Why You Should Stop Waiting.

I guess you could call me the odd one. 

I decided a long time ago that I was okay with being single.

And it wasn’t one of those deals you make with God when you’re ready for love so you pretend to content, like some kind of reverse psychology. (Side note: those tricks don’t work on God.)

I was genuinely okay with it. I used to have the list, the Future Husband List, perfectly manicured with all of the best traits. And two things happened. 1. I met a guy who seemed to fit the bill, but he was never interested in me. 2. I met no one else who met the requirements.

I’d wish and wait for a man to take me on adventures, someone to just do the simplest of things with. And I couldn’t understand why God didn’t get that, why He couldn’t just give me this one little thing. I wanted a man so we could pursue His will together. I wanted a man that I could come alongside in God’s plan for his life. I envisioned him doing ministry and me being the perfect, supportive wife.

That’s the life I was begging God for. I wanted Him to bring the man into my life so we could get started already. Didn’t He understand that it was all for Him? Why was it taking so long?

And I felt God clearly speak to me. You’re waiting for a man to start living a purpose but I want you to seek what I’ve made YOU to do.

I was placing my identity in serving as a wife someday. I was forgetting that I had time, right now, to serve God in a million little ways that had nothing to do with being a wife.

It’s like something in me awakened. Suddenly, the search for the perfect man to start the perfect ministry was the farthest thing from my mind.

I just wanted to awaken to the way He could use ME.

I stopped worrying about the List and started pursuing the woman He created me to be.

I wasn’t searching for the Man of My Dreams because I was too busy digging up the dreams He’d planted in my heart.

I didn’t care about Mr. Right because I knew nothing mattered if my heart wasn’t right with my Creator.

And girls, that journey has been so sweet. To stop searching for for fulfillment and love from a guy. To stop waiting for a man for my life to start. To seek Christ and the Word, to grow as a disciple and a follower of His way.

That journey is not always easy. I think coming to terms with God’s unfailing love for the you He created can be far rockier than the search for love on the outside. But goodness, do I see the fruit of it.

Slowly but surely I gained assurance of who He made me to be and what He’s called me to do, how He has specifically wired me to live and the ways He’s made me to pour out His love.

I let myself be loved by the One who calls me fearfully and wonderfully made by allowing myself to become the girl He intended me to be. Regardless of my relationship status.

I now understand that love begins and ends with Him. That He is the first and true lover of my soul and I will only ever be truly content when He is my place of rest and refuge. Who I am at my core has everything to do with Christ and the love He poured out on the cross.  Everything I do is anchored in the way He loves me and the relationship I cultivate with Him.

And I’m so glad God doesn’t look at me with a list of must-haves. The more I learn about His love, the less I hold to my high, Instagram-fed standards of what love and relationships should look like.

Girls, I cannot tell you the value in this. If you feel tired of waiting, use that time to discover God’s unique purpose for you. If you feel wrapped up in your future identity as a wife, maybe God wants you to get aquatinted with your true identity in Him first. If you feel like you’re missing out on love, I promise you, you’re not. Maybe God wants to draw you close so He can teach what true love is. Not only to know what it feels like, but to know how to give it.

Because it’s right here. And you can’t truly love someone else until you know that love that made you. You can’t truly be loved my someone else until you sink deep into the the unconditional love that never fails.

Seek Him, loves. You are not waiting for love to come because it already has. This is not a time of waiting. This is a time of living, of discovering the specific ways He wants you to love the world. 

Let go of that list and just get lost in loving and being loved.

I promise you it’s worth it.