Leading Well While Waiting: A Word for Single Christian Women in Business

For single Christian women in business, unanswered prayers and unmet desires don’t stay neatly contained in personal life—they often shape leadership, confidence, and decision-making. During this time of the time, heart matters seem to speak just a little bit louder, and if you are an unmarried, divorced, or widowed business owner, it is easy for any discontentment to make its way over into the way we lead.

This is an honest reflection on faith, waiting, and leading well without letting disappointment harden the heart.

Valentine’s Day has a way of surfacing questions many single Christian women try to manage quietly. Questions about timing. Questions about faithfulness. Questions about whether God sees, hears, or intends to answer certain prayers at all.

For women in business, these questions don’t stay confined to personal life. They often show up in leadership posture, decision-making, ambition, and even exhaustion, because the heart doesn’t compartmentalize as well as we sometimes pretend.

When Waiting Becomes Wearisome

Many single women of faith have prayed sincerely—for partnership, marriage, companionship—and watched the years pass without answers that look the way they hoped.

Over time, waiting can subtly turn into:

• Self-protection

• Emotional withdrawal

• Over-functioning

• Or a quiet resolve to stop expecting much at all

None of these are moral failures. They are human responses to disappointment, but they do shape how we lead.

How Unanswered Prayers Can Affect Business

If we are honest, unresolved heart questions often spill into work in quiet ways:

• Building success as a substitute for intimacy

• Overcommitting to avoid sitting with loneliness

• Leading from control instead of trust

• Struggling to celebrate others’ milestones without comparison

When faced with these unresolved heart questions, business becomes either a refuge or a shield. But, be encouraged. Neither is inherently wrong, but both require awareness.

Faith Is Not Denial

Leading with faith does not require pretending disappointment doesn’t exist. Faith makes room for lament, honesty, and longing. Scripture is filled with faithful people who wrestled openly with God, not because they lacked faith, but because they trusted Him enough to bring their whole selves.

To the woman struggling with this, let me further encourage your heart toward freedom: suppressing desire doesn’t make you spiritual. Naming it doesn’t make you ungrateful.

Faith allows truth to coexist with trust.

Guarding Your Posture While You Wait

The question is not whether waiting shapes you, but how does it shape you.

This season is an invitation to regularly ask:

• Am I leading from hope or from resignation?

• Have I subtly hardened my heart to protect myself?

• Is my business serving my calling, or I am using to replace intimacy with God and my desire for intimacy with others?

Be aware that waiting does not disqualify you from joy, leadership, or impact. But unexamined waiting can quietly distort posture.

You Are Not Behind

One of the most damaging lies single Christian women absorb is that marriage is a prerequisite for fullness, favor, or credibility.

It is not.

Your leadership, wisdom, and capacity are not on hold. Your business is not a consolation prize. Your season is not a mistake. And God’s faithfulness is not proven by timelines. You are exactly where you need to be.

As a business owner, the goal is not to resolve every question, but to lead without letting disappointment close you off.

That kind of leadership:

• Leaves room for joy

• Allows for tenderness without fragility

• Chooses faithfulness without numbing desire

You don’t need to posture as unbothered to be faithful. You don’t need to rush healing to be effective. And you don’t need all the answers to lead well.

Remember that God is present not just in what you’re building, but in what you’re carrying.

And no matter what stage of life you are in, both matter.

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About the Author

Andrena Sawyer is an organizational management consultant, speaker, and founder of the Minority Christian Women Entrepreneurs Network (MCWEN). With over 15 years of experience supporting leaders and mission-driven organizations, she helps women build businesses rooted in clarity, stewardship, and sustainable growth, without compromising their faith or values. Connect with Andrena: LinkedIn | Instagram | Threads | Facebook | P.E.R.K. Consulting