Seasons' Perspectives

YLCF has been all about marriage and courtship and whatnot lately.Does this mean we do not want to also write about singleness? No...but each of the YLCF Team writes about what the Lord is teaching her in that particular season of life in which He has placed her. Right now that means more posts on marriage than singleness.

Each of the Team Members takes a unique approach to how she writes her pieces. Some of the writers' articles rarely touch on singleness or marriage--they are about the Christian walk in general. Some write mostly on motherhood, some mostly on marriage...and depending on what other commitments each has in her life at any given time, some writers are doing the bulk of the submitting while others take breaks. It is pretty much impossible for me to plan out too precisely what topics will be covered when, and keep it all perfectly "balanced." Such is the nature of this website which is a constant dialogue between several young women in every season of life imaginable. That is part of what makes YLCF unique and part of why I love being a part of this ministry so much.

In the same way I want each of our Team Members to write honestly from the unique place they find themselves. For some, this is all about motherhood--for others it is all about the adventures of life before marriage.

One reader asked: What about those of us who aren't even that far? That is, those of us who aren't even "my friend" to someone? At the moment it feels in many ways (not just relationship-wise) like I'm waiting for my life to begin.

She is correct that the past few articles Gretchen has written have not been addressed to single young ladies in the true sense of the word. That is okay. Not everything on here could/should be applied by all our readers. I hope that some articles will be written that will spring from a writer who is in the same season as the above young lady--whether that is a Team Member or one of you readers who submit a piece (you can do that you know :smile).

Another girl commented: However, I must add that it is not healthy to spend too much time thinking of a possible future season of marriage. Doing so could foster discontentment or distraction from our role in maidenhood.

I agree. If YLCF tempts you to become unbalanced in your thought life then please avoid any articles with the label "marriage" or "courtship"! Though many of our readers are single, many are also married--if our target audience was only single girls then we would not publish nearly so much on the topic of marriage as that would be unbalanced.

However...I think that writing too much on the topic of singleness can be just as unhealthy. One (of many) things I so admire in Chantel's writing is that she shares of the beauties and pains of the Christian life pure and undiluted. She focuses on nothing more than that--and all of her pieces are so precious because of that!

The majority of YLCF writers have been getting married or preparing to be a bride, so this is likely why there have been more posts about the topic of marriage lately. We look forward to future articles that may relate to faithfulness in the season prior to courtship.

I am sure there will be many more. As to who and when will write them....that is up to each Team Member and to you readers. I'd welcome more pieces submitted on any of our topics. In the meantime, thank you for all sharing your thoughts so sweetly and with encouragement. Thank you for traveling this path with us even when we are very busy and distracted...though we must keep our priorities in line (for more than half of the Team Members this means God first, then my husband, then my children, then everything else) this ministry is close to all of our hearts and we hope that the Lord will continue to enable us to serve for a long time to come.