The New Eve (13 page)

In Ecclesiastes 3:1 Solomon offers this succinct bit of wisdom: “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” In other words, there are
seasons in life.
And each season naturally carries with it certain unique characteristics, themes, and priorities.

The wise woman will not only understand her current season of life but will also make the appropriate lifestyle choices to go with it. This in turn helps her to build and successfully unleash the next season. The key is not to get so caught up in personal wants and worldly ambitions that you neglect catching the seasonal winds essential to attaining the better life God wants to give you (Deut. 30:15–19; John 10:10b).

Unfortunately, this is what a growing number of women do, especially younger women.
Right now
becomes all they see. Never mind that some aspirations and desires are more suitable to one season than another. They mistakenly believe they can have anything anytime.

Take Evelyn, for example. Sharp and highly educated, she was crystal clear about what she wanted in a career: status, exciting assignments, financial security, and the freedom to make her own choices. The international law firm that hired her offered exactly that kind of future but at a price: long, hard work hours; 24/7 availability; being “dumped on” regularly by senior partners of the firm; and constant deadlines. It was the price of moving up. And in time Evelyn did.

She made junior partner by age twenty-seven and senior partner at thirty-eight. It was a thrilling ride that took everything she had, but it also delivered the future she once dreamed about.

Well … almost.

In her late twenties Evelyn became more and more aware of the men in her life. Actually, the lack of them. She had enjoyed a serious relationship the first year out of law school, but that
failed shortly after she joined the firm. After that there was a long drought. At thirty-six she fell in love with one of her partners. After a year-long relationship they married. Two wonderful, fun-filled years followed. But then Evelyn turned forty, and it hit her: she wanted a child. So did her husband, Jim. The only problem was they soon found that Evelyn's aging ovaries and lack of eggs had put this now driving obsession out of reach. Even after spending tens of thousands of dollars on every kind of medical procedure possible, the answer always came back the same: no. To everything there is a season. Sadly, Evelyn had missed hers.

Many young women today often have an unconscious defiance to the reality that God has appointed specific seasons for best addressing certain life concerns. They also possess a misplaced optimism that they can catch up later on anything they leave out now. It's crushing when they realize they can't.

Research tells us that 85 percent of college women agree with the statement that “being married is important to me.”
¹
But then these same young women put off marriage during the very season when there is the best opportunity for finding it. They pursue careers and personal freedom instead. The thinking behind these decisions, of course, is the confidence that they can settle down with a man later on. But when later on arrives, what they may discover is that well-established habits plus the lack of eligible males have left them either alone or hard to live with.

Research also tells us that “89% of young, high-achieving women believe that they will be able to get pregnant in their 40s.”
²
But again, the truth is, by that time they have already missed out on their primary childbearing season—ages twenty to thirty. After forty they have at best only a 5 percent chance of pregnancy. And that typically comes only with costly, difficult, drawn-out medical intervention.

So what to do? In exploring the lives of many of today's most successful women, Sylvia Ann Hewlett summed up all she learned about these women and their life choices. She offered young women the following practical advice to help them avoid deep regret in the second half of their lives.

• Figure out what you want your life to look like at age forty-five, both personally and professionally; then live your life to that end.
  
• Give urgent priority to finding a life partner. This project is extremely time-sensitive and deserves your special attention in your twenties.
  
• Have your first child before you are thirty-five.
  
• Choose a career that will give you both the gift of time and the help you need to achieve a work/life balance.
  
• Avoid professions with rigid career trajectories.
  ³
  

Some women may be quick to react to and speak out against these suggestions as regressive for women. But a woman who keeps in mind the big picture of life will take the time to explore the wisdom of Hewlett's advice. Freedoms, opportunities, and responsibilities all ebb and flow according to the rhythms of specific seasons God has designed for life. A wise woman will choose to flow
with
these seasons, not against them. She will seek to discern what each season offers and requires of her; then she will adjust and focus her life to make the most of it. She knows if she does this, it will also help launch a successful next season rather than undercut it with poor choices.

I believe there are typically ten seasons of life. Individually and collectively, they present a balanced and coordinated bigger picture of life that every woman would be wise to keep in mind.

As you look over these ten seasons of life, let me point out that beginning with season 3, divorce or the untimely death of a spouse can greatly alter the dynamics of the seasons that follow. So can remaining single and never marrying or finding oneself unable to have children. We will speak to some of these experiences in the next chapter. For now I'll address the standard flow of life through the first five seasons of a woman's life and offer guidance for living wisely through each unfolding season.

