When I have a life problem, the first thing I do is find all the best books on the subject. Being single felt like a problem to me, so I read quite a few books on the topic of singleness, relationships, and dating. Not all of them were great. Actually, a few of them were pretty crappy. However, there are a few that really stick out to me as being helpful. I still look back at these books for references and I highly recommend them. Below is the list of my favorites. I haven’t included anything on this list that I haven’t read myself and found helpful.
Remember God by Annie F. Downs
This is actually a new book that I first read this summer (when it came out). I read it after being married for several years. However, I wish this book would have been in existence when I was single. I think I would have benefitted greatly from it.
I love Annie F. Downs in general. Her writing style is fantastic. She’s honest, funny, relatable, and deeply spiritual. This particular book is probably her most raw (at least that I’ve read).
In it, she tells the story of a year of her life. At the beginning of the year, God gives her two words “bride” and “love”. Now, Annie is in her late thirties and single, but wanting to be married. That means these two words are loaded with expectations. I’m not going to ruin it for you, but the year doesn’t go quite like she planned. The book is one of the most honest, but also theologically rich on what we should do with unmet expectations.
It’s a great reminder that even though things don’t always turn out like we plan, God is always watching out for us. He’s always working for our good, even if that doesn’t mean we always get what we want.
Real Sex by Lauren Winner
I love this book because it’s one of the best I’ve seen about why sex is a big deal, but why it’s not a big deal in the way we make it out to be. The book deals with the theological power of sex and its purpose within marriage. God designed sex for use within marriage and when people have sex outside of marriage, that isn’t real sex, meaning it’s not using sex for what it was created for.
While sex is uniquely created for marriage, having sex outside of marriage doesn’t doom you forever, regardless of what some books geared for teenagers might have you believe. As someone who had sex before marriage, Winner goes a great job of showing why sex is made for use within marriage while not shaming those who have already had sex outside of it.
The book is written in a unique style. Winner combines her personal experience, statistics, other “academic” sources, and examples from literature and culture. It’s very deep, but very easy to read and relatable.
Singled Out by Bonnie Field and Christine Colon
As I shared on Instagram a few weeks ago, this book gave words to some of my feelings. In this book, Field and Colon outline how singles are treated and viewed both in the world at large and also within the church.
One of the things they talk about in the book is that singleness can be hard within the church. The authors (at least at the time of writing) are single women who are well into their 30s. They both wished to be married, but it just never happened for them.
This not only was hard because it was a wish unfulfilled, they also found their singleness made it hard for them to find a place within the church. Many church activities are organized around spouses, kids, and family in general. If you’re a single living by yourself (or just with a roommate) it can be hard to figure out where you fit in.
The book outlines the problems that singles face in the world at large as well as in the church. They don’t just diagnose the problem or blame the problem on the church at large. They give some practical strategies of how churches can be more accommodating to singles and how singles can work to integrate themselves more into the church.
Soul Virgins by Doug Rosenau and Michael Todd Wilson
If you looking for a great overview of what sexuality really is, how to deal with sexual longing while single, dating advice and boundaries, and a theological view of both singleness and marriage, this is a great book. It’s written by two Christian therapists (one of whom is a sex therapist), one who’s single and one who’s married. They take the time to really dig down and talk about what sexuality really means and why it’s important to single people as well as those who are married.
Sexuality isn’t just about having sex. It’s about how we interact with the world. Our gender, male or female, impacts how we see the world and what our relationships looks like. The authors of this book remind singles that you don’t have to be having sex to be expressing your sexuality.
This is also one of the most practical books I’ve read. This is one of the few books (at least that I’ve read) that looks at what singleness looks like as a fully grown adult who’s older than like 20.
Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill
Technically, this book is not about singleness, or at least not exactly. The book is a biblical and personal perspective on homosexuality. The author experiences homosexual attraction himself. However, because of his Christian belief, he has chosen to live a celibate life. However, his journey and his choice to allow God to be Lord of his sex life, even if that means no sex ever, is helpful to anyone who is walking the path of celibacy.
In the book, Hill looks at his own experiences, but he also looks at Scripture, church history, and theology to show the reader why he has come to the conclusion he has about homosexuality and also what it’s like to live out that choice. It’s a raw, real, and biblically based look at sex and sexuality.
He doesn’t hold back about the difficulty of fighting against sexual temptation (which is true whether you’re gay or straight). He also shares what has been helpful in his own life as well as some suggestions of how the church could come alongside and help those who are walking the path of celibacy, no matter the reason.
I hope these books can be of use to you or any single person that you know. If there are other great books for singles out there, I would love to hear about them. Please leave a comment below and I’ll look it up!
Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash