Our Mission

I rarely found satisfactory answers from singleness books, the church, other singles, or concerned family and friends.

But when I went to God, I was surprised that he could handle my hard questions. Even the ones where I was trying to use his Word against him.

Sometimes, he didn’t answer the question I was asking but a deeper one I wasn’t. Others, he answered in a way that removed the need for the answer I was demanding.

Slowly and methodically, over more than 20 years, he laid all my fears to rest and quieted all my objections. Facing these questions head-on with God transformed me from hurting, doubting, and desperate to relaxed, self-confident, and believing in God’s goodness, no matter what.

I enjoyed ministering to other singles with the comfort I had received. But I never dreamed that one day, I would marry a man who would join me in that work.

Jason and I quickly saw that we enjoyed working together. I could easily relate to so many of the women’s struggles. Jason brought fresh, male insight the women appreciated. My perspective, too, was more well-rounded having experienced marriage and singleness.

One day, I told Jason that I had always wanted to write a book containing lessons the Lord had taught me, many of which we touched on in our singleness work. “You should!” he responded. “You don’t have anything else going on.”

(We had one baby at that point, and I was six months pregnant with our second.)

With Jason’s support, I started writing. And writing. And having babies. And writing some more. Now, at last, after three children, we gave birth to a book.

When we first started hosting groups of single women for dinner and discussion, I didn’t feel I would have much to offer. In fact, I was resistant to even being present. My background was working with men, not women. And the topics we discussed were related to recovery and men’s struggles, not singleness. Plus, I thought I would only hinder the women from opening up. I was surprised when Erin told me that the women would want to hear my opinion.

As our groups organically progressed, I saw that Erin was right. My presence didn’t seem to impede the group discussion at all. Actually, most of the questions were directed at me! I suppose that makes sense. I wouldn’t care as much about what another single man was thinking. I was already living that. I would be more interested in learning about the female perspective.

As time went on, I began to see that my own recovery work and the work I had done with men was not as unrelated as I had thought. The spiritual issues underlying these ladies’ struggles were the same as those of us men. They just manifested differently.

I thought we had a great thing going until we casually talked to an acquaintance who is a major publisher about what we were doing: “Oh, great,” he scoffed, “a singleness book by two married people.”

For a minute, I believed him. Then I thought, Actually, who better to write to singles desiring a quality marriage than those who have experienced that same outcome themselves? What lessons did they learn? What steps did they take? What strategies should I emulate and which should I avoid?

We decided to stay the course. Besides, we are not following this path out of conventional wisdom but out of joyful obedience to God’s call. We don’t know where we are going or when we’ll get there. But we do know who we are following.