My Blog is HACKED!

.Reading time 15 minutes.

Once upon a time, a friend was getting married.  She had quite a few bridesmaids for her wedding, and I was delighted to be one of them.  There were the standard events- bachelorette party, girls staying up late talking (causing other girls to not be able to sleep), church decorating, pictures, trading shoes with another bridesmaid, walking down the aisle.  You know, standard stuff.

Fast forward a few years and I’m getting ready to move to San Diego. The above bride contacts me to inform me of another of her friends, also moving to San Diego.  She suggested we room together.  Why not?  This friend of the bride’s also happened to be one the bridesmaids from the wedding.  Oh no, hopefully doesn’t think I was the annoying one.  If we hate each other, it’s only a six month lease, right?

Well, I ended up not being the annoying one.  I was one of the talking girls, irritating our favorite blogger and causing her to not sleep.  Funny story, I’m also the bridesmaid that switched shoes with Charity because mine were too big and hers were too small.  That’s right folks, it’s the roommate here.  This blog post has been HACKED!

All the rules are out the window (for any that know me in real life, this is no surprise).  Grammar?  I mean I’ll try, but meh.  (I almost guarantee Charity will edit this if she doesn’t remove it.)  Funny anecdote, followed by struggle, followed by God vs my struggle, followed by wrapping up the post all neat and tidy? Not happening (minus the funny anecdote, cuz I already wrote it).  Using a list with bulleted points for multiple thoughts under the same category? Uh-uh.  Using capital letters to PROCLAIM MY EXCITEMENT BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO DIE TOO YOUNG FROM OVERUSE OF EXCLAMATION POINTS? Heavens, no!

This post, dear readers, is all about the nitty gritty. A Charity Tell-All, if you will.  Let’s get started, shall we? Read More

My Two Cents on IKDG

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Two friends this week sent me this article; it’s about how Josh Harris is re-thinking what he wrote in “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.”

I have already written about my relationship with IKDG and other courtship books in general, and I’ve already written about courtship culture, so I don’t want to re-hash those things. I just have a teensy bit to add in response to the article that came out this week.

We HAVE to lay off Josh Harris for his book. Love or hate it, it was part of the courtship culture – and he wrote it when he was 21. No one has love figured out at 21. No one has life figured out at 21. He did a bold thing by publishing this book, and it happened to come out in a time when it would be widely received.

While I respect Mr. Harris’s humility in publicly re-thinking Read More

My Advice If You Want It

.Reading time 11 minutes.

Photo Credit: Stephanie Garvey

I recently had a friend point out that I’ve written about what NOT TO say to a single person, but I’ve never written about what TO say.

So I thought it might be helpful to re-visit the list of things not to say and offer helpful suggestions instead. (I’ve even added a few things to this new and improved list.) Please do keep in mind that when you’re trying to be helpful, you should try to read the situation and person, and be sensitive to them individually. Read More

Just For Fun: A Guest Post about NerdHQ

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Pictured from L-R: Jake Greene as Thor, Kat Carr as Wonder Woman, and Charity Edwards (the Blithe Bachelorette) as Wolverine

My friend and former roommate Kat and I got our geek on at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend. She did some Gospel-centered processing about her experience and offered to write a guest post for me.

Her thoughts aren’t specifically about singleness, but they sure can apply. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Last weekend I attended an off-site event at San Diego Comic-Con. (Yes, I am one of those people.) The event is NerdHQ, put on by Zachary Levi. It was the 6th year for the event and my 5th year to attend. It’s this wonderful thing that happens alongside San Diego Comic-Con where Zac provides a free place for people with common interests to hang out and small “conversations” with celebrities for a small fee of $20. All the proceeds go to help out the charity Operation Smile. Over the years, I’ve gotten to sit on these “conversations” with some pretty big celebrities and have made some great friends through this event.

But the point of me writing (which I rarely ever do!) Read More

Just For Fun: Another Wedding Story

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Photo credit: Margie Padelford

I coordinated another wedding on Friday, my fifth in less than two years. I love it. I love

  • everything about weddings.
  • being in charge of things.
  • looking pretty while being in charge of things.

Therefore, wedding coordinating gives me warm, happy, fuzzy feelings – and usually incredibly tired feet.

But this wedding – this one touched me, deep in the heart of my soul. (I know that’s cheesy, but stay with me here.)

