All right, these are some questions that have been submitted over the last couple of days. And I think you guys have gone over some of them. And you what? A little bit. OK, you go first.

Oh, no. These are the questions I know. If you guys had kind of looked at them and wanted to, some you thought would be super helpful, and then Jant and I will go. What about that one? Yeah, we could try to tackle that one.

Okay, so one of the questions was how to be content in a season of waiting. And I think for me, one of the things that was most helpful was to try to shift from thinking of myself as being in a season of waiting, to seeing myself in a season where I'm not waiting for anything. God has given me all the pieces I need to be faithful right now. I am still praying that the Lord gives me different pieces later on, but I don't need to wait to get started serving the Lord or rejoicing in the Lord or living in abundant relationship within the body of Christ or any of these things. So trying to fully enter into what is this single season that God has put me in, if it's not like just this pass-through season, but if it is a season in its own right that Paul talks about as being so important that he thinks believers can even like just choose to just stay there forever.

If you think you can serve the Lord better there, which a lot of women in history have, I think that helps us to really just commit ourselves fully in that season to the Lord to be used as much as, you know, as much as He can and will use us, and I feel like that helps so much with, you know, there's some things about singleness that may be hard no matter what. Like if you're struggling with loneliness, you can pray for the Lord to take that away, but he may still use that as a thing to keep refining you and drawing you closer to him. It may continue to be hard for the whole time that you're single, But I think there's other things that should not be hard about being single. I think we should not feel like, yeah, like we just, we have nothing to do until a man comes. These are not things that should be hard.

And I would say that if these things are hard in singleness, be going to the Lord, asking him to show you, Lord, I want to understand your purpose for why I'm here and why you want me here and what you want me to be doing while I'm here. And I feel like I can attest just from my own circumstances and my own story. Like I said, I never thought I would be the single woman for a long time, and that definitely wouldn't have been what I chose. But the more I tried to commit it to the Lord and really rest in the fact that this clearly was his will and he clearly had a purpose for me to be here. The more exciting singleness became, and honestly girls, it was better and better and better every single year.

And the Lord was closer to me every single year. And I had richer relationships around me every single year. And by the time Rhys came into my life, I did not feel like I needed marriage to be happy or to be fruitful. I was so happy. And I felt like I could be happy doing this for the rest of my life.

And then he came along, and it was so clear that I could be more fruitful with him than by myself. But he even told me himself that it gave him so much confidence and reassurance that I wasn't interested in him because he was a ticket out of singleness. He said, oh, I know you're actually in this relationship with me because you want to be, because I know you would have been fine. You would have been fine to stay single if I hadn't come along." So he said that actually made him feel very loved. And I think too it makes me less afraid of what God might have in my future.

Like what if something really hard like widowhood or barrenness or, you know, something like that is in my future? I feel like I've already experienced that God is with me and God is enough. And God would take care of me and God's goodness would be all around me if I had to be without a husband again later in life. And so that makes these things so much less scary in some ways because I don't have to be afraid that God wouldn't be there and wouldn't be good. So here is one that's difficult but I know it's pressing.

It says advice or counsel on how to best honor parents when they make decisions for their adult children still living at home. And this is really tough. And we are adult children who have been living at home. And the transition of being a child in your parents home and then moving to adulthood, there's no way to necessarily make it easy. But that's also okay.

And When you run into some of the difficulties and disagreements that you might have with your parents, you don't need to panic like, oh no, this is terrible, what's going on? The system is broken. What are we going to do here? These are the sorts of things that children and parents can work through together, and we have done that with our parents. And I'm not gonna have time to get into a lot of the principles that I think we need to consider in all of this, but I would say it is very possible to honor your parents while disagreeing with them.

I think that's maybe one of the first principles to keep in mind is that disagreement does not count as dishonor. You can be in disagreement And you can bring your concerns to your parents and you can make appeals in very honoring and respectful ways. And if you believe that they are overstepping their jurisdiction or abusing their authority, you can bring in other elders or other people to help you make appeals. And I mean I would say please make sure that your appeals are from scripture and not just oh but I just want to do this or you know. But our parents have been very open to our appeals, and there have been times as we've been sorting these things out where we have had to come to them and say, hey, I think this needs to change based on this biblical principle.

