Not one of them can stand alone and be of any value, but let me tell you, when you put these four, little, letters together, they make something of immeasurable power. I’m sure you think you know these four letters well, but the world has a way of making them into something they are not. So just bear with me, for one, hopefully brief, blog post about love. I know how overused that word is, believe me, I’m just as sick and tired of hearing it as you are, but there’s something about it that we’ve forgotten, and as spring is pushing on toward its end, and I have yet to acquire a ring to fulfill the Christian college motto of “Ring by Spring,” I have found myself in the position of singleness- beautiful, unappreciated, devalued singleness.
I am single and in love. I am in love with being single. From the mouth of a college girl you’ve never heard those words said before I am sure, but it’s true. For the last seven to eight months, I have been on a grand search for the love of my life, and let me tell you, it is not going so well. A friend of mine and I even coined the term “Man-hunt Mondays” in which we got together and talked about everything boy related. We’d sing love songs and watch romance movies (I’m so sorry if you witnessed any of this) and I’d later write poems and make lists of qualities my dream guy would have. But praise God, hallelujah, one day I finally woke up and realized how absolutely pointless (and pathetic) this actually was.
Love has so many different stages, and I think you must first learn God’s love for the world, and His love for you specifically, but then you must learn how to love yourself, appreciate who you are as a gift and creation, and then and only then can you move forward and love another person as or even greater than yourself. Here I am thinking I know love because I’ve passed the age of eighteen, but honestly, I’m still at stage one pretending like I’m ready for stage three. Each of us is at a different place, and each of us is ready to love at different times. God has shown me recently that I’m asking for love, but I’m not ready to give equitable love in return, and that simply is not fair for the good, Godly, man I’ve been praying for.
To all my beautiful, single, female friends, and to my darn right attractive, single, male friends- do not succumb to the pressure of the ring. Let’s pull in J.R. R Tolkein and a Lord of the Rings reference- it is “precccciiiiioooouuuusssss,” that ring, so precious, that it is worth the long road you must travel down to find it. Whether you believe God has one specific person for you, or if you simply trust he has surrounded your timeline with incredible people to love, just wait. Embrace your singleness. I know, everyone around you is getting asked out, everyone is getting into a relationship, everyone is getting married before they graduate. Breathe. Pray. Purchase a couple (dozen) stressballs. You don’t have to marry the first person you crush on in college. You don’t have to marry someone in your dorm in college. You don’t have to marry someone at your college. Radical twist- you don’t have to get married. (Oh, sue me).
College is a beautiful time to grow in academic knowledge, spiritual wisdom, your (friendly only) relationships, and your relationship with God, so don’t spend four years in a race toward four letters when you don’t even know the true definition of them. Stop listening to sad love songs, stop listening to romance movies that happen only 1% of the time in real life, stop writing poems, and stop writing lists of physical qualities in a future partner (inner and spiritual quality lists are fine and even recommended *wink).
Love is so worth it. Worth waiting for. So don’t forget your value. When the guy or girl you like, likes another girl or guy, don’t forget your value. When it seems as if no guy or girl will ever like you because of how you look, remember how valuable you are in God. I’m going to take an even more radical turn here and say, stop praying for that special someone. Take some time and thank God for allowing you to be on your own, because it’s often when we are physically alone, that we remember, with God, we will never be spiritually alone. Hey, spring break is here, why don’t you take this time to discover all the beautiful things that come in being on your own- I’m not a singleness expert or anything, but I’m quite certain you’ll come up with a pretty big list.
All in all, love is powerful, and it draws you in like a magnet. But I think when you take off your worldly glasses and put on your spiritual ones, you truly see the difference in how people, and how God give definition to such a word as this.
“Love is PATIENT!!!!!, love is kind.” -1 Corinthians 13:4
Gifted & Golden 