The Dating Manifesto

** Update: drawing is complete. Candy S, you are the winner! Please see comments for info on contacting me so I can send your prize!**



Want to hear something ironic? For 34 years, I was single and read books about marriage. Now I'm married and just finished reading a book on singleness.

What!?

When I was single, I was desperate to understand marriage. I was a faithful student, both of observation and book-study, deeply and truly desiring to understand everything I could about how to be a God-centered wife and how to cultivate an equally God-centered marriage. I'm grateful, now, that I pushed through the stings that came with reading about a season I didn't know if I'd ever get to experience. I'm grateful I studied hard then so I can apply the principles now.

But as you know, my heart is so very tender toward those who still wait for marriage. I have not forgotten the hurt, even in my season of answered prayer, and I want to make sure I don't lose touch with the realities of the single life - especially for those who, like me, deeply desire marriage.

So...I was intrigued by the title of a new book {it actually releases THIS Saturday, August 1} called The Dating Manifesto, by Lisa Anderson. Lisa writes from her own experiences, since she's single and in her early forties, but she also writes from her observations of the twenties and thirties crowd, which she works with at Focus on the Family.

I also think there is a distinct possibility that Lisa and I are secret sisters, because her mom was 42 when she was born {mine was 41 when I was born}...she has a secret affinity for Gaither music {mine is not so secret, but it's an undeniable affinity!!}...and we both graduated with English-y liberal arts degrees and no clue of what we wanted to do when we grew up.

I thought, when I started reading, that Lisa probably wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know, because, hello!!!!, I was single for most of my life. Well...I was wrong. It turns out that my careful study of marriage during all those single years puts me squarely in the category of "marriage nerd." Lisa's experience with the 20's and 30's crew has taught her that they live in an entirely different mindset than I did, and it absolutely flabbergasted me. I sat back, pen and church bulletin {for OCD straight lines under words} in hand and began to learn what's really happening in the hearts and minds of those coming behind me.

If you are single...and you are in your 20's and 30's especially...I have a feeling the advice Lisa gives will be really helpful. If you are married and/or a marriage nerd like I am, I have a feeling the information Lisa unfolds within the pages will be very eye-opening and equally helpful for you.

Here is a sample of truths I learned within the pages:

* A surprising number of single people want to get married, but it's not something they envision as happening in their immediate future. {This rocked my thoughts, because I wanted to get married starting at age four, and my ideal marriage age was five. Good thing I didn't know I had almost 30 years to go.}

* An equally surprising number of single people do not know how to go about dating. The combination of book and movie scripts that portray unrealistic scenes and timelines, along with a severe lack of example thanks to the haphazard examples offered by parents and peers has wreaked a havoc I did not know existed. Guys and girls alike, Lisa says, do not know how to go about finding, asking for, accepting, or behaving on a date. Because of this, pages of this book are devoted to explaining the basic steps of dating...things I learned from people within my life, but things too many today have never been taught.

* Single people in this decade and century are overwhelmed and overstimulated by the sheer volume of options. Whether they're part of a massive college campus, an oversized church with a mega-sized singles group, or enrollment in every single online dating service, they've got so many options in front of them...they end up with no options. Lisa hints that in this respect, our parents and grandparents before us actually had it easier. A smaller pool of options forced them to focus and pick someone.

* I should have recognized this, after eleven years of working on a college campus, but I had not realized the diagnosis of eternal adolescence plaguing those in their 20's and 30's. Too many of them are choosing to pursue degree after degree after degree because they don't know what they want to do, they don't want to worry about finding a job, and they don't {in short} know how to grow up. They end up deeply in debt, living back at home with their parents, and prolonging adolescence, because they're scared of adulthood, they don't know how to plunge into it, and no one is making them try. That, in turn, keeps them from finding marriages and lives of their own.

Fascinating information that I truly did not know...and I'm grateful to have learned it. I'm grateful to better understand how to serve those in this season of life, especially when many handle it differently than I did.

I will tell you, truthfully, I did not agree with every single point she made. And to be fair, the points I didn't agree with probably had more to do with a difference in our personalities {she's far bolder and more outspoken than I ever will be} or our lifestyle based on where we live {she lives in Colorado Springs, so she has a much more big-city mindset than my middle-of-nowhere-in-the-Midwest thoughts.} The areas where I disagreed were not areas of theology, biblical truth, or anything that made me want to throw the book down in disgust or scribble enraged rebuttals in the margin {sadly, I have done both of those with other books}. They were just differences in opinion that I noted as I read.

Having said that, she did have some beautiful thoughts that I underlined in a hurry:

Don't let what you never experienced taint your understanding of what could be.

One-sided relationships aren't relationships; they're fantasies.

You need to be smart while simultaneously trusting God.

Being choosy gets you nowhere if you never actually choose. 

I'm not less because I'm single. I'm not incomplete. I'm not forgotten, judged, or living under a death sentence.

No season is better than another. God doesn't love married people more.

So many more good lines bear black ink under them in my copy of this book. I'm grateful Lisa  realized, as she said in the acknowledgements, "This book finally became the monkey on my back that I had to either shake off or put in print." She speaks important truths here that those desiring marriage and those of us praying for them should read and know.

Exciting news about this book: the folks at David C. Cook and the Blythe Daniel Agency sent a complimentary copy to me to read, which is how I was able to tell you my thoughts on the book, but they also sent along an extra copy for me to give away! So it's a rare giveaway sort of day here on the old blogaroonie! If you're single and interested in learning more of Lisa's thoughts on pursuing marriage with a purpose, or if you're married but work with single people at church, in mentoring, in parenting...in whatever, just leave a comment letting me know you'd like to be entered in the drawing and I will draw on FRIDAY, July 31, right before I go to bed. {That gives you the whole day!}