I think Elizabeth and I need to be getting out there and not being at home as much. And because look at this, look at all these examples of women and how can we transition to doing things a little bit differently? And every time we've done that, they have been open. It's always kind of difficult. There's usually some emotions involved, but most of the difficult scenarios that I've talked to girls about did not involve a parent that was being absolutely totally tyrannical, but a parent that they had never really disagreed with before and conflict resolution was maybe not something that the family was very good at.

And so it was a much bigger deal in some ways than it needed to be because of other things, not because of the parent being authoritative, but simply because the family did not have a great communication dynamic when it came to discussing differences. And that's something that we can develop. And it's hard and it's good. I want to comment on that. So I'm not the single girl, I'm the mom.

But I have four single girls in my home and a formerly single girl. Single girls, give your mom's grace. Think higher of her. Think better of her. She loves you and she's not going to say everything right.

I know this because I haven't said everything right and I haven't done everything right. And I'm so thankful for my daughters who have been willing to lovingly correct me, sometimes in a good way and sometimes not in a good way, but you know if a donkey can speak, I can certainly take correction from a daughter who doesn't say it quite right after a while, after I get over it. So, daughters, give your moms grace as they're loving you. It is a transition. Moms, Make the transition with your daughters.

You can't parent them like you parented a two-year-old or a four-year-old or a six-year-old. It's not right. And daughters do have to earn the trust. So there's all kinds of levels here. I can't get into all the little things that we should talk about.

You love each other. Most families, these are people that love each other. Keep that as the basis for all your conversations all your disagreements. Remember you're on the same team. You're moving this team forward as lovers of Jesus.

Don't let anything get in the way of that. Amen. Alright. I'm going to tackle this one. What are appropriate ways for girls to get noticed without being sensual, aggressively flirtatious, etc., especially focusing on body language and how they move around a room.

So my first answer is don't try. Don't try to do it. Holy, men who love holiness will love holiness. So be holy. On the other hand, men who love your body will love your body.

Bummer. So I'm gonna assume that most of you want to attract a holy man. Be holy. I've told my girls this. When I was in high school, I used to walk a certain path to see Jay Mahoney.

I can't believe I just said that voice name. Oh my gosh. He's not around. Anyway, I would order my whole day about going to my locker a certain path so that I'd make sure I passed him. This is not what you want to be doing with your life.

This is a cautionary tale for you. If you're spending your life trying to be in somebody's path or trying to be in their presence you're not trusting a sovereign God. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't get out of the home and be in places where people are. My girls know people got to meet people. That's one of my famous sayings.

People do have to meet people and you don't meet them if you stay in your room reading a good book. So get out. But do not scheme. Do not scope out people. Do not think of boys as possible spouses, it is not the right way to think about our brothers, that is God's job to get your possible spouse and get him to your door, you should be meeting people, you should not be walking a certain path and walking a certain way and if you are you've seen too much pride and prejudice.

Amen. Okay. Okay. This is a long one so bear with me. What does giving my life to the local church practically look like for a single young woman?

I'm going to Skip that part. We've heard over the course of this conference, use our single years to the glory of God. What are practical thoughts on how that is to be displayed through our daily life? So back, what does it look like to give your life to the local church? How can you not?

So what are the practical ways to do it? I loved when you were talking about Tabitha aka Dorcas. She was looking for what God put in front of her and jumping in. She was not waiting for the best idea or the greatest idea. Don't wait for the perfect plan.

Jump in and serve what you see around you. If you don't see anything, ask a woman in your church to help you see and you'll get a list a mile long. Especially if you have somebody that weaves, you know, we always have people that weave people together. If you have somebody like that around you, ask them, I think I'm not seeing things right. What are some ways that I can be helpful?

We talk about using our giftings. Sometimes God uses us in our weakness and he chooses that quite for our benefit and then for the benefit of the body. I have found in our local church, I have giftings that I use and I like doing that and I have weaknesses that I'm pushed into and I don't like doing that because we all like to do what we're good at but that's not really what God calls us to. He calls us to serve him and obey in all things. So don't be scared to serve in things you're weak at, you will, it won't be as easy, it won't be as slick, you won't look as good.

Well, it's not about us, right? So serve in whatever way it calls you to, even if it's in weaknesses, and then you grow in those things. You guys expand, I just wanted to get us rolling, expand on ways that especially singles can serve in the local church. We could just talk through some of the things that we have done in our church. I mean, so Every church is going to be different, but I would also say that every church is probably going to have some similar things.

