The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. (Proverbs 31:11-KJV)
Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. (Proverbs 31:11-NIV)
I want to first start with a disclaimer. The norm for most of us is that we will get married but that doesn’t mean that we will live to get married.
Now that I’ve begun with the norm, I must include the exception: Not all women will get married.
The will of God is that we would live our lives to the full, whether we will get married or not.
These points are therefore not to make anyone live in the mode of ‘I am waiting to get married.’
You will indeed get married should the Lord lead that way but you want to live in such a way that you are enjoying your singlehood to the fullest. I will be addressing this in one of the upcoming blog posts.
Sometimes when we preoccupy ourselves with preparing for marriage, we miss the moment. We then end up getting frustrated when the Lord causes us to stay a little longer, or when we find out too late that marriage wasn’t God’s will for us.
God may have even ordained marriage for you, but it may be that you will get married perhaps several years down the line when most of your friends are already married.
You do not want to live with the fact that your years were wasted brooding over what could be.
Therefore, enjoy your life as a single woman to the full.
I stayed a little longer in my singlehood, not too long but a little longer than my age mates.
These five things are what I did. I pray they will be a blessing to you.
- Seek the mentorship of an older woman or women.
Titus tells us in Titus chapter two; that the older women should train the younger women how to love their husbands and children.
He mentions up to eight things in this passage of scripture. From this, we can see that it is God’s will to have the mentorship of an older woman.
Personally, this was very helpful for me. I was mentored by an older woman who discipled me.
I saw how she conducted herself; how she took care of her husband and children and how she practised hospitality in general.
I even had to live in her home for a few days; a God-ordained opportunity for me to see the Christian life lived between husband and wife and their children.
As a young woman, trust God to connect you with an older woman who can mentor you. I pray you will also trust God to be imparted; to have a teachable spirit because discipleship is more caught than taught.
Similarly, being a wife can also be more caught than taught. We need the teaching but when being a wife is modelled before us as well, then being a godly wife, in future, as you prepare, becomes easier.
(In case you’d like more insight into the Proverbs 31 chapter, you can buy our book based on this passage right here on Amazon.)
- Respect and honour the men God has put in your life.
The Google dictionary (Oxford languages) defines respect as:
“a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.”
Now, this can be practically impossible if you have had the worst of experiences with or at the hands of men around your life.
We live in a fallen world. I am not unaware that several women have faced experiences that give them no reason at all to respect a man.
If this has been the case, I can only empathize with you, keenly aware of the kind of fallenness around us.
I invite you to kindly consider turning to the all-perfect God, who portrays the perfect picture of Fatherhood as well as manhood in the person of His Son Jesus Christ.
He came to redeem us. When we accept and experience His love and redemption, he gives us the strength to forgive the men who have hurt us.
Only then can we begin to see the perfect picture of fatherhood and manhood as God enables us to encounter him as he is, and his nature, as we commune and fellowship with him in his Word.
We then get to the next step of trusting him, as his Spirit enables us, to respect the men around us.
I am in no way saying this will be easy. I am saying this is only possible in God.
So, beginning with your father or male guardian, then your brothers, then brothers in the Faith and the men God has placed around you, you want to trust God to respect them, knowing that this not only pleases God, it prepares you to respect your future husband should the Lord have ordained marriage for you.
Don’t imagine that when you disrespect the men around you, when you get that ‘‘Mr. Right’’ you will respect him. You will not.
Honouring the men around you, just as they are, is a facilitator to your being able to respect a husband in a way that their heart will trust you and he will have no lack of gain as that verse tells us.
- Just in case you’ve been hurt deeply by a man in some way, trust the Lord to work out his healing and restoration over this in your life.
Following what we have just talked about in the previous point, I find it necessary to include this as a point of action.
I have somewhat shared in the earlier point on the way forward. Let me however add this:
Trust God to help you deal with the pain or hurt so that you can experience healing and true freedom in him.
You can seek the help of a mentor, a pastor or an older godly woman to help you walk this journey.
I have personally heard testimonies of women who have experienced the healing that comes from God from pains and hurts inflicted by men. They are now walking in freedom and experiencing the Christian life to the full.
When you get into a relationship in future that leads to marriage with undealt-with issues, it will be very difficult for you to respect and honour a husband when you know men have dishonoured or hurt you in the past.
