Sometimes it can be easy to forget what it was like to be single, once you say “I do.” In that light, I thought it would be fun to feature some guest posts on Wedded Wednesdays from the “other side.”

Marlys is a fellow EBC staffer, a 100% Minnesotan girl who loves God, friends, stage lighting, music, swing dancing, and plaid flannel. She and her many single roommates have a blog called “Dear Future Husbands.” It’s a fabulous read.

From Marlys …

Several months ago, I brought about 30 of my young adult friends—a mixed crowd of guys and girls who all happen to be single—to a Feed My Starving Children event at my church. I purposely did not tell them that the volunteer slot I signed us up for was the designated “singles night.”

Everyone was excited to be there together, to scoop rice and pack boxes. We entered the room and donned our hairnets. The speaker got up to the platform and said, “Welcome to Singles Night at Feed My Starving Children!”

Immediately I had all eyes on me, and I heard several whispers of disbelief at my treachery—“You brought us to a SINGLES NIGHT?!”

Yep, that went just about as expected.

I can’t say I’m speaking for all my friends, but let me share with you my own thoughts: By showing up to anything called a “singles event,” I feel super self-conscious that I am presenting myself as “on the market, desperate to be removed from it, so that’s why I’m here, and so are you. Take me!”

The label “singles event” alone screams “meat market of desperation.” At a “singles event,” I am going to be hyperaware of anyone of the opposite sex who approaches me, and likewise I have the fear that any guy I strike up a conversation with is going to think I’m only approaching him because I have a particular attraction to him. Even if it’s true that I do, I don’t want to scare him off by being too forward… but if I don’t have a particular attraction to him, I don’t want to give the impression that I do! I just can’t beat the awkwardness!

Not to mention, I have an irrational but common fear that most of the people that show up to these things are smooth-talking smarmy creepers. As much as we all want to find the right person to spend our lives with, people in my age bracket really abhor the forced interaction of “Let’s put all the singles together in one room and let them loose on each other!” Rather, we are really longing for authentic community with our peers. The post-college stage of life can be rather isolated and depressing. We need a network of friends who enjoy being together and will help each other out, whether single or married. We all have things to learn from each other’s experiences.

My group of friends is somewhat of a rarity, in that we make a point to all meet together at least once a week and make a meal, hang out, play games, jam on our instruments, and just enjoy each others’ company. And at the heart of it all, we love the Lord. He has blessed us by bringing us into this community that others our age are so desperately needing. Anyone new to the group is instantly hooked. Many have said it’s one of the few things that keeps them sane week-to-week. Hearing such comments is both flattering and alarming. Why does my house seem to be the only place where this kind of community is happening on a regular basis?

I’d say my friends and I are all pretty well-adjusted young folk. We are intelligent, creative, active individuals with a widespread array of interests and fields of expertise.

In fact, this probably describes many of the other 46 percent of all young adults (age 25-34) across the nation who have never been married. For the first time in recorded history, the number of never-married singles in this age bracket now exceeds the number of our peers who are married, according to US Census reports that were released about a month ago.

Yet, according to numerous surveys, most of these single young adults still want to get married.

So why are we all still single? Why is this a nation-wide phenomenon? And what does that have to do with the church?

There are many contributing factors to the shrinking marriage statistics—many of which occur in the home and in the media—but for the sake of everyone’s attention span, I will just focus on the church.

Throughout history, the church has played an active role in helping young men and women find their way to the altar. It was essentially a given that most people should get married, and folks in the church took it upon themselves (more or less) to make sure everyone got matched up correctly. From what I gather though, it seems that a lot of people took this to extreme measures, becoming way too nosey, gossipy, and controlling, and there has since been a huge societal backlash.

Now I fear the pendulum has swung too far the opposite way—the church community as a whole has become far too passive in the lives of young single adults. The message drilled into us, from pulpits as well as parishioners, boils down to this: “Keep waiting. Now keep waiting some more. Look how many marriages are failing; don’t marry the wrong person and become one of them. So you’d better wait even longer. Ignore your body telling you that you were biologically ready a decade ago. Don’t trust any of your feelings. Think rationally about everything, and analyze the life out of your relationships. When the magical time comes, which may well be when your hormones are dead, God will plop the right person in front of you and you won’t be able to avoid marrying them, so you’d better not do anything to interfere with that process.”

