaker, I engage with many different groups of people seeking help in their grief journeys or looking for ways to better support others. I’ve listened to hundreds of people who share their experiences with loss. And I learn time and again that people do not need closure to heal.
They can carry grief and joy together. They can carry grief as part of their love for many years. As part of my research, I interviewed a woman I will call Christina.
Just before her 16th birthday, Christina’s mom and four siblings were killed in a car accident. Over 30 years later, Christina said that people continue to expect her to just “be over it” and to find closure. But she does not want to forget her mother and siblings. She is not seeking closure to their deaths. She has a lot of joy in her life, including her children and grandchildren. But her mom and siblings who died are also part of who she is.
Both privately – and as a community – individuals can learn to live with loss. The types of loss and trauma people experience vary greatly. There is not just one way to grieve, and there is no time schedule. Furthermore, the history of any community contains a range of experiences and emotions, which might include collective trauma from events such as mass shootings, natural disasters or war. The complexity of loss reflects the complexity of relationships and experiences in life.
Rather than expecting yourself and others to find closure, I would suggest creating space to grieve and to remember trauma or loss as needed. Here are a few suggestions to get started:
• Know people can carry complicated emotions together. Embrace a full range of emotions. The goal does not need to be “being happy” all the time for you or others.
• Improve listening skills and know you can help others without trying to fix them. Be present and acknowledge loss through listening.
• Realize that people vary greatly in their experiences with loss and the way they grieve. Don’t compare people’s grief and loss.
• Bear witness to pain and trauma of others in order to acknowledge their loss.
• Provide individual and community-level opportunities for remembering. Give yourself and others freedom to carry memories.
Healing does not mean rushing to forget and silencing those who hurt. I believe that by providing space and time to grieve, communities and families can honor lives lost, acknowledge trauma and learn what pain people continue to carry.
In our current cultural and historical moment, it is common to have blended families. Single parents form new households, people wait later in life to get married or have children, and people who have been through divorce find the courage to marry again. But blended families have been present throughout human history, and we see them prominently in Scripture and in African American history.
We think of the patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob. Abraham with children from different women, and Jacob who had a large family with multiple wives and children with each of them. We can think of Moses who was adopted, Esther who was raised by her uncle, and Ruth, whose story revolves around her second marriage to Boaz. David who had children from different relationships and caused strife, and of course we remember Joseph, the stepfather of the Savior Jesus Christ.
In many African cultures, grandparents live with their adult children, children who are orphaned are raised by the closest of kin or the closest neighbor, and fathers have children from multiple relationships. During our history as Africans in America, the extended and blended family systems were how we survived slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing attacks on Black family life.
Growing up, I knew uncles who raised their wives’ children from previous relationships, I had aunts who raised their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. We had cousins who had a different mother or father than their siblings, and cousins on their second and third marriages. My story is not unique in the Black community. But interestingly, these realities of complex blended families are almost treated as taboo in our conversation and daily lives.
I grew up with both of my biological parents married and in the same house. When I started dating the woman who became my wife, some people around us were surprised and concerned because she already had two daughters from a previous relationship. I was single with no children, a couple of prestigious degrees, and a good job, so for many people the thought of dating—let alone marrying—a woman who had children was a letdown or an offense. But it has been an incredible joy and an experience of God’s love to raise two daughters who are mine through chosen relationships and one who is mine biologically.
Don’t get me wrong, raising children is one of the greatest challenges you can ever have, most of the parents out there will agree with me. But it is also one of the most rewarding journeys a person can undertake. Raising children who do not share your blood takes a special person. But if I’m honest, I feel similar about my call to parenting all of my children as I do to being a husband. Let me break the myths: marriage is not for everyone. Raising children is not for everyone, either. But both are callings for many of us. And as Christians, we know both take the grace and power of God to do well.
Being able to raise and care for children who are mine not by blood and obligation, but by relationship and choice gives me a different perspective on how God loves us as His adopted children by the Spirit. Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:14–15 (NLT), “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’”
When you raise children who are adopted into your family, you are able to share your spirit and more importantly God’s Spirit with them—even if you may not share blood. Having adopted children is different than having biological children for me. But it does not make the relationship any less important, loving, or powerful, just as when God adopted us by His Spirit. God’s love toward us as His adopted children is the same as His love toward Jesus, His only begotten Son. That is a powerful revelation and goal for our love as people in blended families: to love every member the way God loves Jesus, the way Jesus loves us, the way we are called to love one another. Although our relationships in blended families may be different, the love should not be different.
Having a blended family is not for everyone. But with intentionality, grace, and patience it can be an amazing experience of God’s love. Scripture and history show that blended families have always been part of God’s people. It is not a moral failure to bring children into a new family or marry someone with children. It should not be taboo to have a blended family. Our response as believers to blended families is clear: love them as Jesus loves us.