Therefore, trust the Lord to help you deal with these hurts so that you can handle a husband in a way that he will fully trust you.
- Invest in resources that will build you up as a woman and fellowship with like-minded young women; young women like you.
We are living in a media-dominated era. A young woman can easily find herself spending endless hours on vain amusements and content that doesn’t necessarily edify or build the spirit man.
This is an era where a young woman, like Daniel of old who resolved not to eat defiled food, must determine to say no to that which doesn’t build her up and to grow to be the godly woman God wants her to be.
Where sin increased grace increased even more. What that tells me is that, as much as there is plenty of vain amusement out there and that which defiles, there is plenty more which can build a young woman up unto godliness.
There are several books out there now on godly biblical womanhood; including our own here that I’ve authored based on the Proverbs 31 passage in the Bible. You can find it here.
When I was single, we may not have had access to lots of books and content on biblical womanhood and discipleship as there are now. However, one of the books the woman who discipled me recommended was a book called: Open hearts, Open Homes by Karen Burton Mains.
I used to be very shy and a little bit withdrawn. That book was very resourceful in helping me learn to practice hospitality, alongside many other books that she recommended.
YouTube and Google, combined with podcasts and websites that teach and equip women on the journey of being godly women abound. Only be careful you don’t land on the wrong site that may propagate false doctrine. Ask around to be sure the site, channel, or platform is known as being biblically sound.
Bible studies are invaluable in building you up as a young woman desiring to be all that God wants you to be. Don’t shy away from Bible study. Learn how to study the scriptures. God’s Word sets free, transforms, heals, restores, revives, changes, and forms.
Study the lives of the women of the Bible; for example, Ruth is one of my favourite characters. There is Abigail, then Priscilla who was working together with her husband Aquilla.
Study the scriptures about what Peter told the wives on having a quiet spirit, this is just to name a few. Study these passages to ask what the Lord is saying to you personally, and pray them back to God.
Ask the Lord to mould you into the woman He wants you to be.
Some time back, I studied Proverbs 31 for a while and ended up memorizing and reflecting a lot on it.
God gave me opportunities to mentor other younger women through Proverbs 31 using Bible Studies. In the process, I have come to learn so much right from when I was single to this point.
Investing in the word of God and prayer is wonderful preparation not just for marriage but for your life as a Christian. I will share more on this in the last point.
Finally for this point, why not join up with like-minded friends and get an older woman to mentor you as a group?
Mentorship or discipleship as you grow with fellow women helps you to sharpen one another as women unto godliness.
- Invest in Scripture; Give yourself to the study of God’s word, particularly scriptures about women and womanhood, then pray them back to God.
There is nothing like God’s Word in transforming you. I am assuming that you are already walking with God daily in his Word and prayer through Quiet Time and your devotion with Him.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, check out these two blog posts here and here, and this one on how to have an effective Quiet Time in 7 simple steps. I pray they will be a blessing.
Invest in prayer unto God. Be deliberate in setting aside time specifically to pray. Be spontaneous as well, knowing that you are in a relationship with God who delights in fellowshipping with you. Pray without ceasing, the Bible says.
I love encouraging women to pray back scriptures to God. All scripture is God-breathed. I’m certain God is pleased to answer us when we pray in light of his Word.
The Bible is where we draw inspiration, even for the content on this blog.
There are things you will struggle to release especially when you know we have been in a system that can cause us to think in a feministic way. Only the word of God can purify us and cleanse us and in turn, prepare us into the women God wants us to be.
As I conclude, let me emphasize something I said in the previous blog post on this verse. If you haven’t read it, you can find it here.
Find your security as a single woman in the Lord. Enjoy your singlehood for the length of time God wants you to enjoy; I will highlight this briefly in the next post.
Seek the face of God as a single woman, looking to him to help you not to get disappointed because he may be keeping you in the state of singlehood perhaps too long. You will find yourself enjoying your singlehood.
Personally, there are times I wondered to myself, ‘will I ever get married?’ but then the Lord would help me to come back and just love him, serve him and live for him.
Finding my security in God helped me so that I did not think that when my husband comes then I will start living my life. Just live your life. Enjoy your life.
Look to God to help you, showing you how to prepare for marriage without necessarily robbing yourself of the blessing of singlehood, especially if you sense in your heart, that the Lord would want you to have a family someday because he does speak. But before then, just purpose to enjoy life in the Lord.