Almost every day, it seems I scroll through my various social media to find my news feed riddled with diamond rings, wedding dresses and pregnancy announcements. In the few oases of respite I find status updates commenting on the sheer number of engagements, weddings, and kids. I'm at that age; this is the norm. But in the midst of all the romantic narratives, I see certain phrases repeated: "I've found the one!" "So glad he's my soulmate <3 <3" Hm.

Every girl, I’m sure, goes through the phase when she wants to meet her soulmate, her Prince Charming, her knight in shining armor who will sweep her off her feet and ride with her off into the sunset. I was there for the longest time. And it’s even worse, I think, for young Christian girls – “God’s made somebody special just for you,” as if God is some Almighty Matchmaker who makes people in incomplete halves.

I think the idea of one person on the entire planet who will be the only love of your life and a perfect fit is an impossible, idealistic fantasy made to take the pressure off us as individuals. When a relationship doesn’t work out, it makes us feel so much better to think “Well, he just wasn’t the one I was meant to be with” rather than consider the idea that maybe we (or they) weren’t ready or right for the kind of relationship demanded with so-and-so.

I’ve seen and had relationships end because one simply wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. Some people like to date for fun, and that’s perfectly alright – dating is supposed to be fun. I was never that kind of person; always the introvert, I never wanted to open up to someone and spend time with someone if I didn’t think I could spend the rest of my life with him. That, of course, set up a lot of potential boyfriends for immediate failure, for the simple reason that I myself was not ready for a marriage.

I truly believe that God has a plan for every one of His children. There’s the life plan that He may want to happen, and the one He knows will happen. So people happen to meet their spouses in their small rural hometown because God put them there – but just because you and another person go well together does not mean that he’s the only person you could ever marry, or that it will work out. Relationships, and whether or not they work out, have a lot to do with how the individuals involved feel about themselves. I’ve seen people who have closed themselves off to the world and their own emotions, who believe blunt, borderline-hateful truth is the best kind of honesty, and who honestly believe that God has created a “perfect man” just for them. And it was watching these people that made me realize that I couldn’t expect my future husband to accept, for example, that I have trouble communicating, and that I would have to be open and vulnerable to ever reach the level of closeness I would need from a spouse.

“Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
–C.S. Lewis

Building the ideal “One” is dangerous and will kill any possible marriage you may have. I’ve had friends obsessed with finding the One, so much so that they convince themselves they aren’t complete or happy without having a significant other. Now, there’s a reason we don’t feel complete – we need God in our lives. We need that relationship more desperately than any other. If we have God, we don’t need someone else. That being said, today’s media forces young girls (and perhaps young men as well – but I can’t speak from personal experience) to build their ideal Prince Charming Soulmate. We have to toss that ideal aside, because no one can live up to it.

When people believe that there is a perfect soulmate out there, it sets any potential suitor up for inescapable failure. No one can be perfect. People are flawed and they’ll consistently mess things up. It takes someone who knows themselves and has a good relationship with God to be able to truly forgive the mistakes and bad days that come about in any relationship.

Because even though God may, in fact, create someone for us, we always have the ability to turn them down, to turn them away, and to mess things up. Face it: God has given us the choice to choose whether or not we believe in Him and choose to follow Him. That ball is in our court. If the King of Kings has decided to give us free will in something as important as eternity, what makes us think He would take that free will away in something as relatively insignificant as a marriage? Many Christians remain single. God doesn’t design people inherently in need of another person. He designs them inherently in need of Him.

If we truly trust God, then we trust His plan for our lives. But though He may have a plan, He won’t force it upon us. We can choose. That’s the frightening beauty of it. So know yourself and know God. God may introduce someone into our lives, but we still have to put forth the effort to make it work.