Tag: gospel-centered singleness

Book Review: 7 Myths about Singleness

.Reading time 11 minutes.

7 Myths about Singleness

Spoiler alert: this book is great, and I think everyone should read it.

Before I was halfway through the first chapter, I was blown away; before I was done with the book, I was already recommending it to people. Also, it’s short and cute—like me!—so I was able to finish it in a day and a half without even trying. Okay, maybe with a little trying.

Sam Allberry is known in the Christian community for his work on friendship in singleness, and perhaps more broadly known for being someone who struggles with same-sex attraction (SSA) but chooses to live celibately because, Bible. I was interested to see how much of those two things would come into play in this book. The first one did—and so beautifully—and the second one didn’t at all.

The book is laid out with an introduction, 7 chapters (each corresponding to a myth about singleness), a conclusion, and an appendix. The meat of the book, unsurprisingly, is in the 7 chapters, which are titled:

  1. Singleness is Too Hard
  2. Singleness Requires a Special Calling
  3. Singleness Means No Intimacy
  4. Singleness Means No Family
  5. Singleness Hinders Ministry
  6. Singleness Wastes Your Sexuality
  7. Singleness is Easy

Perhaps one of the most charming, most utterly REAL things about this book is the juxtaposition and coexistence of the first and last truths. I felt like those two chapters alone validated all of my feelings about singleness and gave me words for things I didn’t know I needed words for.

I’m not going to go through and spoil each chapter, but I will touch on a few things that stuck out to me because of where I am in life right now. Read More

My Omnipotent, Omni-Good God

.Reading time 8 minutes.

This isn’t a post about singleness; it’s a post about something else I’ve been processing lately. I promise I’ll be back next time with more snarky singleness speculation.

My friend Cindy died 16 or 17 years ago.

My sister Karissa died almost 12 years ago.

A few weeks ago, I found out that I knew someone who had died in the Louisiana flooding.

Last Wednesday, my friend Susannah gave birth to a baby who died before she could even hold him.

Last weekend, my 20-something friend Brighton lost her husband of 5 weeks to a drunk driver.

I’ve cried a fair bit this week because of death. I miss my sister Karissa; I miss my friend Cindy every year around my birthday when I don’t see her perfect handwriting on a card addressed to me; my heart cries for Susannah and her husband and their families as they have to go home to a nursery and baby clothes and dreams that have died with their child/grandchild/nephew; Brighton’s new widowhood 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: 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 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

My Level of Love

.Reading time 10 minutes.

I ran across a blog post today, that definitely resonated with me. Several parts of it elicited some “Mmmm hmmm”s and “You go, girl”s.

The author, Joi Weaver, tells her story of being a 33-year-old who has never been kissed and shares the social struggles that accompany virginity. I blogged about virginity a couple of years ago, as well as some themes she highlights in her story.

For instance, here is one paragraph I can definitely relate to:

[Singleness is] not my preferred choice, but I’m not going to fling myself at someone out of desperation. This sense of acceptance comes and goes. There are days when I’m tempted to run outside and proposition the first man I can find. But most days, I just accept that this is my reality right now, and change will not happen quickly or easily. Regardless, the frustration lingers: I would have liked it to be a real choice, not a matter of mere acceptance.

(Even though I have had the chance to say, “Yes,” to a couple of different men who were interested in me, it still feels like I haven’t had a choice because those men were not good for me, nor I for them. It wasn’t a choice of singleness or a great marriage; it was a choice between singleness and a bad relationship – and therefore not much of a choice at all.)

Miss Weaver goes on to tell Read More