Well we have come to the end of Guidance and the Voice of God where we have been left with a helpful reminder that God’s voice is clear in guiding us, because He has spoken to us by His Son and in the Scriptures. Anything beyond this, any search for signs or a special will for your life, is not part of God plan and is not true guidance.

Just for something a bit different, I thought I would end these posts with a few (completely fictional!) case studies of my own. What guidance would you offer each of these women?

Lauren
Lauren has been married for a bit over seven years to Jack and they have two girls, Amy who’s six and Ava who’s two. Jack works in international business and is away 3-4 nights of most weeks and is often overseas for weeks at a time. When they were first married, Lauren sometimes went with Jack on these trips, but since Amy started school this has been impossible. On top of that Ava’s going through the terrible 2s and Lauren feels like her life consists of saying, “don’t touch that, do you need to go wee wee” and scraping a screaming child off the supermarket floor. Due to Jack’s working hours, she often feels like a single mum, who doesn’t even get to have adult conversations at the end of the day.

Lately though, there’s been this lovely single dad she’s been chatting to at the school-gate. His daughter is one of Amy’s best friends so they have lots of opportunities to chat. One day, he suggests that instead of just dropping Amy off for the girls sleepover, Lauren and Ava should stay to have dinner with him and the girls. Jack will be away, so Lauren was facing yet another night alone ... what should she do? It is afterall just a dinner and all the girls will be there. What should she do?

Alyssa
Alyssa grew up in a Christian family and has always dreamed of being a single woman missionary. She wanted to be like those strong independent women of the early 1900s that she has read about in so many of her missionary biographies. Late last year though, she met David at a Christian convention. They hit it off straight away. They have lots of things in common, including her interest in overseas mission and recently they have been spending so much time together that they have begun to consider marriage. The problem is, is that Alyssa is not sure she should be getting married when she had planned on staying single for the sake of the gospel.
What should she do?

Kayla
Kayla has recently entered her mid-thirties. She has a good job and is now at the stage in her carer where she can dictate her hours a bit more. She has been using her flexibility to help out around church: organising various rosters, playing in the band and coordinating a few of the social activities.

Recently though she has really been feeling the desire to get married. The only men at her church over the age of 25 are generally married and she knows nothing would ever happen between her and any of the handful who aren’t. It has been suggested to her that she should change churches. She’s never going to meet anyone at St Smalls, her friends tell her, so she should check out St Bigs, 5 suburbs away. The mere size of the church should increase her chances of meeting someone. So what should she do?

Well, there you have it, Lauren, Alyssa and Kayla, all with big decisions to make.
What do you think they should do and why?