It also wore me out physically, like way more than I expected. I literally gave blood, sweat, and tears* to this wedding, and I came home aching from the top of my sunburned hair part to the end of the toe that was smashed during dancing. Read More

My Roommate Life: Part 2

.Reading time 15 minutes.

Photo credit: Noel Walker Photography

I’ve blogged a few times about how great my roommate is, and most people who know us have commented on how much we seem like a married couple. So I’ve been processing for a couple of months now how roommate-life is (and isn’t) like married life.

In Part 1, I talked about how having a close roommate is like having a spouse. And in Part 2 (this post), I’m talking about how it’s very much not like having a spouse.

When people first meet Nicole and me, they chuckle and make jokes about how we seem married. But when they really get to know us, it’s way obvious that we aren’t.

On the surface

Of course, there are the glaring differences between us and married couples. Obviously, we don’t have sex, children, a joint bank account, or the same room. We don’t know how much money the other makes, we lay claim to (some of the) food in the fridge, and we’re not on each other’s car insurance policies.

So there’s that, but there’s also the dynamic of us Read More

My Roommate Life: Part 1

.Reading time 11 minutes.

I’ve blogged a few times about how great my roommate is, and most people who know us have commented on how much we seem like a married couple. So I’ve been processing for a couple of months now how roommate-life is (and isn’t) like married life.

In Part 1 (this post), I’ll talk about how having a close roommate is like having a spouse. And in Part 2, I’ll talk about how it’s very much not like having a spouse.

How we met

Nicole and I have a mutual friend, and back in the day, this mutual friend would talk to Nicole about me – and to me about Nicole. For years, Nicole and I were separately jealous of how much our mutual friend talked about her other friend. Yet, for years, we didn’t meet each other.

In 2009, our mutual friend got married, and Nicole and I were both bridesmaids in the wedding. We spent about 36 hours together in which we were focused more on the bride than each other, and I promptly forgot about Nicole as she and I went back to our respective cities after the wedding.

In 2012, I told our mutual friend Read More

My Belief in “The One”

.Reading time 10 minutes.

I’m just gonna come out and say it now, in case anyone is wondering: I believe in “The One.”

You know, the idea that there’s only one man in the world who is right for me to marry, only one potential Mr. Charity? My sisters have tried to talk me out of it, my friends have tried to reason me out of it, and many, many bloggers have written against it. But I truly, romantically, deeply believe there’s only one man (if any) I should marry.

I generally blame/attribute this belief to three things:

  1. Disney

Cinderella and Prince Charming. Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip. Belle and the Beast. Lady and the Tramp. These are the stories I grew up on, in a household where my parents called each other Read More

My Choice to be Single

.Reading time 9 minutes.

I often, even on this blog, bemoan the fact that I’m single. I mean, there are good things about it, and I get to know Jesus in suffering and whatever. But it just occurred to me in the past couple of weeks (mostly because of a comment my dad made on a previous post – thanks, Dad) that I actually have chosen singleness. Do choose it. Am choosing it.

I kinda don’t like that. It’s easier to think of singleness as something that’s happening to me, something that has been chosen for me. I like to think that, if it were up to me, I would choose marriage and a family of my own. Yet, 33 years into this life, I have yet to make that choice.

For instance, when my best-ish guy friend asked me to be his girlfriend, I turned him down. More than once. When a guy I reconnected with after 10 years indicated that he might be interested in me as a future wife, I turned him down. Again. I’ve gone on dates only to firmly cut things off before the second date, and I’ve refused to give out my number to interested parties.

It’s not like this happens often. Read More

My Coffee Date Thoughts

.Reading time 5 minutes.

A few weeks ago, I was meeting up with a friend for coffee after work. She got married last year, and I knew her before she was ever dating her husband. She and I were in the same accountability group at church, so I got to see the trepidation when a man (her now-husband) from church asked her out to breakfast the first time; the awkwardness of the first months of dating; the agony of waiting through trials before engagement.

I was there at the surprise engagement party, I bought her her first wedding magazine, I slaved over the wedding DIY, I agonized with her over the family drama that seemed unfair, and I dragged my roommates into the planning, whether they liked it or not. The planning of that wedding dictated my days, and I experienced “bride brain” for the first time. I blogged about the wedding itself last year.

In all that time, I had done well in not being envious as she and her groom in their early 20’s found each other and planned a wedding and experienced the first year of marriage – all things that I’ve wanted/craved for decades. In fact, I’d done so well that I took my joy for them for granted. Read More