Sex is a good thing. For all human history, human beings have had sex and been aware of their sexuality. It is a fundamental function of creation to reproduce that God instituted from the beginning. But sexuality is not simply about reproduction. It is about the awareness and expression of our bodies. We are spiritual beings, but we are also natural beings. God created us that way on purpose. If we were meant to be all spiritual, we would have been created like angels, but God made us from the earth on purpose. Jesus Christ came to us IN THE FLESH, not as a spiritual principle, a vision, or a disembodied being. Jesus was circumcised on the 8th day according to Jewish law, as all Jews were. This was a sexual act with spiritual meaning that is literally at the heart of the Old Covenant. Unfortunately, as New Covenant Christians we often overfocus on the spirit and miss the fact that the New Covenant is literally made because of Jesus’ BODY broken for us and blood shed for us. It is Jesus’ humanity, not spirit that is the sacrifice that reunites us with God. The conversation is different depending on your stage of life. Believers who are married with kids need to have different conversations than single believers in early adulthood, or teenagers, or those who are divorced, or single after the death of a spouse. But regardless of our age or station in life we need to do a better job having these conversations as Christians. Here are 3 major reasons why Christians need to talk about sex.
God created us to be sexual beings
Every person was designed to be sexual, and that goes far beyond having sex. When God created Adam and Eve, they were meant to relate to one another sexually and their relationship to be closer than parent to child in future generations. They were naked and unashamed of their bodies (Genesis 2:24-35). There are any number of reasons why believers are ashamed of their sexuality today, many of them unfortunately from bad teaching in churches. But that is not the design of God. We were created to relate to one another sexually BEFORE sin entered the world.
Christian sexuality is meant to be different
A lot of our confusion, angst, shame, sorrow, and frustration with reconciling our sexuality with our faith is because of a Biblical principle that Christian sex is meant to be different than sexuality for those who don’t follow Christ. The covenant between God and Abraham made Israelite men sexually different from their neighbors in other nations (Genesis 17). The Law of Moses set up sexual limitations and regulations that were meant to distinguish Israel from other nations. The principle always pushed toward relationship with God reflected in our sexual relationships with others. The word used in scripture is holy, but to translate that our modern culture we might say intentional, purposeful difference that honors God. Paul picks up this Jewish principle in the New Testament by articulating a vision of sexual relationships that is monogamous, mutual, caring, and loving that reflect Christ’s love. We have often been caught up on the restrictions and missed the vision in the church. We have to be responsible with our sexuality because we are accountable to God in a different way as followers of Christ. We are called to be vulnerable, loving, and intentional with our sexuality in a way that is different than the world around us.
We should love and not fear our sexuality
1 John 4:18 reminds us that perfect love casts out all fear. The world has set false standards that promote fear, violence, and mistrust in sexual relationships. We have no need to rehearse the many ways popular culture, corporate interests, and sociopolitical forces use and abuse sexuality. Often their goals are to use sex to make money and create false intimacy. But for many believers we have been taught to fear sexuality to maintain holiness. It has caused believers to have arrested development, face shame and ridicule, leave churches, and seek unhealthy sources to define their sexuality. We rarely speak of the difficulties many newly married Christian couples face around sexual expectations, communication, and formation because of ignorance, self-rejection, and fear. We do not talk about the struggles teenagers face with loving their bodies instead of hating and fearing them. We do not deal with the choice to not have sex as young adults instead of treating sex as an uncontrollable inevitable impulse. We are afraid of the word intimate because we have been taught it is dirty. Our bodies are not beasts to be tamed. They are part of us to be loved. Paul Himself would agree with this, treating our bodies as a Temple of God means loving and tending to them with the utmost care (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Not fearing and avoiding them as we abuse them and let them be abused by others. But Jesus loves us. He loves our bodies. He wants us to love God with our bodies just as we do with our minds and hearts. And we make sexual choices that build intimacy and protection with our romantic partner. We do not discuss the why of a holistic view of Christian sexuality which sets us up for pain before and during marriage. But we should talk about sex. We should love our bodies and our sexuality. We should define what sexual holiness means as believers in terms of what we choose to do instead of what we feel we can’t do. We should honor God’s design for sexuality by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, sexuality included.
As we emerge from the global lockdown of the pandemic many institutions, organizations, and individuals are having to rethink what it means to connect and communicate. The Church is faced more than ever with how to reach across generational lines to survive and thrive in the new world. Dr. Darrell Hall has been in ministry for decades and now has quantitative and qualitative research to help churches reach multigenerational communities. UrbanFaith sat down with Darrell Hall to discuss his new book Speaking Across Generations.
Dr. Derwin Gray is a scholar and pastor who is committed to helping heal the racial divide in the Church. His experiences as a black man, former NFL player, minister, and community leader have positioned him to bring together people across lines of difference. He pastors an intentionally multiethnic church, which he believes represents the Church of Jesus Christ described in Scripture. UrbanFaith sat down with him to talk about his new book How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says and the first Christians knew about racial reconciliation. The interview is above and more information on the book is below.
In his forthcoming book, Dr. Derwin L. Gray walks us through Scripture, showing us the heart of God for racial reconciliation. This book unpacks what it means to live a multiethnic life in light of the gospel.
Derwin L. Gray is the founding and lead pastor of Transformation Church (TC), one of the fastest growing churches in America. TC is a multiethnic, multigenerational, mission-shaped community near Charlotte, NC. Pastor Derwin and his wife, Vicki, have been married since 1992 and have two children: daughter, Presley, and son, Jeremiah. He is the author of Hero: Unleashing God’s Power in a Man’s Heart (2010), Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future, (2013), The High-Definition Leader (2015), and The Good Life: What Jesus Teaches About Finding True Happiness (2020).
In our current cultural and historical moment, it is common to have blended families. Single parents form new households, people wait later in life to get married or have children, and people who have been through divorce find the courage to marry again. But blended families have been present throughout human history, and we see them prominently in Scripture and in African American history.
