When Singles Wait to Have Children
By Elizabeth Menard
We tell ourselves that once we are married, we will accept all the children God will send us or we ponder with delight the future souls we will knowingly or unknowingly bring to God in our religious or professional lives. The average woman experiences the state of being single, but for most it is not their final vocation state. It is a hiatus vocation. A time in our lives that may span from months to decades.
When vocations are condensed to the greatest degree possible, there remains three courses of vocational existence: Married Life, Religious/Consecrated Life, and Single Life. In The World’s First Love, Fulton Sheen writes “On Judgment Day, God will ask all the married and all virgins the same question: ‘Where are your children? Where are the fruits of your love, the torches that should be kindled by the fires of your passion?’” He continues by stating that “birth control, whether undertaken by a husband and wife or by a virgin . . . is reprehensible.” Wait! What?! How can a single, living according to the precepts of the Church be using birth control? It is easy for the blithe single soul in a hiatus of discernment to dismiss this concept.
Some of us aren’t sure what we are supposed to do -we’d like to know and we are begging God for enlightenment. We ask Him if He can slam the door and nail down the window there; while pushing ajar the other doors and windows in our life to give us some sense of direction. “Please God,” we mumble as we tumble out of bed, drink our coffee (or tea), answer our emails, work at our jobs, stare into our cell phones, exercise our bodies, stream our shows, enjoy our hobbies, spend time with dear ones, and finally, find our way back to bed.
Some of us haven’t found the right man; we keep looking and hoping. Some of us have to pay our student loans before we can enter the convent. Some of us have a career to build before we can deviate to a vocation beyond our professional one. Some of us have an ailing loved one who needs our care.
Some of us are hiding from commitment of any sort and want to elongate the fun life. Some of us know, but we are in denial and feign ignorance. Yet, Fulton Sheen reminds us when we face God, He will never ask us about our future or our past. God is going to ask for an account of our time. Our past is gone and can never be relived. When we get to our future, it becomes our Now. What God will judge is the present moments that as a whole result in our life- our Now. It would be trite to mention and expound upon the boundless saints who have implored us to the cause of our vocation being in the Now. Since Now is the only thing that matters; living in the present moment as perfectly as possible. Our Now is our way to beget our children, the children of Singles.
Singles use excuses. “This is my time to do what I want before I have to settle to the responsibility of my vocation.” It is true a single person often has more opportunity, flexibility, and money that someone who has moved onto the married or religious state. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue opportunities that would be impossible if the circumstances in our lives shifted. What it is not, is a selfish sabbatical from life allowing us to gratify ourselves in every possible way.
This is where singles use birth control.
God is owed. He is owed our “children.” They are not the little persons formed by our imaginings of the future; they are atypical children, who are young and old, known and unknown. All gained through our sacrifices, actions, and prayers. This may be easier for some of us. We work in jobs that abound in opportunities for physical fruit that we can see which encourages us and gives us the proverbial warm fuzzies. For some of us, we work in jobs where we can see nothing; our fruits are intangible and invisible, we have to trust God and will never know what we have done until we die. We can get discouraged by our surroundings. We all have a different experience and mission to bring our children to God. We must not become comfy in our hiatus.
There are many who use this time well, but many are guilty of wasting it. It is easy to slip into thinking “My life starts when (insert future expectation)” or “I will when (insert future activity)” Oh, the number of tantalizing things that can end that phrase: God shows me -I get married -I meet someone -I discern the convent I am supposed to enter -I get a new job. The list can be a lengthy one and encompasses the many excuses we proffer heavenward.
Your life started the day you were born and it is not on pause until that metaphorical magic moment when your destination vocation is discerned. You have a great responsibility entrusted to you that spans your life. Why would the stretch of your life between your teen years and your destination vocation be an empty void of waiting?
It is a fruitful, busy, and productive time until God deigns that you continue to the next phase of your mortal existence. Your life here on earth is but a piece of the eternity ahead and with this brief time here, in this chunk of your life, something has been asked of you. It is something that is in your power to do and cannot be procrastinated about -sacrifices, actions, prayers to beget you the children of your Now.
Hence, where are your children?
