One Thing Not to Say to Your Single Friends

It’s Saturday and, as I mentioned last week, on Saturdays I’d like to share content related to singles. This post originally appeared on SingleMatters; married or single, I hope you find it helpful!

˜˜

Why is it that once some (not all) people get married, they seem to have all the answers for their single friends?  They are now success stories, automatically qualified to share dating advice, suggest possible matches, and impart wisdom, for they have “arrived”.

Some will even happily preach you a sermonette about how to find the partner God has in mind for you.  (Which assumes marriage is God’s plan for everyone and that there is such a thing as a soulmate for you out there – a topic worthy of much deeper discussion and that was recently addressed with great eloquence here. But I digress.)

In their enthusiasm, they usually mean well. And to be fair, not all their suggestions are unwelcome. Some may even be helpful.

But if you’re married, here’s one way NOT to help your single friends “put things in perspective”: Continue reading One Thing Not to Say to Your Single Friends

A Quote That Stopped Me in My Tracks

Yesterday on Twitter someone quoted David Augsburger and it was so arresting I had to read it twice. It was only 17 words but I went to sleep last night thinking about what a profound truth it revealed.

Here’s the quote: Continue reading A Quote That Stopped Me in My Tracks

Passed By A Pregnant Chick

On Saturdays, I’d like to focus on singles in this blog, since many who are single feel they are leading “workaround” lives. (I was a single parent for 18 years; I get that.) I’ll be sharing content here from SingleMatters, a blog I write with Marie Shepherd, and also sharing insights from other relevant sources and writers. A variation of the post that follows originally appeared on SingleMatters last April.

Have you ever participated in a “Fun Run”? Maybe it was only a few miles, to raise money for a worthy cause. There was no real pressure and you really didn’t give a moment’s thought to actually winning your age bracket.

But there you were, jostling with the other runners at the start, feeling all healthy and honorable, and you found yourself sizing up the people around you. Continue reading Passed By A Pregnant Chick

The Question I’m Asking Myself

Last week I revealed that I was joining the OneWord365 “resolution revolution”. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions (something I don’t do anyway), I said I was going to choose one word that represents a trait I’d like to nurture in my life in 2013.

The word I chose is HARMONY.sculpture in the park Holland

The idea is to focus on the idea of harmony every day throughout the year and in the process, possibly change the sound track of my life. For me, relational chaos is exhausting and unhealthy; I recognize this. (It probably is for you too.) But encouraging harmony just might add years to my life (or, as it’s been said, life to my years).

And since I committed to updating my progress on the 15th of each month, here’s the first status report.

Continue reading The Question I’m Asking Myself

I Never Meant to Leave Florida

net_efekt on everystockphoto.com
net_efekt on everystockphoto.com

When I drove out that morning, I was going on vacation to visit a friend in Texas. I was in my mid-twenties and had just extricated myself from a painfully unhappy relationship. I wanted to get far away to recalibrate and regain my perspective. Out of state: perfect.

By the time I got back from my road trip a couple of weeks later, something foundational had shifted in my heart and I had embraced the idea that happiness lay elsewhere. Continue reading I Never Meant to Leave Florida

How I think “one word” could improve the soundtrack of my year

Here’s a concept simple enough I think I might just be able to pull it off.

Have you heard of the One Word 365 “resolution revolution”? Instead of making a list of New Year’s resolutions that you won’t remember by this time next month and surely won’t have kept by this time next year, growing numbers of people are choosing to focus on just one word for the entire year.

The idea, from the One Word website, is that you choose:

“One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live. One word that you can focus on every day, all year long.”

And here’s what could happen: Continue reading How I think “one word” could improve the soundtrack of my year