Lately I’ve been inundated with wisdom about Christian singleness, dating and marriage. It’s the “ring before spring” season, and people are seeming to pair up faster than I can keep up. My heartstrings are being pulled as I am more aware of my singleness than ever- it’s hard not to equate it with aloneness.
As someone who has never been in a committed, long-term relationship, it’s something my heart desperately longs for. To have someone to share experiences with- someone to share my life with. Someone to have long conversations into the night with, someone who will always be there for me and encourage me in my faith. It’s hard not to idealize and romanticize, to really believe that my life would not be any better without that “special someone.”
I want romance- I want to be pursued. I want someone to want to know me deeply down to my core, and to love me despite all my little quirks and bad habits. Despite the fact that I am deeply flawed and not actually worthy of love.
I want to be known.
It really is the greatest desire of the human heart- to be known truly and loved deeply just as we are. Being loved like this will inspire us to become better, but true love never comes with that expectation. It meets us where we’re at. It reminds us that we are beautiful creations and calls out the very best in us. True love doesn’t expect us to change but it will inevitably change us as we become more of who it tells us we are.
Because God is love. In Him is perfect love, and this love sets us free- free to be who we are, who God made us to be. And guess what? We can’t find this in a person.
There is no person on earth who can love you the way you were made to be loved.
There is no person who can fill the aching hole in you that cries out to be known. No person can do that for you, except the Person of Christ.
He made you, and He knows the exact dimensions and shape of that hole. He knows just the way to satisfy you and fulfill you, if you will seek relationship with Him instead of trying to fill it with the imperfect love of other humans.
Now, all that being said, He also created us to be in relationship with others:
It is not good for man to be alone.
~Genesis 2:18
And specifically, He created Adam and Eve, male and female, to be together in a very particular and intimate way that is different from the way that they are in relationship with others.
It’s part of the design. A man leaves his family and is united with a woman, and they become one. This design reflects our relationship with God- we leave our flesh behind and become united with Him in Spirit. It’s the most intimate and beautiful relationship we could ever have: where two become one.
Of course we long for that and crave it. It seems like the answer and end to all loneliness, and it is- in God. We can find perfect intimacy and oneness with Him, and we can come very close to that with other humans, but we will never experience complete unity with other people on this side of Heaven. No one can know us and love us completely and wholly except our Creator.
As I continue to wait for my person, I do so not impatiently but relishing in the gift of singleness. I am reminded that during this season my heart can be completely His, not distracted by another person. As He pursues me and continues to draw me to Himself, He will help me to continue to become the kind of person who is able to be in a healthy relationship- one that is giving and encouraging instead of self-centered. One that is focused on Him and united in purpose. I understand that now, with more clarity than I ever have before. I can finally trust him with my relationships and longings, instead of taking matters into my own hands and winding up even more hurt and lonely.
Maybe you have been hurt in the past, and don’t believe that anyone will actually love you completely for who you are. Maybe you’ve lost hope that there is someone out there for you, that there is someone who really does want to know you and love you. It’s easy to become discouraged and to lose hope. I find myself doing that sometimes when I look around me and it seems as though everyone is in a happily committed relationship- as though all of their relational needs are being met while I am still here alone and unknown. But that isn’t the truth.
The truth is that even people who are in relationships can be lonely. I know this because I know lonely people who are in relationships. The only way to be free of the loneliness that we all feel- regardless of whether we have a significant other- is to bring our needs before the Lord. He is our comforter, lover, and best friend. He is the one who will provide us with companionship and intimacy when we feel alone, the one with whom we can share our joys and our fears, our hopes and our disappointments. He wants to be intimately involved in our lives, so much so that He gave us His Spirit. We never have to be alone.
Although there are times when I long deeply to be in a romantic relationship, I know those longings are only pointing me back to my Creator, and when the time is right, He will fulfill that desire. But for now, I continue to trust Him and lay out my life before Him. My identity is not in whether or not I am in a relationship with another person- it is in my relationship with Him.
rhythms of grace 