A few nights ago I was at a birthday barbecue for one of my dear friends. There were a few different conversations going on when suddenly I overheard of another friend of mine getting engaged. Being a girl, I got incredibly excited, and then said something along the lines of “It seems like almost every day another friend is engaged, married, or pregnant! What is life!” Now in my brain, I was saying that to express how weird and cool it is that now my friends are starting to enter the marriage stage of life; we’re all growing up and that’s at once crazy and awesome. However, my friends processed that phrase as discontentment over my “single” status, and they lovingly reminded me that I have plenty of time (us single folks have never heard that before, right?). In hindsight, I see how my words could easily be interpreted as discontentment or worry, even though that wasn’t at all my thought process. (I really should probably learn to think just a few seconds longer before I speak!) This all went down in a brief thirty or forty-second window; looking back it makes me laugh, and I’m sure I was bright red trying to explain what I had actually meant.

This entire situation reminded me of something I wrote in a journal just a few weeks ago, titled “When You Let God Write Your Love Story”. I don’t remember what inspired me to write it. But let’s be honest; love crosses all of our minds now and again. And in a world where there is pressure to rush into things, have a plus one, and have your life generally figured out, I think I wrote this as a reminder to myself of why it’s worth it to trust it all to God, and how that looks different from the way the rest of the world does things. And I figured if I needed the reminder myself, I might as well share it with others; maybe someone else needs it too.

*Disclaimer: everyone’s story is different, and God uses all kinds of people and situations for His glory. This is just a picture of what I’ve seen and experienced so far, both personally and from the stories of others I respect.*

When You Let God Write Your Love Story…

• You’ll probably find yourself waiting. Alone for a season. Because He wants to show you that you are enough through Him, and He is enough for you too.
• You’ll probably find yourself confused. Seeing couples everywhere and occasionally wondering where your dance partner is at. But maybe in the confusion, He is trying to teach you the beauty of the now.
• You’ll probably be asked many a time by well-meaning people why you’re still single, or if anyone has caught your eye. Maybe it’s because He wants to begin introducing you to the value of community within your relationships, and the need for wisdom to guide you.
• You’ll probably find yourself laying down your own hopes. Wrestling with surrender. Because even though it can at times be hard, He wants to make your heart wholly His before He entrusts it to anyone else.
• You’ll probably start to find yourself focused on becoming better. Growing and learning. Because He wants you to be the best you can be not only for your someday love but also for His kingdom and His people.
• You’ll probably find yourself being drawn to a new kind of beauty. Not always on the outside, although that’s great too… but inner beauty. Because the Lord looks at the heart, and He is teaching you to do the same.
• You’ll probably find yourself thinking more long term. Not that you’ll know on a first date if you’ll marry a person, no… but maybe you’ll start to ultimately desire commitment. Because the Lord is committed to you, and He is growing that desire within you.
• You’ll probably have some hard days. When you don’t want to be confused anymore. Maybe it’s because He is developing your patience and teaching you that love waits, just as He constantly waits for us to come running back to Him.
• You’ll probably have great days. Where at last you’re released to pursue and be pursued, to love and be loved, where the pieces fall into place. And maybe because you waited on His timing, it will be that much sweeter.
• And in the end, you’ll probably say that it was all worth it. The waiting, the emotion, the slow burn and good days and bad days and everything in between. Because a love story was written by the King has to be the sweetest of all.

And at the end of the day, we aren’t promised a significant other, or a husband, or a wife. We aren’t promised relationship. But we are promised an unrelenting love from the King, and His endless pursuit of our hearts, and the coming of His kingdom. We are promised the eternal through Him because His love for us couldn't be contained in a single lifetime. And all else fades in comparison to that hope.

I don’t write this to get pity because I’m single. No, no, no. I’m actually quite content in this place and learning to embrace the freedom and growth that come from such a season. I’m also open to the possibility of the relationship whenever the Lord makes that clear. I write this with one goal in mind: to communicate to whoever is reading that trusting the future to God is worth it. He is worth it. And He alone fills you, teaches you through the good and bad, and never leaves your side.

So my friends, whether you are single, dating, engaged, married, or somewhere in the middle of all of that, I hope you trust not only your love story but your whole story to the capable and open hands of your King.

He is worth it.