I’ve been hesitant to write about boys (specifically, a boy!) and relationships because I still feel like I’m getting a hang of this whole thing myself. But I remember how encouraging and important it was to soak in words from women whose blogs and Instagrams I stumbled upon during my formative high school years, and all I can hope is to be that same light and life to another guy or girl out there on the internet. Let this be a letter not only to my single self, but to whatever part of you maybe needs to hear these words.
After being the girl who never dated anyone, you ended that streak. You started dating someone, and he’s actually pretty great 🙂 But honestly…
Being in a relationship really isn’t that different than being single
Profound stuff, I know. It sounds silly, but I was surprised at how normal my life still felt after getting into a relationship. I still had bad days, I still felt lonely and confused and happy.
But I don’t want you to try to rush through the season of singleness you’re in.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving where I’m at right now, but that doesn’t make all the times before it not as important or happy or complete.
The boys who didn’t work out or reciprocate feelings were not mistakes or shortcomings on your part.
I know the pain is real. Oh man, I remember the frenzied journal entries and stress and tears like it was yesterday. I don’t want to relive or imagine the hurt on your heart. But just because something did not work out does not mean it was your fault, or even the other person’s fault.
You don’t have to put so much pressure on these moments. They do not define you. A heartbreaking verse that comes to mind in Hosea says this:
“For she said, “I will go after my lovers,
who gave me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink…
And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
which they used for Baal.
Hosea 2:5,8
In this passage, God is comparing an unfaithful Israelite people to an unfaithful wife, but are we no different? Do you not, over and over again, seek empty and worthless things? Seek the Lord first, and I know how easy this is to say and how hard it is to actually do, because then we are seeking the source of all the things, which for Israel was physical needs like grain and wine and oil, and maybe for you looks like lasting love, peace and rest.
Oh, how my heart hurts for the lack of love, peace and rest you feel.
But the season and the struggles you are in right now are not in vain.
I know, because I now see glimpses of the fruit and the good, and the glory given to the Lord through the trials and confusion you may be feeling right now.
The lessons you are learning right now are essential. Where you are right now is essential. Keep running after the Lord, and remember and rest that your worth and your forever is in so much more than a happily ever after.
A relationship cannot and will not complete you.
I’m not writing this because I feel like I’ve reached a certain summit or like I have all the answers.
He’s not going to satisfy the desire in your soul for something more. Happiness and butterflies are temporary, and they cannot and will not sustain you.
If you hear nothing else from me today, I pray you hear this: Enjoy where you are.
I cannot stress this enough. A lot of us college-aged people, especially the Christian “ring by spring” culture, put relationships on a pedestal. I remember being you, coming into college terrified of the idea of graduating single. You felt like this meant defeat, that you are now doomed forever as “the single friend” like it’s a disease, tagging along to every wedding shower and bachelorette party, and wondering when your own will be.
If I have learned a single thing from the past 13 months of being in a relationship, it is that there is so much more to life than it.
Stop calling yourself single as if it makes you less of a person, incomplete, only a part of a whole. You are already whole, and wholly loved by God, which is cheesy and you’ve probably heard before but I’m telling you one more time because it’s true.
It’s true what the verse in Hosea said, and also what Romans 5:8 says, a verse I’ve quoted in at least 3 of my articles but hits me harder every time. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While you were still chasing after boys who do not know or appreciate your worth. While you were still despising and questioning God after another failed relationship. While you, and I still, look to anything else for the love and satisfaction we desire when God is holding out his arms and offering out his embrace.
This is the thing I’m excited for you to see, to stop buying the lie that you have to wait until you are dating/married/living in a suburb with 2 kids and a corner office to be happy. Stop chasing a fantastical dream of what relationships look like on screens or on social media.
You will eventually feel at peace and content with the truth that the Lord at every moment has you where you are supposed to be. You will learn this long before you muster up the courage to talk to the cute boy from summer camp…
And it will become, and still is, more important than the boy, and whatever is to come next.