Urban Dictionary describes a hopeless romantic as someone who is “in love with love.” I think that’s pretty accurate. We love the idea of finding “The One,” getting married, settling down, and starting a family. We believe John Lennon when he says that love is all we need. We’re a little less concerned with the logistics of adulthood, but you can bet we’ve got our entire wedding planned and our future children named. We are the daydreamers, the idealists, the sentimentalists. We are the hopeless romantics.

But hopeless romanticism is more than just butterflies and chick flicks. This world that we live in is a harsh one. It is a world that is cold and dark. It will laugh at your dreams and it will tell you to grow up. I guess they call it hopeless for a reason.

My advice to you is this: don’t listen. Have the courage to hold tight to your dreams. Have the courage to wait for someone who makes your heart sing. Have the courage to imagine a future in which you are happy and fulfilled. But beware, my friend. Beware of the expectations. Beware of the romcoms and the romance novels. Beware of the “love” that is easy and hardship-free, because that’s not what love is. Take it from an eight-year-old little boy named Ben: “Love feels almost like you’ll never be lonely…True love is like a mixture of friendship, appreciation, and happiness.” All you little eight-year-old girls better watch out; Ben knows what’s up.

So hold out for your love like Ellie and Carl, hold out for your Topanga and Corey, hold out for your Marshmallow and Lillypad, but let go of Romeo and Juliette, let go of Edward and Bella, let go of Prince Charming and please for the love of God let go of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. Let go of perfection, because even “the One” will make mistakes. And above all else, hold out for what God has planned for you, because no amount of Disney-influenced daydreaming could ever predict the wonderful things that the Almighty has in mind for you. Hold onto the promises of Jeremiah 29:11. He knows the plans he has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Hold onto that.

Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.

–Marc Hack