I exaggerate, of course. But only a little.

It’s no wonder so many people are scared to enter a relationship. We’ve heard enough horror stories of marriages turning sour. Way too many have experienced it vicariously through family members. Folks, this is incredibly discouraging. What we really need to hear are the success stories! We can know in our minds that God created marriage to be a beautiful model of His love that we can tangibly experience on earth, but many of us have hardly ever seen it in action.

To the common church folk: If you are reading this and you have been married at least a few years, and especially if you have gotten through some tough things with your spouse, I HIGHLY encourage you to invest in the lives of some single people. If you have something good to say about your marriage, we desperately need to hear it. Also, you have been through enough to see things about us that we are blind to. We need you to be our role models, mentors, coaches and networkers.

To church leaders everywhere: Evaluate how you are presenting your views on marriage to your congregation. How much value are you giving it? Do you often talk about what marriage can be like at its best? What are you offering to the single people who come to your church? (…Or don’t they come to your church?) I encourage you to find creative ways to get all the young single people in your congregation plugged into mentorships, to break the generational silence and get dialogue flowing.

As far as what to do in lieu of “singles events”: I’d really like to see more churches holding regular events for ALL young adults to come together and regularly engage in community-building environments. We don’t require a whole lot of structure outside of free food and some music—we just need to be around each other, without the segregation of marrieds and singles. The single people will figure out who’s taken and who’s available on their own. And our married friends can be great natural community-builders, bringing each of their friends together and introducing everyone to each other. (…with the added bonus of them acting as buffers against the creepers who escaped all the awkward singles events going on down the road.

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If you would like to link up YOUR Wedded Wednesday post below, just enter the direct URL. Then link back to this post in your post!

They say marriage is like a casserole—only the person making it knows what’s in it. So in that vein, I have invited other married folk to share their wisdom and stories for Wedded Wednesday.

Anna is a Minnesota blogger, and writes girl with blog. She tweets @anna_r.

In the past few months, my husband and I have gone through a season of joy, pain, transition, and waiting.  My husband accepted a new job. We gave notice at our out-of-state jobs, where we had lived and worked for a year. We miscarried our first baby—the one we’d been trying for for nearly two years—at 12 weeks. Three days later, we moved back to Minnesota. We’ve been living in my mom’s hallway ever since, as we continue to search for a home. We both started new jobs, and are re-integrating into our church.

To have any one of these circumstances happen would be a big deal, an adjustment, a life event. To have all of them happen within two months? That is a mountain, an ocean, a Grand Canyon sized amount of overwhelming joy, pain, transition and waiting.

Joy, as we followed God’s calling us away from our previous employment and home, and into a life in Minnesota with family and friends and new careers.

Pain, as we lost our precious baby. Lost old friends. Lost our financial security.

Transition, as we exited one chapter and entered a new one.

Waiting, on a baby. On a house. On a feeling of “settled.”

As we journey through it all, I have become increasingly thankful for marriage. To have a sounding board for each decision, each question, each wondering. To have a hand to grasp as we receive bad news. To have a partner in all things is a gift from the Lord that daily I am humbled by.

Of course we don’t always do marriage as God would have us do it! We fight. We snarl and say things we don’t mean. We disagree on how to handle really big things. We don’t pray together as often as we could. We don’t put each other before ourselves. We blame. We leave grace out of a discussion. We go shopping when we really shouldn’t… oh wait, that’s just me!

But then, in the quietness of evening after ‘one of those days’, we apologize. We dance in the kitchen to music my husband hums. We take our puppy upstairs and have family snuggles on our mattress on the floor, praying that another family member joins us soon, and dearly missing the one we never met. Sometimes we cry, sometimes we go out for ice cream, and sometimes we simply share a look. And we remember that no matter where we are, no matter what’s happening in our life, no matter what, period—we are a team. Sharing a journey. So blessed to be together.

And we are thankful. In the pain, in the joy, in the transition, even in the waiting. Thankful that God brought us together, and continues to bring us closer in this season of our life. Thankful for each other. Thankful for the One who created us.

Thankful for our marriage.

They say marriage is like a casserole—only the person making it knows what’s in it. So in that vein, I have invited other married folk to share their wisdom and stories for Wedded Wednesday.