Every church is going to have events that need coordination. I've already talked about that. And just practical hands and feet to help meet practical needs, always going to need that. But another thing that we've discovered is that sometimes the young married women need friends. And actually one principle that I didn't mention, but I should have, is that when it comes to the people, the believers that we're wanting to hang out with, we should not just pick other singles.

Like we need to be fellowshipping with the whole body of Christ, children, moms, older women, dads, you know, everybody. And in doing so, we will find the needs. But if we're just hanging out with our friends or other singles, We probably won't. No, we're like, well, what do people need? But when you start spending time with the moms, you'll think of things.

And one thing that we've had moms tell us is sometimes they like to just talk to someone who's not in the same phase as they are, changing diapers and being moms. But someone who does have time to maybe read or go out in the community and do things, who can then come and talk to them and say, here's what I'm reading, or I just learned this. And they really appreciate that. So We don't need to feel like, oh, they wouldn't want to be friends with me because I'm single. They might actually really want to be friends with a single person.

And then one of the ways that I'm trying to help the church is by getting out into the community and finding opportunities for service because everyone in our church is super busy. The moms are super busy, the dads are working full-time jobs, the young men are working full-time jobs, but I have more flexibility to go to commissioners meetings, to go to community events, to meet people, And I just got my real estate license. And there's things that we can be getting out there and just kind of seeing what's going on beyond the church. And we can come back in the church and say, OK, there's this event that's going on. We think we should have some people there for that.

We think that this need, we're seeing this need in the community. Maybe we could organize some sort of church picnic and try to meet that need. We just met this widow and we want to go and help her paint her house. Or when you get out there, you'll see things, and then you can kind of like be the scout for your church, and you can come back and say, we found this need and this need and this need. And that's something that, we need more people doing that.

And sometimes the singles, men and women, are the people who have the most time and the most flexibility. So that's a huge, huge need right there. Yeah. Well, I think also a great place to look for practical examples of being involved in the church is, you know, some of these women we were just looking at today, what were they doing? They were being students of the Word.

That's one very practical thing that we can and should be doing is study the Word, which doesn't just mean have a 15-minute quiet time every morning. It means really get in there, be a scholar and a student of what God is trying to tell us in the Word. Engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs. Learn marketable skills that you can use to meet needs. Be willing to jump up, take initiative, get out of your comfort zone to run around helping make things happen for people.

Spend a ton of time in prayer for the ministries or the people who are involved in ministry or just the spiritual needs that you see surrounding your church or your community. Give if you have things that you can give to support ministries. When it comes to the idea too of what even is a need, when it comes to meeting a need. A need is basically a problem that has not been fixed. So do you see any problems in your church?

The kind of problems that might make you feel like, oh, my church doesn't have any this, or my church isn't very organized in this or my church doesn't have any ministries for me to plug into. Maybe this is a problem that somebody like you could actually help address. Maybe this is a need that you could help meet. Maybe you could go to your elders and be like, I realized we don't have anybody coordinating such and such in the church. Would it be helpful if I tried to do that, or would it be helpful if I teamed up with these three older women to do this?

Yeah, things like even getting out into the local community. Our church really was trying to get into the local community and figure out how to help, but we needed scouts to figure out what's even going on in our local community and who are the widows who have needs and all these kinds of things. And because Anna and I just had a lot of flexibility to be light on our feet, we're able to be going to, you know, different council meetings and talking to people who go to, you know, a lot of different churches and just keeping our ear to the ground and developing connections and then, you know, another thing that you see women doing a lot, we didn't even, there's a lot of unnamed women in the New Testament who just says they were helping the disciples, they were supporting the disciples, They were giving to their needs. Are there people in your church or your community who are doing good things that you could help with, even if it's just as simple as you over here that's doing this, you need to meet this person over here who's doing this so that you guys can work together, but you don't know that each other exists, but I could help make that happen by doing hospitality maybe at a coffee shop or something, because that would be another thing I'd throw out there is do hospitality however you can, wherever you can.

That's the thing that we've done that I think has actually been pretty important is just facilitating meetings between people who needed to know each other. And we've done those in all kinds of places. Okay, so when you talk about young or singles ministering in the church, I'm going to add a caution. Be really careful how you minister to and love your Christian brothers. If your Christian brother has the flu, you probably shouldn't make some chicken soup and take it over there.