In the movie
The Terminal
Tom Hanks portrays Viktor Navorski, an eastern European who is forced to live in the JFK airport because while he was flying over the Atlantic, his home country ceased to exist through a military coup. He deplanes only to find that his visa is void and his money worthless. Worse still, Viktor is not permitted to exit the terminal and enter America, nor is he able to return home. He's stranded between destinations because he doesn't belong anywhere.

Single adulthood can feel a lot like that. You've left childhood behind, but without marriage and children your adulthood
probably feels incomplete. Your life is lived at an interchange. People come and go. Some befriend you. Others date you. But as time goes on, many also leave you and move on with their lives. And there you sit like Viktor, feeling as if you don't belong anywhere or to anyone.

God invites you to see things differently. From His perspective your single years are alive with opportunity. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:32–35 that single people are in some ways actually better able to focus on the things of God. Rather than wastefully living for the moment, the wise single woman will adopt this better perspective and focus on the key priorities unique to this season of life.

First is character development. What sort of woman do you want to become? It's
the
question in this season of life. What you decide here and act on will either serve or shackle you for seasons to come. Please hear that. Character is the ground floor of life. Who you are will always be more important than what you do.
Always.

In 1 Timothy 4:12 Paul said, “Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.” Solomon's proverbs flesh out these general character traits with more specifics. Truth telling, generosity, sexual restraint, accountability, and a strong work ethic are only some of the items discussed in this wisdom literature.
The point is that in your single years you have a unique opportunity to build your character rather than take on the harder work of
re
building it as some women have to do in later seasons. No one can choose your character for you. Character is intensely personal work. And it is work! As the historian James Froude once said, “You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.”
⁴

So let me ask again: What kind of woman do you aspire and strive to be? Can you name the traits you want people to discuss when they speak about you behind your back? Know this: the better your character, the better your life. And as a single woman, you have lots of discretionary time to hammer it out.

Second, as a single woman, you should spend your time developing your career abilities. Somehow Christianity has been tagged as anticareer in regard to women, but the fact is, every Christian woman should maximize her career potential. After all, it is God Himself who gave you that potential, and you never know how He might choose to use you. Holding back your abilities is like stopping yourself at the doorway to the arena in which you were born to perform. Let yourself go! Run free and hard into all the great things you can do and achieve. Even as I write, my single daughter Rebekah is serving as a teacher in Rwanda with internationals and children of the genocide. The skills she has developed during her singleness make this doable. Many of the skills and abilities you develop as a single will come back and bless you and others again and again in new ways in the following seasons. You may be surprised at the people and the opportunities that come calling. So give yourself to skill development.

I strongly suggest you use a number of the wonderful personality and vocational testing profiles available to help you identify both who you are and the gifts and talents you possess. Some I have used are www.strengthfinder.com from the
Gallup organization, www.aimstesting.org (Aptitude Inventory Measurement Services), and www.youruniquedesign.com. Each of these offers tremendous help in knowing yourself, your strengths, and what settings those strengths are best released in. Your single years, from a personality and abilities perspective, are the best time to discover who you are, who you're
not
(sometimes this is even more important than knowing who you are), and what kinds of things make you come alive.

Third, you have more time now than ever to focus on your spiritual life. There are incredible spiritual opportunities for you to explore for growth and maturity as a believer in Christ. Don't cram your schedule full of empty busyness. Sure, you should enjoy life. See places, do things, go though doors that open only once. But put God at the center of it all. Link up with other passionate Christians. Study God's Word together. Develop a consistent time with God alone. Use your gifts in serving others and advancing His kingdom. Make the most of your time and be watchful for the roles you can play in God's unfolding drama.

Finally, your single years are the right time to investigate that strange male creature to whom you are drawn. I strongly recommend you read good books that dissect the male personality, his needs, and his slant on life. Master the insights you find there. Become male smart and live from this informed perspective. Get past the stereotypes and the caricatures and find out what really makes a man tick. Learn what authentic manhood is and discover how to judge a man by it. Know what to look for in a man before you find one of them bowed before you with a ring in his hand and a glint in his eye. Remember this: the best way to find a good man and keep him is to become a good woman (1 Tim. 4:12).

Love. There's nothing like it, especially in this season of life when it glows red-hot. Life is now about “togetherness.” You and _________. It's a time consumed with drawing close. And that's where you need to be careful. Feelings often dominate this time. And though there is nothing wrong with that, it's important to realize that true closeness and close feelings are not necessarily the same thing.

Real closeness comes about only when two people value and embrace the same things. As the psalmist expressed thousands of years ago in Psalm 133:1–3, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! … for there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forever.” What applies to brothers also applies to marriage partners. Unity is life-giving. No two people can live together in harmony very long if the deeper chords of values and beliefs are out of sync. And that is where the danger is. The intense but superficial feelings a couple have for one another during their engagement can often block them from exploring and dealing with these very real issues.