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A single sister in a Christadelphian meeting can often end up feeling as though she is at the bottom of the ecclesial pile.
In many ecclesias, she is not allowed to contribute to anything other than vaguely give her opinion in Preaching or Bible Class committees, and on the appropriate consistency of the meringue. This may sound flippant, but in ecclesias where sisters are not even allowed to speak at Business Meetings, we can feel that our experiences and opinions are of no value whatsoever to anyone in the ecclesia.
I guess you may reply that Sunday School is a prime forum for her to influence young minds, and it is, but if she is stopped from teaching boys as soon as they reach puberty, what does that say about the value being placed on the way younger children are taught? And we have not even thought about those sisters who may want children with every fiber of their being and thus, cannot mentally cope with teaching Sunday School, for the pain it engenders.
One hidden result of being a single sister is that you are not ‘automatically’ aware of things happening in the ecclesia, because she has no husband, which means she doesn't get told the secret ‘men’ things which are discussed in the decision making forums in the ecclesia. She also doesn't get to ask her husband to present a particular view. Couple this with not being allowed to contribute at business meetings and she is not only silent, she is gagged.
I have heard one story, and this is by no means, an isolated example, of a sister who ‘diligently’ attended all Business Meetings. When asked about this, it transpired that she never knew what was happening in the ecclesia, unless she went herself! She also commented that she had no one to talk things through with ‘at home’, as we are so often exhorted. Does anyone really realise the impact of ’she shall remain silent and ask her husband at home’ has on the single sister? How that might stab her through the heart every time, because she wants nothing more than to have a husband to ‘ask’, or in reality discuss with at home?
We are sold the idea of ‘happily ever after’ as the goal in life, both in the World and in the Ecclesia, but what about those whose calling isn’t that way? Those who feel as though they are left wandering alone in the wilderness of life, while they watch the friends they grew up with get married and have kids? Finding out the hard way, that your friends will disappear for a year or so while the child is a baby, and then again once they start school. She is suddenly more alone than she had anticipated; she doesn’t even have her friends any more.
I know, as in I have been told repeatedly, that marriage and kids is hard, and that from the outside looking into the single life that you can go off and do anything, anywhere, any time you want as a singleton. The reality is that you may not have any friends with whom you can go. So you end up doing work for the CBM and MaD, and people are jealous of your exotic lifestyle. It’s not relaxing though, it’s not a holiday in the sun. It’s hard. Also rewarding, but hard. The reality when you’re home is that you have no one to hug, when you desperately need a hug, you have no one to encourage you out of bed in the morning, no one to make you a cup of tea when you’re too exhausted to make it yourself. You have no one whose sole focus is supporting you. This is especially marked in the meeting when things get political, or even when there is ecclesial lunch - you are serving and no one has thought to save you a seat, so you end up sitting on your own, feeling that you are trying your absolute best to be the perfect sister sister, and no one even notices you are there.
You have sexual desires, which cannot be satisfied, which you don’t know what to do with and which come as a wave, regular as clockwork. The reality is that you may have to repress yourself, your entire being, the fundamental elements of your soul, in order to meet the expectations of the ecclesia. This contributes to the deterioration of mental health and you are on a downward spiral. You need help but, often, there is no one to help.
To this people will respond: find people to help, visit the old, visit the sick, help out the mothers struggling with their baby who won’t sleep! This is all very well, and may numb the pain for a while, or it may increase it, but none of this reaching out alters the fundamental fact that when you go home you are alone. When you follow couples up the street after bible class, you are alone. You are not wanted or needed by anyone; even if you are some of the time, you can’t be wanted and needed all the time. You worry that if you went home and died in your flat on a Friday night, no one would notice you’re not there until you don’t turn up for work on Monday.
There are undoubted blessings, but it is hard, very hard. Are the single sisters allowed to grieve for the husband they hoped for? The children they will never have?
So what can you do to help the single sister in your ecclesia? Make it clear she can call you at ANY TIME day or night. Invite her on your family holiday. Give her an opportunity to share her opinion in the ecclesia. If you belong to an ecclesia where sisters cannot not speak, offer to speak for them, to be their voice, faithfully representing their view, even if it is not your own.
Be available to discuss scripture in a meaningful way. Don’t go on about your kids and how hard it is. Empathise that the grass isn’t always greener. Include her in your family life. Make her feel that she is genuinely needed, that your life would be worse if she wasn’t in it. Make her feel loved. Hug her, if she’s open to that, just sit with her if she’s not.
Acknowledge that she has struggles too, that life isn’t all plain sailing just because you have no one else to worry about. Compliment her, if that’s appropriate. Notice that she made an effort to put a pretty dress on, or straighten her hair. Try not to be so wrapped up in your own life that you disappear. Oftentimes, she will have held your babies, disciplined your toddlers, sat with your children in the meeting so you could listen without interruptions, taught Sunday School, written and directed Sunday School plays and countless other things with your kids. Please, just be there for her when she needs you.
She IS a strong, independent, faithful woman of valour. Although she rocks it most of the time, she cannot do it all on her own. She needs you.
