I think what you're implying subconsciously is that marriage is this gift that you are given

if you are completely content in your singleness, right?

Which you're also implying singleness alone is not a gift.

Partly also the way we think about marriage in the church, that it is, you really reach

Christian maturity when you graduate to the marriage class or whatever it is. And we don't really

have this framework for understanding that marriage is not the goal of the Christian life.

Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers,

pastors, and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel.

On today's episode, you'll hear a conversation about singleness with Sujin Park,

Lydia Brownback, and Anna Mead Harris.

I'm Anna, and I became a widow in 2010 when my husband passed away after cancer.

And our sons at that time were 9, 12, and 13 years old.

And so that means that they're all grown now when you're

listening to this podcast. But I was, so I was single in the church for 13 and a half years and

actually got married last month. So that's a new development.

But yeah, there was, I will say it was intense.

Being a single parent is a very intense experience, raising children on your own without a spouse.

And the church that we went to was very loving, warm. They paid particular

attention to us. I was the only single mother in the church. And it's a church of about

250 on a typical Sunday. So if that tells you anything, it is hard to be a single parent in the church

because the church can be a very married place. And as kind and loving as everyone was,

we still felt different in the church. And the pastor and the youth pastor in particular did an

...