Love is kind of my thing. I blog about it, I speak about it, I counsel about it. But for the past three years, I haven't had the courage to share this part of my life about love.
Not anymore.
I believe that everything in this life happens for a reason. I believe that God has a unique plan for every human being's life and that even in the mistakes or wrong choices made by our free will, He still works all things for good for those who love and follow Him and that He redeems our mistakes.
I believe that everyone who crosses our path is put in our life for a reason. But I also believe that not everyone is meant to stay in our lives forever. And this is something that I'm slowly having to learn in this season of life.
Because you see, I've been in love before. In infatuation once; in love twice in my lifetime so far. Because I've never been in a relationship before doesn't mean that I've never been in love. I've fallen in love with two young men in the past three years. One love had three years to take root; the other was only just beginning to bloom. To some, three years might seem like a very short time, as if my heart falls easily in love and out of love from one man to the next. But really, it doesn't. In the past three years, my life changed drastically. I walked away from my career plans, I graduated high school, I worked as a nanny, I learned how to be a church preschool teacher and grew into that role, I lost friends and I made even closer friendships, I earned my driver's license, I owned my first car, I got my first full-time job and in a month received my first promotion, I traveled on my own for the first time, I left everything I knew to work on a missions base, I lived outside of my parents' home temporarily, and now I'm about to move to Hawaii on my own. Three years has been a long time for me in this point of my life. My heart is particular actually about who it falls in love with (with my brain's consent, of course). And though I've fallen in love twice, I've yet to fall out of love once yet.
Both young men were wonderful strong men of God who I admired and respected. They both inspired me in my own relationship with the Lord. These were men with whom, had circumstances been different, I would've considered entering into a serious relationship. I have no regrets. I'll probably never know if my affection was fully returned or not, nor does it matter. But they're both still in my life. They've moved into different seasons of their lives now. So have I. We've moved into different places of our lives and our paths have gone in different directions. And that's okay.
But that hasn't changed the fact that I still care for them both very dearly. They're both different and they both hold a special place in my heart. And I learned valuable lessons from the two of them.
From one, I learned how to love. That was the most pure, fearless, unconditional love that I still have ever had for anyone. It was my first love. That innocent, wide-eyed, whole-hearted girlish love. I watched as it turned from a teenager's blind affection, bordering obsession into the deeper, mature, much wiser love of a woman, and I learned the difference between the two. It was a love that grew and changed with me as I stepped into adulthood. I learned the difference of infatuation and of being in love. Oh, young love- the wonder of it! I learned from mistakes made. I learned the importance of communication, granting the benefit of the doubt, and of learning how to fight well. I learned the heartbreak of distance. I learned the power of words. I learned that love should never be chased and I learned that so much can be said in the silence between two people in a room. I learned how to forgive and how to heal. I learned that apologies don't automatically fix everything. I learned of my own stubbornness and pride, and I learned how to say "I'm sorry" and to admit my wrongs, how to take responsibilty for my part of blame. I learned how to love myself first and how to date myself. I learned the power of prayer and of genuine surrender to the Lord.
And from the other, I learned how to be in the moment. How to let loose and just be. I learned how to release stress and anxiety and need for control and how to just trust the Lord. One day at a time. I learned how I should be treated by a man and that I'm worth being treated well. I learned the importance of being respected and supported in love. I learned that differences are to be appreciated and that love doesn't look rationally at differences in language or culture or background. I learned of my fears and insecurities now in love and how to trust again. I learned that contrary to what fairytales tell us, you can fall in love more than once in a lifetime and that someday, I'm going to be a wonderful girlfriend, lifelong companion, helpmate, and fellow prayer warrior. I learned that I am enough just as the person that I am, not by my career or by the things that I do. I learned the power and influence of a quiet, feminine presence and of a good listener. I learned the joy of travel and I learned that the world is much smaller than I used to think it was as a girl. And I learned that there's more to a relationship than romantic love: I learned the importance also of being good friends. The importance of friendship in a relationship, of being with someone who you can talk to about anything, who you don't feel a need to impress, who you can have fun with going to the grocery store, and whose company you never tire of.
