A Letter to Every Woman Waiting to Meet Her Husband

Dear Sister,

How is your heart feeling in this season of being single? What struggles are you bringing to prayer over and over and over again about this stage in life? One of the most prominent feelings I struggled with while single was a feeling of ‘lack;’ I lacked being in my vocation, I lacked a husband, I lacked a family.

Nine years after having met my husband, six years into our marriage, two living children, one miscarriage, and an ongoing pregnancy later, I see things differently. May I share a bit of that different perspective with you? 

The ache for marriage and motherhood is an ache for good and beautiful things.

I always seek to affirm my friends who ache for marriage and a family, because they do so with good reason—marriage and motherhood were created by God and are rich and deep and beautiful experiences. Marriage to my husband really has led to tremendous personal growth for me and for us as a couple.

Motherhood has expanded my heart, especially the capacity to feel with and for another person, in ways beyond my imagining. In other words, the ache for marriage and motherhood is a worthy and worthwhile ache, a reflection of the deepest yearnings of the female heart. 

Each season in life brings both joy and suffering. 

And, like the single years, marriage and motherhood bring challenges of their own. The changes in these last nine years have not come without struggle, both for us as a couple and for me as an individual. God has been faithful, and yet His plan for our growth in holiness and healing has sometimes pruned us in exceptionally painful ways, challenging and stretching us beyond anything we could have anticipated.

I don’t say that as a warning, or to convey a sense of foreboding, but rather to say: each state in life brings true joy mingled with real suffering. That’s the Christian life. That’s being human. 

My single years were a time of fullness.

I wrote at the beginning of this letter that I tended to view my single years as a time of lack. It’s tempting to simplistically consider the single life as just one long waiting period before, in so many words, “real life” happens. It’s easy to think that everything will change once you get married: the loneliness will go away, you will feel more self-confident, you’ll be fulfilled because you’ll be actively living your vocation as a wife and hopefully as a mother, etc. 

And, perhaps you’ve thought as I did that not only will you feel fulfilled then but you’ll also be contributing maximally to the world. Maybe it feels like right now you’re just doing this or that good thing as a sort of placeholder until you can really give yourself in the most important and impactful ways as a wife and a mother. Particularly regarding that last concern, I want to tell you something that I needed to be frequently reminded of during my single years, and that’s this: The world needs what you have to offer right now, in this season. 

Looking back, my single years were not simply a time of lack but also a time of fullness. Without responsibilities to a husband or children, I was full of availability for other people. I had the time to help friends out spontaneously when various needs arose, to organize several women’s conferences for my local diocese, to visit family all over the country, and to help out with various “extra” committees and projects at the hospital where I worked. 

In my current state of life now, I’ve been blessed many times over by the generosity of single friends and family members.

Before my younger sister met her husband, she frequently road-tripped to my house to play with my kids, help me set up for Ladies Night Out events, etc. Last fall, my single friend Gina was the first person to bring over a meal the day after we miscarried our third child.

And when this fourth baby and I were in a serious car accident last month, she was here with supper the next night. Another single friend drove half an hour each way to drop off Dairy Queen ice cream blizzards as a pick-me-up several days after the accident. And a third single friend babysat the kids for us so my husband and I could get out for a date night a week later. 

We are all made for self-gift.

I’ve learned that the human heart is made for self-gift, that we find ourselves when we give ourselves away. In my single years, that self-gift was disbursed far and wide, and as a wife and mom, that self-gift is often more narrowly (but not exclusively) tailored toward my husband and children. 

I’ve also learned that God has created every woman for motherhood. To be sure, many women are called at some point to physical motherhood, but every woman is called at all times to live spiritual motherhood. St. Edith Stein described spiritual motherhood well, saying, “The woman’s soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls unfold.”

Together with maternity, the gifts of generosity, sensitivity, and receptivity comprise the ‘feminine genius’ described by Pope St. John Paul II. They represent the unique ways that we’re called to live self-gift, and each of them is markedly other-centered. 

Single life is both a time of preparation and important in its own right.

When I was single, I often thought of my single years as prep time for my ‘real life’ as a wife and mom. I’ve since realized that that time was both meant to prepare me for what was ahead and an important time in its own right.

During those years I learned something about the personal interests that make me feel alive—baking and dancing and reading and writing among them. Those interests did not magically go away when I was married or became a mom, and I’ve found that to this day when I make time (with my husband’s help!) for those things, I come away feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. 

I also formed friendships during my single years that continue to give me life today. Some of those friends are not yet married, and while my fellow ‘mom friends’ and I tend to commiserate about temper tantrums and teething and Kindergarten, I still yearn for the deep, ponderous conversations about the world at large that I tend to have with my single friends. 

Finally, single life afforded me the time and space to learn about and grow in appreciation for my Catholic faith, particularly the beauty and richness of the Church’s teachings on the vocation and dignity of women. 

Christ seeks to draw near to each of us in every season and stage of life.

Though I’ve heard many times that God is the ultimate end-point of every human desire, and that “our hearts are restless until they rest in God,” I’ve only in the last year really begun to internalize that reality. He knocks at the door of my heart every day, sometimes in the small details of everyday life He offers for my pleasure, like abundant varieties of roadside wildflowers there for my appreciation or my ignoring.

Sometimes He shows me His love in big ways, as in the divine intervention that’s the only real explanation for why my life and my baby’s life were spared in the car accident I mentioned before. I wish I had been aware of these invitations to greater awareness of Him long before now. 

I know, dear sister, that this time being single can feel never-ending and lonely and frustrating. I pray that you’re able to lean in to the opportunities for self-gift available in this season and to see the ways that Christ is acting in your life even now. He calls each of us every day, yearning for our ‘yes’ to His invitation to ever greater intimacy.

Whether single or married or married with children, it is Christ that we ultimately seek. Everything else in our lives falls into place if we keep that reality front and center. Peace be with you!