Coleen and I have been friends for years, thanks to the interwebs. Old school hannahbeth.com readers may remember that Coleen and I co-wrote a weight loss blog together in 2004/05. (That I should probably resurrect, ha!) This fall Coleen & her husband Gregg will celebrate their first wedding anniversary AND welcome their first child. She tweets @hussified.

When the Unexpected Happens — by Coleen

Almost a year and a half ago, my husband lost his job.

We’d started dating soon after he was hired by his company in a contract-to-hire position (which always reminds me of MacGuyver for some reason), and as he struggled to find his place in the company and prove he was worthy of full-time employment, I found myself more enmeshed in his successes and failures. When he was finally promoted to full-time status in March 2008, I rejoiced along with him. We became engaged that July, and began a serious search for a home, which we found and purchased in December that same year.

One night in late February 2009, he unexpectedly showed up at my parents’ door. I’d been there with my family, relaxing after dinner. He’d never shown up without calling first.

“Can we talk?”

My stomach dropped somewhere beneath the foundation and sub-flooring. He was breaking up with me. I knew it. Mind you, I had no substantive proof that things were sliding downhill in my relationship, but to me, those three words meant Break-up. I just knew it. So with a sinking, pounding heart, I followed him to the den so that we could talk privately. We sat on the love seat (HA!) together, and he took my hand.

“I lost my job.”

Okay, not the words I was expecting (I was thinking it’d be “I need a break” or “I’m breaking up with your sorry, over-imaginative self,”) but still my heart did palpitations.

He couldn’t lose his job. Why did he lose his job? We just bought a house! We’re getting married and we own a house and we were going to start a family? His job?!? What are we going to do?

All of those questions were internal, by the way. What I really did was this:

I gasped.

I said, “Oh, baby,” and clutched his hands.

I whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

I asked, “Are you okay?”

He kept his cool as he told me what happened. They told him it was downsizing. They told him the work just wasn’t there for him anymore. They told him it wasn’t him, it was them. But little by little, his resolve broke.

Our lifestyle changed over the next few months. We scaled back on dinners out and little luxuries. We used money we received as wedding gifts not for a vacation or a cleaning lady, but for a new heater. We set a strict limit on Christmas gifts, and made birthday gifts to each other a night out at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Gregg’s Sunday mornings began sharing church time with filing for unemployment. When he wasn’t harassing every recruiter in his address book for interviews, he threw all of his energies into renovating our house from top to bottom. Many of the work projects in our home were completed by him.

It was then that we both realized that he had a knack for home repair. I began printing out business cards for him to distribute to our family and friends. He and I sent out mass e-mails to everyone we’d ever met in our lives (“Hire Gregg! He’s great!”) His best friend called his brothers and sisters — people I’d only met once — and insisted that they should hire him to do odd jobs around the house. I investigated the possibilities of obtaining an electrician’s license so that we’d have an advantage in the handyman market. Gregg never said no to anything, and on top of that, the interviews were coming at a steady clip. For a while, we thought that things were starting to look up.

Things never last though, you know. After a few weeks, interview prospects dried up, the home repair jobs began dwindling, and we became nervous once more. The rejection e-mails and letters were coming faster than the actual calls for interviews. Concerned for my husband’s mental well-being, I encouraged him to go to the gym on a regular basis. I reasoned we could afford $10 a month if it meant he got to keep up his health and his spirits. We ramped up the word on the street about Gregg’s fledgling handyman business, and he began expanding his job search to include other avenues not considered before. It was far from a perfect scenario still, but it was a start.

These last few months have really been a whirlwind. Gregg’s one-year unemployment anniversary coincided with the discovery that I was pregnant. Our arguments at times have become more meaningless and yet more fraught with hurt feelings and baseless accusations. Our financial decisions have become more dependent on the immediate (groceries and bills) rather than the important-but-not-urgent (his car’s A/C). Our fears about raising a child in these conditions, in this economy have sometimes become all-consuming — even if we were too scared to even tell one another about them. Our visits to our parents have been more frequent, as we have sought the comfort of others who would understand and offer only helpful suggestions and love (and, to be honest, the occasional green slipped under the table). Our prayers both inside and outside of church became not just about our own wants and hopes and fears, but about those of our partner.

And then the most surprising happened — our relationship got stronger.

