Single Parent Families in the Family of God

You’ve noticed her the past few Sundays now, slipping into the pews at the back as the service starts. She patiently guides a little girl and an even littler boy to sit on either side of her and pulls out two Bible story coloring books to settle them in while she listens intently. You’ve tried to catch her after the service, but she’s usually leaving as the pastor pronounces the benediction.

You’ve never seen a man with her, and she doesn’t wear a wedding ring. 

Or maybe she’s in the Bible study you lead. A working professional, this mom is confident, well-dressed, and so busy she only comes once a month. At your first meeting she shared that she is raising her son alone, but you don’t know anything more than that. 

You are well aware that God commands us to care for widows and orphans (James 1:27). You also know that the biblical word for “widow” here doesn’t apply solely to women whose husbands have died; it means “bereft,” and describes any woman who is without the care, support, and comfort that comes with having a husband. The question plagues you every time one of these women moves through your peripheral vision: I know God wants me to care for her and her children, but how?

God sets the lonely in families… (Psalm 68:6). And according to Jesus, becoming a believer significantly expands our definition of family beyond simple biology, “…whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 19:50). In other words, God sets the lonely in his family.

When my husband died after a battle with colon cancer, I was left to raise my three sons alone. By God’s grace, our church loved us well, but worshipping alongside happy two-parent families felt awkward at times. Our family no longer looked like the typical Christian family – mom, dad, and kids— so the programs, Sunday school classes, sermon illustrations, and overall posture of the church did not take families like mine into account. The place where we might hope to find refuge became a place where our belonging felt tenuous and strange. It was tempting to distance ourselves from the church.

But patient brothers and sisters entered into the awkwardness with us and loved us anyway, because that’s what family does. They set about learning what life was now like for my sons and me, asking good questions about how we felt and what we needed. Our family was not a problem to be solved, but a mother and children to be enfolded and loved as part of the body of Christ. Simple gestures of close friendship dignified our neediness, such that we were not shamed but encouraged to ask for and accept help.

That love often took on a practical dimension. At the church potluck, we always had chairs saved for us to sit. We were invited for Christmas dinners, grilling in the back yard, and weekends at the lake. Men in our church taught my boys to tie a tie, repair a hole in the drywall, and change a flat tire (because their mom is not handy!). Our church family prayed for us, attended baseball games, and remembered the anniversary of their dad’s death. 

In turn, my sons and I showed our church family how to receive.

It’s tempting for a single parent to reject help and try to provide everything her children need in her own strength, but if she’s honest, she will eventually realize that self-sufficiency is not just impossible, it’s unnecessary. Laying aside pride and the need to control, the single parent can learn to ask for what her family lacks. In so doing, she offers her brothers and sisters the blessing of giving (Acts 20:35). And in teaching her children to graciously receive from church family, she is modeling the humility every believer must have to come to Christ in the first place. Acknowledging our need for a Savior starts us down the path of graciously acknowledging our need for the body of Christ. The single parent families in our churches are well acquainted with God’s grace, and his faithfulness to us encourages the whole church.

In this way, God knits his body together in care for one another. In 1 Corinthians 12:22-23, Paul writes, “Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.” This is not to say single parents and their children are less worthy of honor than married parents, but their “weakness” is evident in the absence of the other parent. Writing about this passage, Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson says,

Here [Paul] casts a vision for a community of faith in which we carefully and diligently seek out, protect and honor those who are especially vulnerable and… who we are easily tempted to be ashamed of, in the same way we are tempted to do the same with parts of our inner lives. We do this, as Jesus did with Peter in John [21:15-10], not only in order for them to be given the honor of forgiveness, healing, and protection, but also the commission to answer the vocational calling within the church that is uniquely theirs[1][1] Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 157.