From them both, I grew and I learned and I became who I am today where I am today. I learned that love sometimes has an expiration date. I believe that God brings people into our lives for us to love. Maybe romantically, sometimes platonically. But people who we're meant to love. People who I believe are instrumental parts of His plans for us individually. But sometimes, those loves aren't meant to be in our lives forever. Their time in our life is for but a season and that season has a very determined end. And I've learned that if we try to force that love to last past its due time in our lives, we only ruin the beauty of it by trying to make permanent something that the Lord only intended to be temporary.
My love life hasn't been as three years ago, I would've imagined it to be at twenty-one-years-old. The man I marry someday won't be the first love that my heart has known, he won't be the first man I've offered my heart to, and he won't take me on my first date. Those are things that I can never get back to give to my future husband with my purity and virginity someday. It's not what I had always planned. But I'd be lying to say that I'm entirely sorry for that because instead, I can offer him a heart that through it all has learned how to love well now and how to choose love.
Some days I wish I could say that love fades away with time. That distance makes the heart forget. But for me it hasn't in either case. I still love both of those two young men. I'm still in love with them. Maybe I always will be to an extent. I don't know. For now, I'm okay with that. I know that they'll be in my life for many more years to come and I'm proud of the men that they are and what they're accomplishing in their lives, and I'm proud to say that I once loved them dearly and that I still care for them. I'm so thankful for them both, for the memories I have with them, and for the role they played in my life in their due season. I'm grateful for the privilege to have been able to love them. But I'm also learning that there comes a time, a time when people have changed and life has moved on, when you must accept that the season of those loves has expired and that it's time to let them go.
And that is true love.
Loving enough that when you know the time has come, you release them from your heart to go and do and be all who God created them to be, following the path that He has for their life. Even when it leads them far away from you.
We like to think that love and friendships last forever. But they don't. Not always. Some things simply are not meant to last forever. They're in our lives to teach us and grow us and then to move on. And sometimes we're left to ask "Why?" Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes maybe we never will. But that isn't our place. I've felt loss and loneliness, I've shed many a tear, and I've learned through it all that we're tasked not to have the answers, but to trust in our omniscient God Who works all things for good and Who still has a good plan in every testing and blessing of our lives that is ultimately for crafting us to imitate His holiness and goodness and for the greatest glory of His name. He is still a good Father worthy of worship and praise more than we could ever give Him.
Maybe you agree with my sentiment. Maybe you don't. And if you don't, that's okay. I didn't use to believe it until I found myself walking through these experiences in my own life. Maybe there's a person right now who you know deep in your heart has reached the end of their time in your life. A person who you know you have to let go of now and that by holding on, you're only prolonging the inevitable. It's okay. It's scary, I know. It's hard letting go of people you love dearly. But letting go doesn't mean that your love wasn't valid, that it wasn't of value, and that it wasn't real. Letting go means that you love them well, and that's the greatest gift we could ever give someone. The gift of unconditional love. We cannot go through life with fists tightened grasping those we love close to our hearts. That's only fear and control and selfishness. All we have is to be placed in the hands of God, including those we love most. Hands open, holding lightly. And if someday, He reveals that it's time to let those people go, we trust. We let go with no regrets. For everybody who entires our life for us to love, be it for a season or for eternity, is a part of our story for a reason. So we learn, we grow, and we love well with abandon, trusting that whatever will come, whatever will be, is all part of a beautiful plan woven by a God Who holds heaven and earth in the palm of His hands and is creating a masterpiece of our lives day by day.
Fellow single ladies, I get it. Love is scary. I'm with you on that. We live in a crazy world that is utterly confused on the difference between love and lust and sex. I don't believe in casual relationships and I do believe in guarding our hearts. I do. But I believe also that guarding our hearts is not the same as locking our hearts in a cold box and storing them away in the darkest corner of our lives. I've done that. And I found that a loveless life is a joyless life. Guard your love, but don't be afraid of it. Through the laughter and tears, the joy and the pain, love in every form is beautiful and is a treasured gift from the One Who is love Himself (1Jn 4:8) and has given us the greatest love of all eternity.
I choose to love and to love well.
