The following post is adapted from some notes of a message I gave last year on singleness. And shocker… I am actually single and not a married woman sharing about how hard it is to be single and how sorry I am that you’re still single. Yeah, I’ve read those posts and heard those messages too. Lately, you, the single woman like me, have been on my heart. Perhaps it’s the holidays. Perhaps it’s because I am inching closer to 30. I don’t know. I just thought it was time to share this post. I am not saying this will make you feel better about your current Facebook marital status. But I hope it does give you some encouragement on the journey…

Crystal Renaud
Founder & Executive Director
WHOLE Women Ministries
Dirty Girls Ministries

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I think of any people group in the world, the single adult population is the most diverse. I say that because we have women who have always been single, like myself, women who have been married but who are single again (whether through divorce or loss of spouse). We also have women who are single moms, and they too could have never been married, or they are single again for whatever reason, or have always been single.

That’s a lot of different kinds of people. And each one is uniquely created to fulfill a God-given purpose.

But for some reason, single women, particularly and if not exclusively Christian single women, live their lives like this is the staging area for the big production … or like they are just sitting in the waiting room outside the rest of their real life that’s to come.

There are misconceptions (maybe) that as single women, we can’t know or live out our God-given purpose in life until we’re a wife and a mother. I believe this misconception might come about as a result of what we see and hear at church or in our culture and from our well-meaning, but idiotic-sounding married friends.

We hear a lot of sermons on parenting, on being a good spouse, etc. and very little or nothing at all on what it means to live out our purpose as single adults. And we hear from our friends that if we would just put ourselves out there more, we’d find a husband or that we’re just too picky.

(What’s wrong with being picky by the way? What happened to “don’t settle cause God’s got the perfect man for you”? Is that just advice for high school girls?)

So we almost develop this kind of complex that we’re just not complete until we’re married. That life really doesn’t begin until after marriage. That we don’t really count until we’re married. That we just don’t… measure… up.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In this post, we’re going to look at some rather large chunks of scripture. These verses can be freeing to you as a single woman, but also a bit convicting. But as we know, conviction is God’s way of correcting our thoughts and behaviors. So we should never shy away from the scriptures that speak hard, honest truth to us.

The first book of Corinthians is one of two letters that Paul sent to the church of Corinth in Greece about Christian living and conduct due to concerns that had been brought to him from those in the area.

A little bit about Paul, if you don’t know, is that Paul was formerly known as Saul, a Pharisee and just an all around bad guy. He had been a murderer of Christians. In today’s standards, some might think of him as a terrorist. But he had a mighty encounter with the Lord on the Road of Damascus that changed his life.

You see, Paul was set apart to do great things for the Lord.

He accepted Jesus as his Messiah and became one of the most influential missionaries to ever walk this earth. Planting many churches, discipling many young men and women, and even authoring as many as 13 books of the New Testament including 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, etc.

And he did all of this while living as a single man who from what we know of scripture, never married.

And like I was saying before about playing the waiting room game or believing that our life’s purpose can’t really begin until after marriage, the scripture says,

… don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. (1 Corinthians 7:17 MSG)

To decide to pursue your own passions and purpose as a single woman is not equivalent to you throwing in the towel on the possibility of marriage and family. It is does not make you an old maid. It does not make you a lost cause. It does not mean you have to symbolically marry Jesus. You are not destined for the convent life as a nun.

You have a life to live now and it can be a pretty great one.

Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me-a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others. (1 Corinthians 7:7 MSG)

Nothing is accidental. If God wanted you to be married right now, guess what? You would be married.

There’s actually nothing in the Bible that requires marriage. In fact, Paul talks of singleness as the better choice when compared to marriage. Basically saying, “only get married if you must.”

Why did Paul say it’s better? Let’s look at the scripture together and find out.

I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple —in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out.

I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions. (1 Corinthians 7:29-35 MSG)

I have lived 28 years of single life and without any prospects. I know it is hard to be the third wheel, or feel singled out for being single, or be literally one of the last of your girlfriends to walk down the aisle.

But if we begin to look at our singleness as an honor or as a gift, that we’ve been set apart to do the Lord’s work without distraction, would we be as upset about our martial status? How much more could God do with our time?

There’s nothing wrong with desiring marriage and family. I believe both are from the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart in due time. But these years of singlehood can be a time for you to be totally about the Lord’s work both in your own life and in the lives of others.

So live your single life as if it were on purpose. Because it is.

I want to leave you with a perspective shift and a challenge, if you’ll allow me that.

Last March, I was on a mission trip to Thailand. Not only does Thailand battle a huge human trafficking epidemic, but there is a huge cultural pressure for young and arranged marriage in this culture.

It is not uncommon for a Thai girl to be married by the age of 14 or 15. In fact, for a girl to remain unmarried at the age of 20 years old, it is considered shameful by her family and by society. As a result, teenage girls are getting married, becoming young mothers soon after and not pursuing their education or their dreams.