I won’t lie to you — it is difficult to begin a marriage when one of spouse is out of work. We have joked that at least we’re getting our “worse” out of the way now, and it can only get better from here. It has taken a lot of work on both our parts to remember that there are two people who have been affected by this turn of events, and each person has a different set of views and feelings and opinions on where we stand now and where we’re going from here. We know that there will be other challenges along the way: Gregg’s unemployment will dry up sooner rather than later, and our first baby is due later this fall. Someone could get sick. Disaster could strike. But we’ve realized there is no longer any point to spending hours wondering when things will change. We’ve worked on becoming more present.

When times seem tougher than usual, I remember the lyrics from our wedding song, “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson:

And I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am

When we were first dating, playing this song was the way I told Gregg that I loved him. We knew from the start that it would be the song we danced to at our wedding. It was our song, plain and simple. At the time, we didn’t realize how important those lyrics would become to us. Those eight little words, none more than four letters long — nothing in our lives will ever mean as much. We pledged to take each other as we are, with our triumphs and tribulations and everything in between.

Our baby is due this Thanksgiving. For me, that whole time of year is a time to reflect and be grateful for the many blessings we have received. I am sure we will be grateful for a healthy child, for the love and support of our family and friends, and for each other. And to be perfectly honest, this year I may just be grateful for my husband’s unemployment. I truly don’t think our first year of marriage would have been as trying — or as meaningful — without it.

[Note: not 24 hours after this entry was submitted, Gregg got a call that he'd GOTTEN A JOB. That is not a typo. It is, however, proof that God works in strange, mysterious, wonderful ways. She'd like to thank everyone for their support over the past year and a half, and is available for counseling via e-mail anytime to other couples who may find themselves in the same situation now and in the future.]

It’s Wedded Wednesday! Did you write a blog entry today about married life? Link it up below! And if you like, link back to this entry so that others can find even more Wedded Wednesday entries!

They say marriage is like a casserole—only the person making it knows what’s in it. So in that vein, I thought it would be fun to invite some other married folk to share their wisdom and stories for Wedded Wednesday.

Allison and I have been friends for more than 10 years, first meeting thanks to an old school blogger and the wonderful Internet. These days you can find Al recapping for Television Without Pity, singing and generally rocking out with The DMs, and teaching her adorable daughter MLH to say the most important words she’ll ever say: Roll Tide. Al tweets @lowehuff.

Wedded Wednesday: Keep Moving by Allison Lowe Huff

My husband, Chris, and I met 10 years ago and have been married for seven. That’s… pretty weird. It seems like just yesterday I was 27, living in Dallas, Texas, in the cutest apartment of all time, still not knowing my place in the world and figuring I’d just keep on acting a fool until life’s answers miraculously fell in my lap.

When I look back, now, I can see how little, and how much, marriage has changed me.

Sometimes I wonder how we even got here, married, with a daughter, living in suburban Atlanta. Then, I remember: We decided on what seemed like a whim to move together to a new city; my father died, unexpectedly; we got married; we lost everything in a house fire; we endured more than five up and down years of infertility; we rode a financial roller coaster as Chris pursued his PhD and I lost my job; and a decade later, we adopted our daughter, back in the city where we first met.

It’s so funny now to remember my sweet naiveté as we prepared to move to Atlanta. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I remember saying to Chris that I wanted us to live a life less ordinary. Ha ha! Mark that down as a goal achieved! When I look at the above list, wow, some of it seems really hard. But, honestly, much of the darkness now reflects light. A lot of wonderful things have gone on in between the rough spots.

When we went through the fire (just give me that one), we moved with our two possessions (toothbrushes) to the suburbs to be closer to Chris’s school. Off of every highway exit in our new town were road signs reading: Keep Moving.

“That’s what we’ve got to do,” I told Chris as we looked for a new apartment. “Just keep moving until this is all behind us.”

And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve been through hard times, and never once have I thought about cutting our losses and stopping our life together. It could be a case of what didn’t kill us made us much stronger, but more than that, I think the truth of the matter is that we were fairly strong to begin with.

We make a lot of mistakes; we sometimes take each other for granted and communicate poorly. But we try, at least, to care as much about each other as we do about ourselves. That’s harder than it sounds—Chris is still working on his dissertation and more than a year after being laid off, I still don’t have a job. Fires and infertility notwithstanding, there’s no stress like money stress.

But, as always, we keep moving, keep looking ahead. We have a third member of our team, now, and we’ve got to get her to the varsity squad as best we can.