Your single years are your missionary years — here’s why and how

There’s a quiet ache many women feel in their single years, a subtle drumbeat of questions about timing, purpose, and whether life has truly “started” yet. Some of us have enjoyed being single while simultaneously questioning how long this season of life is supposed to last, and if we will ever get out of it. I’ve come to see those years not as a waiting room, but rather as a mission field. One that is often more open, more relational, and more influential than we realize. Singlehood isn’t a phase of life meant for self-indulgence or directionless drifting. If anything, it tends to be the opposite: A season where your availability and flexibility becomes a gift not just to yourself, but to the people around you. And what you choose to do in these years — the habits, the friendships, the generosity — becomes the foundation of the person you will be later, when life becomes fuller and your time less elastic.

Small acts of service

I learned this in the most unexpected way when a close friend of mine had her fourth baby while her oldest was three-and-a-half years old. To say she needed help is an understatement. Since my schedule has a lot of flexibility and I wasn’t tied down to the needs of children of my own, I could show up in ways that would be impossible if I had been in the same season as her. I could sit with her newborn and keep an eye on her toddlers while she showered, folded the endless stream of laundry, ran errands, or made meals. Sometimes I was simply a steady presence in the chaos. Those small acts of service opened my eyes to how love flows differently when you are free to drop everything and simply be there for others. And I couldn’t help but think that, someday, when I’m the one overwhelmed with young children, she will likely return that same grace to me in ways I can’t yet anticipate.

What struck me most during that time was how natural it felt to give, and how singlehood made that generosity possible. Without the structure of a family schedule (coordinated meal times, nap times, and other joint activities), my days could bend and adapt in ways they simply won’t later. I wasn’t sacrificing anything extraordinary, I was simply redirecting my energy outward because I had the capacity to do so. That availability became a form of love, and that love, as small as it seemed, felt like a glimpse into what “missionary work” really looks like in ordinary life. It’s not dramatic, it doesn’t require traveling to exotic places, and it doesn’t always feel heroic, but it shows up in the ways we quietly choose to love and care for the people around us.

The abundance of time and relationship capacity afforded during your single years are their own kind of mission. These are the years when friendships feel like extended family, when dinners stretch into late-night conversations, and when social calendars become a tapestry of different types of connections. The sheer amount of time we spend around others, listening, noticing, investing, and showing up, inevitably shapes the emotional and spiritual climate of our communities. Whether we realize it or not, we often become the person who helps hold the fabric together, by being the one who checks in, remembers birthdays, or drives across town to be with a friend in the middle of a crisis. This kind of presence matters deeply.

Being single also sharpens your ability to see people clearly. Without the comforting orbit of a husband or children, your world naturally expands outward, and your sensitivity to others expands with it. You begin to notice who is lonely, who is overwhelmed, who is struggling silently, and who could use someone to sit beside them at the table. You learn to practice hospitality not because you’re hosting a perfect family dinner, but because you understand how important it is to make someone feel seen. And you begin to realize that the heart you’re building in these years is exactly the heart that will hold your future family one day.

Small steady care

What we often forget is that missionary work rarely feels glamorous from the inside. It looks more like picking up the phone when someone calls crying, spending your Saturday helping a friend move, or being emotionally available to people who don’t have anyone else to confide in. Single women often carry a unique social openness that allows them to serve spontaneously, something most mothers long for but can’t always offer. You become the friend who can sit in a hospital waiting room, the aunt who shows up at school plays, the neighbor who remembers to check on the elderly couple down the street. These small, steady acts of care ripple further than we imagine. 

Another overlooked part of singlehood-as-mission is the way it forms your interior life. Quiet nights at home, running errands solo, living the mundane moments of life alone increased your capacity for self-reflection and appreciation for intimacy and family life. I grew up in a large and loud South American family, a stark contrast to the long midwestern winters I live through on my own now. Instead of spending my Februarys preparing and enjoying the Carnival, I go to bed early to be ready for the snow shoveling and car warming that awaits me every morning. 

This contrast has given me an appreciation for both ends of the spectrum as good. I still look forward to all the loud and warm times spent with my large family, but I’ve also come to appreciate being in my own company. Afterall, I won’t have that time with myself forever. 

Strong scaffolding

During this single missionary season I’ve had the luxury of time. Time to carve out space to confront and reflect on my own character, wounds, hopes, faith, discipline, and overall values. I am certain that what I’ve cultivated in the silent spaces of singlehood will become the unseen scaffolding of my future family. And when life becomes more complex later, that scaffolding becomes the quiet strength you lean on.

This season also gives you the freedom to practice generosity with your resources in ways that matter. You can give to causes you believe in without coordinating with anyone or competing with the greater demands of family life. I can volunteer regularly without rearranging childcare. I can share my time with the next generation (nieces, nephews, teens at church, younger coworkers) and genuinely shape their lives simply because I have the time and energy to invest. This service can create a slow-burning kind of leadership, one rooted in availability to serve rather than structured authority.

The beauty of embracing your single years as missionary years is that it reframes everything. Suddenly your time isn’t empty, it’s open. Your flexibility isn’t a lack, it’s a gift. Your ability to move freely isn’t a consolation prize, it’s an invitation to step into the lives of others in meaningful and generous ways. This doesn’t mean running yourself into the ground or saying yes to everyone; it means recognizing the unique power of a life that can still move lightly, generously, and intentionally.

Valuable mission

One day, when my life is filled with the responsibilities and rhythms of family life, I am sure I will look back at these years with a clarity and appreciation I can’t fully experience now. I’ll remember the nights I sat with friends in their heartbreak, the mornings I held babies who weren’t mine, the conversations where someone said, “I don’t know what I would do without you.” And in those moments I’ll remember that this chapter wasn’t about waiting, it was missionary. During this time I’ve been able to love widely and deeply. I’ve been a friend who builds community. I’ve become someone who lives with open hands.

And perhaps most importantly, these years have taught me what selfless and generous love is. I am sure that family life will bring plenty of love lessons, but I don’t want to dismiss everything I am learning now.

Your and my single years are not an intermission. They are a valuable mission, and the world around us is made better because of the way we chose to live them.