Eight years ago, Mai, was taken in by a safe home in Pua called Grace House. She was very bright and even had dreams of becoming a doctor. Last March, Mai returned home after school released for summer break like so many girls do.

While she was away, Mai succumbed to cultural pressure and was married over the summer. She now has a young baby and will not return to her education. She’s was only 17 at the time and would have graduated high school last March.

Stories like these are becoming far too common over there.

One evening while at New Hope Home, which is a home for girls with HIV or who have been displaced because of HIV, one of the pastors on the trip asked the girls to make him and God a promise.

To stand against the pressure that is placed on them. To pursue God. To pursue their passions. To pursue their God-given purposes.

And as you see in that picture, these girls have their hands all in and they are repeating back to him their promise, their commitment to never settle and to live out the purpose God has set them apart to do long ago (Ephesians 2:10).

I challenge you today to make the same commitment.

So please don’t, out of old habit, slip back into being or doing what everyone else tells you. Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. (1 Corinthians 7:23-24 MSG)

What are misconceptions you’ve encountered as a single woman in the Church?
How have you allowed cultural pressure to determine your steps?
If you’re married, how can you help create a culture where it’s safe to be single?

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Do you want to see more posts like this? Let us know.

I’ve been asked by several people if I would please address the [current] #1 New York Times bestselling erotic fiction, Fifty Shades of Grey and it’s series of counterparts.

As someone who has not read it and as someone who has no plans to read it, it’s difficult for me to denounce an entire series of books without anything more than the understanding that it’s a sexually graphic fictional novel.

But that’s actually enough for me.

As we know here at Dirty Girls Ministries, erotic fiction or  romance novels (as many like to call them) are a gateway to other types of pornography, extramarital affairs and sexual behavior uncharacteristic of women prior to having read them.

What differs Fifty Shades of Grey from the romance novels that say… our moms read when we were kids… is that it’s packaged like Twilight and other popular books of today. You wouldn’t know it from just looking at the cover that it’s erotic material. In fact, I had no idea it was an erotic novel until I began to hear from women in my inbox about it. And this is even after I had seen it on a large display at my local Barnes & Noble.

It’s not a shirtless man with a big busted woman on the cover anymore. And it’s not a woman being seduced by the stable boy in the barn. From what I’ve researched about this series of books, the main sexual themes throughout are BDSM (bondage/discipline/sadism/masochism), control, violence, damage from childhood abuse, etc.

Why these themes have become mainstreamed enough to become the content of a bestselling novel is greatly disturbing to me. But it sums up to me that the desensitization of our culture is greater than any one of us could have imagined.

And before one argues that reading a book can’t change a person or make any difference in how a person lives their life, according to a leading fetish company, there has been an increase in their sales as a direct result of this book (article linked may be too graphic for some).

Quote from the article: “In recent weeks, we’ve received literally hundreds of calls thanks to this book… about 90% of them are middle-aged ‘soccer mom’ types who never imagined themselves calling a fetish sex toy company.”

What makes this book exactly like the romance novels of the past, is that it creates a fantasy world for women to escape into. A world that doesn’t include their husbands and one that certainly isn’t God-honoring. I don’t know about you, but my fantasies, the things I long to receive from my future husband, don’t include being violently abused and sexually humiliated.

There is nothing fun or cute about sexual violence and now that it’s becoming acceptable in the mainstream through the purchases women are making at the checkout stand (or secretly from their Amazon account), where do we go from here? It’s too terrifying to even imagine.

Above all else, guard your heart,  for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23

Blessings,
Crystal Renaud
Founder of Dirty Girls Ministries

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For more reasons not to read Fifty Shades of Grey, read this post by Dannah Gresh.

This post might get me into trouble. I’ve been sitting on it for a few months and when Los posted about something similar last night… I decided to pull the trigger. But honestly, this post was going to be a lot more feisty. This is all you get today.

If you’re in ministry, then you know about “The Rule.” The rule about men and women being alone together. Its a respectable rule. One that I’ve been under since I first entered ministry as an intern some 8 years ago. But while this rule is put in place to protect staff integrity, I have seen more men and women get into trouble while under this rule, than I’ve seen and heard of from ministries who don’t enforce it.

So, I can’t help but ask myself, does the rule even matter? Does sin really know mandated boundaries? If it did, would we have had all the eating of the forbidden fruit business? You know? And further more, is the risk of an affair or moral failing really so much greater in ministry, then in the real world? Where’s the rule at Sprint? or Cerner?

Can I be honest? I create my own rules. And I think that is what it actually takes to keep oneself safe. To keep one’s integrity in check. Creating the kind of boundaries and rules that fit your own lifestyle.

My case in point. I’m single. I’m a young woman. But I have always had better guy friends than girlfriends. But somewhere along the way most of them got married. And the men who enter my life now, are all generally married. Particularly those I work with on a day to day basis.

I will always be a woman. I might always be single. But I can’t live in a bumble.

