I’ve actually done quite a bit of writing over the last year, mostly for work. Since this website was at one point supposed to be a portfolio, I figure I’ll cross-post some of the pieces I’ve written for anyone who’s interested.

So! Since it went live on Monday, here are my thoughts on singleness via my workplace.

4 Reasons Accountability is Critical for Singles

“It is not good for man to be alone.”

If you’re at all familiar with this verse, you’re probably used to hearing it in the context of marriage. Perhaps you’ve heard it in a sermon or during a wedding ceremony.

And if you’re living in prolonged singleness, perhaps every time you hear it, you feel somewhat less-than-sufficient for not having somebody. Or maybe the opposite is true, and you have a sense of smug superiority, and you think to yourself, “Relationships are for other people. Me? I can do it all on my own.”

But this verse is about more than marriage. Nobody, not even those who choose singleness, is ever called to do life alone. Jesus always sent the disciples out in pairs, and Paul always traveled with companions. Or consider James 5:16, which says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.”

In reality, we singles need to stick together. Those of us who live alone are especially vulnerable to temptation simply because there’s nobody there to walk in on us. So whether our temptations are to watch pornography or to waste our lives on TV or video games or to wallow in bitterness over our lack of relationships, accountability is critical for us to continue growing in Christ.

Read the rest…

Ah, what I had before. Ah, the old WasabiJane.

This is, I think, the fourth incarnation of WasabiJane. First there was the waste of a year of a paid domain name from a won bet, then there was blogger. The last incarnation was born in December 2007, when I was still trying to figure out how to systematically break things in WordPress and needed to create a portfolio site. In retrospect, I’m amazed I actually did as much as I did with it; admittedly, I didn’t update the portfolio at all (a function of a poor choice of a template), but up until about a year ago I actually blogged multiple times per month.

I could hazard a guess as to why I stopped. Life has shifted multiple times since I graduated in December 2008. In April, my boss at University Outreach and Engagement told me he couldn’t afford to renew my temp contract, and I’d be out of a job come October. In August, I started transitioning from there to doing contract work at MessageMakers (an awesome production company in Old Town, Lansing). September was consumed by a workation to Northern Wisconsin, a struggle to balance a workload for both MessageMakers and UOE, and a physical move from an apartment into the basement of some friends from church. (September was awful. I don’t recommend trying to balance that much at once without major league support.) For the next six months, life was in…well, I’d call it a holding pattern, but I’ve already seen some good growth as a direct result of it.

In short, the last 18 months or so have been like fertilizer: lots of crap, but necessary for growth.

So where am I now, and why am I actually writing here again? In April, I started a full-time position at Covenant Eyes (official title: Web Content Producer, and yes, I am working on redesigning the site). Of indirect benefit to the blog is the fact that I actually feel stable about life for the first time in a long time. I have a salaried position. I have awesome coworkers. As of two weeks ago, I have my own apartment again. I have negative space again.

The second thing that changed is that I’m back around bloggers. I mean, my desk is right next to the company blogger’s. I proofread at least five blog posts and edit one podcast a week (by the way, this week’s is particularly awesome). And at least a few coworkers have personal blogs. I’m too lazy to look any actual research up at the moment, but there’s sufficient evidence that you rise to (or sink to) the level of your peers. Now that I’m in a place where people blog, I’ll be more likely to think about blogging myself.

Hence the rebirth of WasabiJane. Expect more of what I’ve historically written, only posted more than once every four months. Oh, and probably containing 20% more rants about the porn industry.

You know, if the blog weren’t such an integral component, I’d just be doing a flash intro right now. That would be so much easier.