A Poem for You All

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AAAAAHHHH!!! With the busy-ness of moving and traveling and gaining a new roommate, I TOTALLY did not have time to blog this week.

Sooo…here is a video that was a major factor in my deciding to start this blog. I especially love the bit about not listening to friends and family who are worried about your (God’s) timeline.

Also, two people this week have said something like, “You’re so cute. What is wrong with men everywhere?”

I would just like to point out that I don’t want to marry “Men everywhere.” I just want to marry one person. And, besides being an insult to men everywhere, that idea (when I dwell on it) has led me in the past to believe awful things about my future husband – things like, he must be out there being stupid, he’s goofing off, he’s dead. You know, stuff like that.

So, the “Charity is so adorable. Why doesn’t she have a husband?” question is officially going on the list of things that are sooooo not helpful – no matter how well-meant.

My Idolatrous List

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Once upon a time, I met a man. This man was absolutely everything on my “list of things I want in a husband.” He scored 100% in the non-negotiable column, 100% in the would-be-nice-to-have column, and 100% in the bonus-features column.

Yes, my list was broken down into columns.

For months, I watched him and got to know him, ticking off bullet point after bullet point on my list. I got excited, thinking, “Surely he’s The One. Surely God has finally brought him to me.”

And then I found out that he didn’t like me back.

I clearly remember running errands that day, talking to God the whole time. Our conversation went something like this.

Me: Okay, God, so there’s gotta be a reason he doesn’t like me. Maybe he will, but it’s not Your timing yet. Maybe there’s someone else who is 110% of my list. Maybe…

God: Charity, why do you have a list in the first place? Read More

Guest Blogger – Mandy

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I wanted to tell more than just my stories on this blog; I wanted to get stories from other people – men, women, dating, single, living at home, living not at home, etc. So I recruited some guest bloggers. I’m excited to share Mandy’s story with you today.

The following is an email interview I had with Mandy.

Give us a quick snapshot of your life. 

I am a 28-year-old woman living on my own with no roommates—unless you count my precious pet snake Curly Brace. (Bet you never thought you’d hear someone call a snake “precious”.) I’m totally single and haven’t really had a “dating life” for 4+ years.

How does your singleness affect your relationships with:

  1. Family members

My family treats me like I’m a valuable human being whatever my stage in life. I’ve recently realized how much I take that for granted; I’ve talked to some other single women who despair over how much nagging they receive from family to get married.

     2. The church Read More

My Barren Womb

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About a year and a half ago, I started counting down the months to my 35th birthday.

When I was 12, I counted down the days until I became a teenager. Then at 20, I counted down to adulthood. At 29, I counted down to a new decade. But now, I’m counting down the number of months I have left as a fertile woman. (42, this month.)

Everyone tells me that after 35 years old, it’s a lot harder to get pregnant than before. To them, I say: try getting pregnant when you’re not having sex. Except for medical or Holy Spirit intervention, it’s pretty much impossible.

I had a guy friend ask me the other day if virgins have the same biological clock as married women.

Yes. Yes, we do. Read More

My Quasi-Purity

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is Part 2 of 2 on the topic of Virginity and Sexuality – or at least my experience with it.

I sat in Freshman Biology my first semester of college, averting my eyes from the PowerPoint slides and picking my jaw up off the floor. I was stunned and horrified because

  • I had just learned was sex was.
  • It took me until I was 18 years old to learn this.*

Over the years, I’ve been so embarrassed by that second fact that I’ve just lied and told people I was “like 15 or 16” when I learned about the birds and the bees.

For years, I still somehow managed to remain mostly innocent, despite some of the not-so-innocent books I had to read in college. I fast-forwarded certain scenes in PG-13 movies, whispered the word “sex” the first few times I had to use it in a non-gender-related way, and refused to laugh at Read More

Just For Fun: 12 Things You Should Never Say to a Single Person

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We’ve all heard these “condolences” – the things people say to somehow make us feel better about being single. Or maybe you haven’t heard these; maybe I just seem more desperately in need of condoling than you.

Some of them are true, but they’re all either cliché or kind of ridiculous, and so I shall snark them up here. Feel free to use these responses in an actual conversation, and let me know how it works out for you. (I, for one, am too scared polite to say these to anyone’s face.) Read More

My Unplanned Virginity

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is Part 1 of 2 on the topic of Virginity and Sexuality – or at least my experience with it.

I am a virgin.

I am 31 years old.

I never would have guessed the crazy/awkward/unexpected conversations and situations this fact would get me into.

  • Like the time a few months ago that I went for a check-up, and the doctor didn’t believe that I’ve never been sexually active, ever. He kept looking at me like, “Are you suuuuuure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”
  • Or the time my host mom in Australia found out I was a Christian and immediately asked, “So I guess you’re a virgin, then?”
  • Even my carpool buddy at work would get asked by coworkers, “So Charity…she’s never…you know…done it?”

Ummmm…no, I haven’t. Read More

My Selective Faith

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I sat on my bed in the basement, boxes packed and piles sorted. I would be leaving the next day to travel for an indefinite amount of time with my job. God had heard my angst and found a way to get me out of Minnesota, and I couldn’t WAIT to get on the road and explore the county.

I plopped backwards, exhausted from packing during recovery from wisdom tooth removal surgery, when my friend walked in. We’d been friends for 10 years, and he had come out from the East Coast to help me move down to Missouri.

He had his “Let’s have a serious talk” face on, and I graciously suppressed a groan and scootched myself up onto pillows. I watched him sit down in my pink desk chair, thinking, “Please don’t let this be a DTR, please don’t let this be a DTR.”

It was a DTR.* Read More

My Bed of Self-Pity

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I came home from work, gave my mom a kiss hello, headed to the basement, kicked off my heels, and flopped down on my pink bed in my pink room – the quintessential picture of someone torn between girlhood and adulthood.

I was 28 years old.

In the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to teenage angst, I called out to God, “My life tooooootaaaaalllllllyyyyyy suuuuuuucks! <sob> I just don’t know why-y-y-y-y! <hiccup>”

I’d moved with my parents to Minnesota about 11 months earlier, and it was getting rather old to have to follow the same rules as my 11-year-old brother while living with my parents.

“God, I hate it here!” I sobbed and Read More

My Statistical Doom

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I took a bite of crock-pot spaghetti, enjoying my church’s weekly potluck. Little did I know the conversation I was in for.

“I read a blog by a pastor this week, who was advocating for young marriage,” David said.

My ears perked up, and the rest of us at the lunch table turned toward him.

“Yeah, he was quoting statistics on how people who marry before the age of 26 have the lowest divorce rate,” David expounded. He sighed, “I’m 24, so I guess I have only a year or two to find a wife.”

My immediate response was one of offense: “How can that pastor say that? How can he tell me, a 27-year-old single woman, that I’m doomed for divorce just because I didn’t find the right man by now?”

The other people at our table jumped into the discussion, and I sat there a little bit horrified as people of all ages ended up agreeing with the pastor that David had mentioned.

I drove home from church, Read More