Probably not a great idea. So just be careful when you're thinking through How to love your Christian brother. Ask your mom. All right. Here's a question.

While the desire for marriage is natural and good, how does a single person keep it from becoming the be all end all goal and feeling like singleness is of less value? We just talked about all that, didn't we? I think so. I know. I'm sure there's more that can be said.

The end all be all. Yeah. Address that, Janet. I'm not interested. Well, I wrote down something I wanted to say, and we'll just say this question is the right thing to say it for.

I thought about preparation for marriage. If you're single, you're preparing for marriage. Whether or not, you don't know if you're going to be married or not, but everybody's preparing for marriage. And a lot of us have taken the very practical view of, well, that's cooking and cleaning and how to raise children. And all those are great.

You can learn all that and not be even close to ready for marriage. Those are just very practical skills that are honestly easy to check off a list. You're preparing for marriage when you're becoming a disciple of Christ. The things that they've already talked about. So be careful when you think about preparation for marriage.

It's who you're becoming. I heard my husband give advice to a young single lady a long time ago, and she was talking about waiting for her Prince Charming. And she wasn't ready for Prince Charming. She was like Princess Godzilla. Okay, so Prince Charming isn't interested in Princess Godzilla.

So, you know, we do, the guy that we should be interested in one day, it should be because he's holy and because he's a lover of Jesus and other things that God will knit you together in. But so if you want that kind of guy you got to be that kind of girl. So you should be spending your days letting God pour into you. Learn the practical stuff. Do the ministry.

Love the local church. You should be becoming more like Jesus. And that's how you prepare for marriage. Do the love the one anothers that the New Testament talks about. If you're walking in that kind of life, you'll be ready for marriage.

Don't think about it, don't put a checklist together about preparing for marriage. Become a lover of Jesus more and more every day and you'll be ready. And I would even add to that, like when you're thinking about marriage, what are the specific types of ministry in marriage that you're really excited about and really looking forward to? Is it the idea of being in that close level of spiritual relationship with a person where you're spiritually strengthening one another, comforting one another, encouraging one another, there is nothing stopping you from doing that all the time with the people around you. Is it the idea of spiritually speaking into the lives of children and making an eternal impact on the souls of small children.

There is nothing stopping you from doing that right now, all the time. Is it the idea of showing hospitality to people? If you can actually separate out in the picture of marriage what are the things that actually matter and the things that actually last and are there any of them that I can't actually be doing right now, I think you'll find that the really important things, God has made ways for you to be doing them right now. And that I think can take away so much of the sense of frustration of there's so much fruitful ministry that I was made for that I can't be doing right now because you actually can. And the more you do it before you're married, like you were just saying, actually the better you will be able to do it as a wife and a mom.

You actually won't just automatically, poof, go from never having spiritually encouraged a person to now being married and being a pro at doing that for your husband or for your kids. Yeah, and I would just jump back to a question that we sort of answered quickly about basically how to attract a guy. And I'll tell you a little bit about what, like, what Reese was attracted to, and Elizabeth. It was the fact that he saw that she was doing these things. And my brothers were the same, like, because when they look at all these girls who are dressed nicely and they're pretty and they look very dignified.

It's kind of hard to know which one. So my brothers were looking for the girls that were doing the things that they wanted a wife to do. And you might feel like, well, I can't do any of those things, but you can. Like they were looking for the girls who loved children and were ministering to children, not just because they were cute, but like who loved the souls of children. And preached the gospel to children.

And this is something that attracted Reese to Elizabeth. And they were looking for the women who were, you know, really pouring themselves out in a supportive role to the people around them. Because that's how they know she's going to be a good help me. They were looking for the girls who had, for lack of a better term, really developed relational skills in speaking to people and in encouraging and in conflict resolution and just because they know that this is what they're marrying, that these skills are what they're going to be married to. These skills are what they're going to be bringing into their own home and they're, so they're watching how a girl lives these things out.

