This Valentine's Day I've got a strange bit of heaviness in my heart.
Now, to be fair, I've been married just under a year and a half now, so this year, for the second time in my life (34 years, y'all!), I will not be alone on Valentine's day. I have a husband I absolutely adore and we will be together.
But, of course, I remember those pre-marriage Valentine's Days. Whether I admitted it then or not, those days always stung. Maybe that's the case for you today.
I see you.
I can't count the number of times I've sat across the table from a sweet, beautiful, Jesus-loving, all around stand up young lady with tears in her eyes. Although I do sometimes have that affect on people, the tears I'm talking about here are tears of loneliness. Tears that fall freely at the thought that "happily ever after" has not arrived, and may in fact not be coming.
And so today, this dreaded day of hearts, I've come here with a heart full of love to say to you, single girls:
There is nothing wrong with you.
I know, I know, I really and truly know from the most honest of places, the lies that go through your head. The lie that you're not the kind of girl guys are looking for, that maybe you're not worth being pursued, that you're somehow fatally flawed.
I know this because it hasn't been long since those tear-filled eyes belonged to me.
I spent my 20's and early 30's regularly phasing in and out contentedness and longing. There were times when those seasons of longing stretched on endlessly.
In one such season I remember sitting on my front porch in the pitch black night, kids in bed, drink in hand, with my best friend by my side. "I'm going to be alone forever," I said, quite out of nowhere. The words just seemed to fly out of my mouth without my permission and then hung there in the thick humid air. Try as she may, I could not be convinced otherwise.
And then of course, add to my drama that I was a single mother of two. I'd been warned multiple times during both adoption processes to literally kiss my chances goodbye. "No one will want you now," I'd been told. (How's that for encouraging?)
It was all too easy to think I'd been passed over because no one could want a single mother of kids with special needs.
But that wasn't the only lie that would taunt me. Nope, of course it didn't stop there.
You're not pretty enough.
Or thin enough.
You talk too much.
You're a handful.
Your job is intimidating.
You're getting old. You've missed your chance.
Sound familiar? I'm guessing some of you have been there.
Can I tell you something? Actually a few true things to combat the lies.
First, I need you to know, to
really know, that you are precious. You are lovely. You are enough. That is a fact. God is not holding out on you. And He is certainly not cruelly dangling marriage out in front of you, just out of your reach, because He's waiting for you to be perfectly content in Him. That's not a real thing.
Secondly, it also seems to be true (by my humble observation and limited research) that we Christian women outnumber our Christian male counterparts. I don't think you're imagining things. There really does seem to be more of us than there are of them. Frustrating and unfair, I know. But this is why, for good reason, you continue to wait. Do you want to enter into a lifetime, covenant relationship with someone who doesn't share the most important and only eternal part of your DNA? Likely not. Which leads me to...
True thing number 3. Girl, you do not have to settle. (I know this one from experience.) Again, do you want to spend
the rest of your life with a partner who has no desire to chase after the things of God? Right this very minute, just as you are, you have the freedom to follow the Holy Spirit in all things, even if that means its just you and Him for a while. See the world. Share the gospel. Change somebody's life. Do something brave. Make a dream come true. Allow the Spirit to help you find a new dream! I don't think you'll regret your time together.
Date or no date, get out there and love and be loved this Valentine's Day.
Hold your head high. There is
nothing wrong with you.
Lots of love to all of you.