And as a single woman in ministry, I know that I have to protect myself. I have to protect myself from rumors. I have to protect myself also, not just from my own temptations or from being a temptation to someone else, but from on-lookers who see my hand with no ring, funky, fun hair and bumbly personality and think, “tramp.”

I make friends with my guy friend’s and co-workers wives. Even if I have nothing in common with them (which happens). If I am in a situation where I have to be alone with a married guy (which is only in the most random of occasions), his wife knows because I make sure she knows. I call her. I email her. I make sure she is never in the dark. I respect their marriage. She knows that her trust in me, first begins with her trust in her husband. With each other. And in doing so, this respects me and keeps me safe.

I would never say that I am above sinning or doing something regrettable. None of us are. But every, single affair and/or moral failing I have seen (some in the cubical next to me) were situations that both parties involved were married and had “the rule.” These were devastating and I lost great friends, and the repercussions were astronomical.

But the problem wasn’t young, single women or whether or not a “rule” was printed in a manual. The problem was at home. And a “rule” wasn’t going to stop what was already in motion.

I don’t know if you have any thoughts. But I’d love to hear anything you have.

there isn’t time to decently blog.
just to fill you in:

1. I am super busy. A lot of events and activities coming up which means, busy times for the 2 of us that make up the Communications Department. So busy, in fact, that for the first time in 8 years, I am not with the 300+ students and leaders at camp this week. Kinda sad, really. It is great to see ministries planning and Westside moving right along, but man! Here’s a snapshot our ever-growing “to do” board.

2. Westside is in a season of change. One that I am pretty excited about — but at the same time — a bit anxious for. Dan Southerland, a long-time guest pastor and adjunct staff member is on the table as our next full-time Lead Teaching Pastor. As most of you know, we’ve been influx since April 2007 when our Senior Pastor had to resign. This is a big deal for our staff, church body and well, Dan! There’s a church vote on July 27. On top of this staff change, there are a lot of other staff changes that need prayer covering — people leaving, shifting jobs or new hires.

3. Some of our pastors have caught wind of my blog and have ask me to join a team of volunteers to write weekly devotionals. These will be written in relation to whatever message series we’re in and distributed to about 3,000 readers. Pretty cool.

4. I head to Chicago in just under 3 weeks for the “Gifted to Lead” Women’s Conference at Willow Creek. This is kind of a big deal for me. I haven’t actually traveled to a conference in over 3 years. I’m ready for some “intentional development.”

5. And just a few weeks after that, I head to South Africa. Wow! I AM SO EXCITED. I am still close to $900 short of the total ($2824) needed for the trip. But I trust that will come together. I am overseeing some of the team’s HIV/AIDS trainings as well as planning the African classroom sessions. I am so humbled to be used in this way. (more info/donate)

I appreciate your prayers through all of the afore mentioned craziness!! All the busy is making me feel a bit disconnected because the introvert in me is screaming for isolation when I have any down time. I promise to do my best in keeping my blog interesting in midst of it all.

What have you been up to?

June 25 is a day of fasting and prayer at Compassion International. We’re fasting and praying for the children we sponsor, for their families, for Compassion’s local staff and church partners in the developing world. We’re fasting and praying because the Global Food Crisis is devastating many of their lives.

The price for rice, beans, corn and other food staples throughout the world has risen exponentially in recent months, creating extreme hardship and suffering for families living on $1 or $2 a day.

The Global Food Crisis is affecting everyone in some way. But how it affects us here in the U.S. is totally different than how it affects my sponsored children, Mediatrix and PhaPhama and so much many others like them. It’s much more intimate for these children and their families.

I don’t have to tell you that the price of gas in the U.S. is ridiculous and the price tag on a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread is unreal. I’m usually oblivious to grocery prices, but seeing $3.50 for a loaf of bread that used to be $1.50 got my attention.

My loaf of bread is more than two days salary for many families. Think about that for a moment… two days salary just to buy bread!

Food prices have risen as much as 100 percent in some countries since 2006. Many of the countries Compassion serves are among those that have been hit hardest by rising food prices. The current global food crisis is being called a “silent tsunami” that could plunge an additional 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

100 million people…

That’s a lot of stats to take in… but each number represents a life, as real as as you and I. By now, I hope you are asking yourself, “what can I do to help fight the global food crisis?”

Good question.

1) Join Compassion’s Day of Prayer and Fasting on June 25.
This is the day we will honor the victims of the global food crisis and pray for them. If you’re “in” for the Day of Prayer & Fasting… add your name to the growing list in my sidebar and let me know in the comment section of this post. And hey, spread the word!

2) Give to Compassion’s Global Food Crisis Fund.
Your gift will help provide:
* food vouchers to children and families needing immediate relief.
* seeds & agricultural tools so that families can grow their own food as well as earn extra income.
* supplemental nutrition services offered at Compassion-assisted centers around the world.

The Numbers:
* your gift of $13 can feed a child for about one month.
* your gift of $78 can feed a family of six for one month.
* your gift of $520 can feed 40 children for about one month.
* your gift of $3,250 can feed 250 children (an entire child development center) for one month!