And yeah, and that is what attracted Reese to Elizabeth, is that he saw Elizabeth doing things that he wanted in his life and he wanted her words of encouragement in his life and he wanted her ability to preach the gospel to children in his life and he wanted her faithfulness in the little things in his life. And that's how I would answer that question. Well, and the great thing is if you're pouring yourself out, like as much as you can, as much as the Lord gives you grace to just be pouring yourself out into the things that are in front of you and the people that are around you, you don't even have a lot of bandwidth left over for thinking about all the things you don't have and for being sad and lonely. Like there's a limit to how lonely you can be if you are deeply invested in dozens and dozens of people. And if you're really clinging to the Lord through it, like if he really is your strength and your support and your comforter and your encourager, you just feel more and more loved and more and more surrounded by his presence all the time.

That was like the whole story of especially the latter part of my singleness. It was so good. It was so good. I would not have traded it for anything except for marrying Reese. How to be content in seasons of waiting.

Talked about that a little bit. My answer is stop waiting. I think that's what you guys said. Just don't wait. Don't wait.

Take the word wait. Take it out of your vocabulary. No more waiting. Just doing. This is Janet's gift, speaking and answering questions.

No. Oh my gosh, that's such a lie. Deborah Brown's a, I won't say it. What was it? Now I forgot what we'll say.

Season's waiting. Waiting, don't wait. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, I got it. When you get old, this is what happens, ladies. I am telling you.

I'm trying to write stuff down because it's woo. What I was gonna try and say was, whatever you do, whatever God has you doing, and whatever you're doing right now is what God has you doing, because he's a sovereign God, do it with all your might. Do it with a happy heart. She was saying pour your life into it. Don't have to do the stuff you're doing.

If you're a discontent daughter in a home because you don't like the thing that God has you doing, your argument is not with your parents, your argument is with God. Be content with whatever God has for you. Not that it doesn't mean you shouldn't move towards doing some other things possibly. I've found that God sometimes doesn't move me to the next thing until I'm content with the thing he's got me doing, until I learn the lessons I need to learn in that thing. Some of you girls are probably helping your moms at home with younger children.

I hope you're doing that with a happy heart. If that's what God has you doing, that's where you're serving right now, that's a blessing. It's a blessing to you and it's a blessing to your mom. If God has you out and about being a realtor and connecting people out in the community, do it with all your heart. Everything that we should do should be as unto the Lord.

Every single thing. You're changing that dirty diaper, it's as unto the Lord. If you are correcting a mask problem, it is as unto the Lord, moms. Don't gripe about it. Everything we do should be the aroma of Christ.

So you young people who are living your life, you can only spend each moment one time. And you can't get it back, and you can't relive it, and you can't really do it better. So I beg you to choose each moment well and live it to God's glory and choose a happy heart about the things that you're doing. And that takes really trusting God and deciding that he does have you right where he wants you and that he has your best interests at his heart. He loves you.

You. For more ideas, I would say again, I'm just going to plug the sermon series we were talking about earlier. I really encourage you to listen through this. This is super inspiring and it just, one thing I love about Dr. Kaiser is that he's a really good scholar and he digs into these women in the Bible and brings out details that you've never heard before and breaks all kinds of boxes.

If you're still kind of stumped when it comes to what you can be doing or trying to figure out some practical ideas, I think you'll get a lot out of these messages and they're just so exciting. Some of you are quieter people, which are not us, okay? Your ministry is going to look different than another person's ministry, So I wanted to say, add that on, don't feel like, oh I can't be like her ministry, I can't do things that so-and-so does. That is, that's why we have a body. Some of the dearest people I know that I think are some of the dearest Saints are the people who serve quietly behind the scenes, no attention to themselves.

God sees what you're doing. Whatever he gives you to do is what is just right. We're a body. We need every single part to do what they're meant to do. And sometimes your part is to go to a nursing home and spend time with a 90-year-old who's dying every week for 10 years.

I watched my mother-in-law do that with several different people until they out-died. You know, they would die and she'd take on the next one. You know, your ministry doesn't have to be flashy. In fact, most of the time it is not. That prepares you for marriage.

Most of your ministry and marriage is unnoticed by anybody but God. But then your children rise up and call you blessed and it's great. But most of your life ministry, what they were talking about earlier, is out of your heart. And so it's not about people seeing it, it's not about it being pretty, it's really about serving others and doing whatever love of Christ motivates you to do. So those of you that are quieter and have what we would call a simpler ministry, it is every bit as important as somebody who sings well or plays the piano well or speaks well or gives millions of dollars to the boy.

None of that, God doesn't care about any of those things. He gives you the gift He gives you. He just wants you to use what He's given you and the time that He's given you well.