Tag: marriage

Guest Blogger – Anne

.Reading time 10 minutes.

I want to tell more than just my stories on this blog; I want 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 Anne’s story with you today.

She came up and put her arm around my shoulders: “That’s so annoying when they do that isn’t it?”

“What?” I asked.

“Try to set you up with someone. I mean, you’re 30 and not dating, it’s pretty obvious you don’t ever want to get married.”

I was shocked! How could she assume just because I don’t have a boyfriend or start drooling when someone mentions they know a single male that I don’t want to get married? Sadly, prolonged singleness is becoming more common. As I age and wait for God to bring a man into my life…and struggle to understand His “no,” I’ve learned four lessons to not simply surviving, but thriving in the “wilderness” of singleness. Read More

My Thursday Thoughts

.Reading time 5 minutes.

A LETTER TO MY FUTURE HUSBAND on March 2, 2017

I had a really hard day yesterday at work. There was a lot going on: visitors from corporate, a new trainee, supervisors getting frustrated, and generally a lot of expectations on me.

Then I came home (an hour late), and some friends came over for dinner, and my roommate was home unexpectedly. I love all those people, but I was overwhelmed, so overwhelmed. I kept thinking, “Too much! Too much!” and wondering when I could escape the overstimulation after an overworked day.

I finally crawled into bed, and all I wanted to do was have someone hold me. I wanted your arms to wrap around me and tell me it was going to be okay because you’re on my team. Wanted to fall asleep knowing I’m not alone.

But you weren’t there. 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 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 Greatest Gift

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My mom always speaks about my dad as one of the best gifts God has given her.

My best friends, as they get married one by one, tell me that a husband and marriage are great gifts from God.

My sisters have both married men who are incredible gifts to them.

My “adopted” grandpa says that a good marriage is as close to heaven as you can get on earth, and he dotes on his wife of several decades, looking at her as though he can’t believe the gift that God has given him.

Somewhere along the timeline of my young life, I began to believe that a husband was the best gift God could ever possibly give me. I believed that while singleness is certainly a gift, it was not as good as marriage would be. I easily fell into the trap-lie that said “God is not giving me the best gift, so He has to work extra hard to make up for that with Jesus.”

I don’t think I ever consciously put that thought into words. I started a blog about the truths of the Gospel and how they defeat the lies of singleness. I wrote things like “Jesus is not a consolation prize.” But underneath it all was the subtle, dormant lie that God has been withholding the best gift He could give me.

At the bridal shower for my roommate this weekend, my pastor’s wife Abbey shared a truth that completely…just…aaaarrrrrgh. It dug up the subtle lie, stared it in the face, and then blew it up. Just, BAM.

Abbey said to my roommate, Read More

My Little Sister

.Reading time 11 minutes.

I have a little sister who always lives my dreams. Sometimes it feels like God gave her to 9-year-old me just so we could grow up and she could show me my dream-come-true life.

She started traveling internationally at 15 years old. She lived in Chicago for a while during college. She got a boyfriend at 18, a fiancé and a walk-in closet at 19, and a husband at 20. Now at 22, she’s having the first grandkid for my parents and the first nephew/niece for the rest of us. This past Monday, she texted me that she’s probably going to decorate her nursery with a book theme. Like seriously?! Are NONE of my dreams sacred?

I’m overreacting of course; I really am happy for her. She’s one of the most genuinely, effortlessly compassionate people I’ve ever met, and she is living the story that God wrote for her before either of us was born.

I get into a funk every once in a while, though, because – I might as well say it – it kind of sucks sometimes to not only not see my dreams come true, Read More

My Life of Good-Byes

.Reading time 6 minutes.

A few weeks ago, my friend Ashley and I were discussing the challenges of singleness vs. dating, and how the Gospel of Jesus applies to it all.

Ashley is dating a man in our church, and she said that one of the things she’s looking forward to someday is never having to say good-bye to him. When (if) they get married, he won’t have to walk her to her door and go back to his own home. They will be able to go to their home, and spend every evening, night, and morning together.

I’ve heard other couples say the same thing – that it gets harder to say good-bye, the longer you’re together. One of my roommates literally takes up to an hour to say good-bye to her boyfriend.

I poke fun at my roommate, but I remember when I was in Australia, and I felt like my Read More

My Wedding Woes

.Reading time 9 minutes.

I inserted the final bobby pin into Sarah’s hair and began fastening the white rose bud as the finishing touch to my first bridal hairstyle. I smiled big, oohed over how beautiful she was (I really had done a lovely job with her black hair), and kept up the smiling and oohing for the rest of the evening.

I was 19 years old; the bride, 18.

As a pastor’s kid, I’d been to literally dozens of weddings by that time, but Sarah’s still stands out to me for three firsts:

  • First bridal hair I’d styled
  • First time I was friends with the bride AND the groom
  • First wedding where I was older than the bride

Read More