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Imagine a conversation with a sweet Christian woman who is in this kind of jam. You run into her and ask how she's doing.

She then falls all over herself telling you how much she loves her job, how busy she is,

how much traveling she is doing, how she really doesn't have any time or need for a social life.

Or she tells you about her classes, when she'll have her degree and all the wonderful job possibilities waiting out there for her.

Now I'm certainly not saying that she is

lying about all this. Don't get me wrong here, but I am saying that it is possible

that this is all just a very hollow cover to make you think she is happy happy happy all the day

when she would really like to cry and say she hates all of this. She might really want to tell you

that she is miserable, frustrated, and lonely traveling by herself,

that she wishes she could be doing something that would give her more fulfillment and

make her feel more a part of the body of Christ. But this, she thinks, would be admitting defeat, and so she convinces herself that her career is all she wants after all.

Part of the way to freedom for women in this bind is to help them see first of all that is not only

okay but positively healthy to want to be married. There is nothing in the world

wrong with wanting to be married.

It is only wrong to be miserable about it.

And wanting to be married does not equal discontent.

Many women are feeling a false guilt about this.

It goes something like this.

If I were truly godly, I wouldn't want to be married.

I would be happy to be unmarried for the rest of my life.

But I do long to be married, therefore I am not rejoicing in the Lord, and therefore I am guilty of sin.

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