All that you need will surely come

[Truly Madly Deeply, Cascada]

Per my promise (particularly for those who replied) here are my thoughts on the whole loving and losing love situation.

Have you ever seen the What Hurts the Most video by Rascal Flatts? That's what I am scared of feeling, that devastation. Losing the love of your life (they're teens, but you know) affects so many aspects. The time you spent with him, the way you relate to your friends, the way you see the places you were together so differently once he's no longer there... it all just seems so painful. To look at your future, where you always saw him, and now it just seems... empty.

I felt that way at first when I started thinking about all of this. How much I'd hurt, how I could try to live on and love, how I could pick up the pieces, how I could try to let the Lord heal me. Then it hit me that there's just way too much "I" in all of that.

A while back a friend and I were talking about relationships. I've changed a lot since my "Notice me- love me- validate me" years. I have determined that I don't want to waste a second on a guy unless he's "the one". I just don't want to let anyone even remotely close to my heart unless he's the man God has prepared for me- and prepared me for. I remember when I was a teenager, and I had this vision of sorts (maybe you remember this, Darla; it was actually on our trip back from Camp Utmost). I imagined that the Lord took all of my emotions and thoughts and love (and physical purity) that females normally spend on a man (or boys) and He put them in a heart shaped box, and locked it. He then held onto the key. I understood that only the man to whom Christ gives the key to my heart will unlock all of those things.

Since then I've tried to put my heart out there once or twice. Well, twice actually. I tried to be like, "Look!! I'm pretty sure you have the key!!" But the Lord was faithful to guard my heart and kept those two guys a safe distance away.

I remain convinced that one man will one day have access to all of the love I have in me. I am a treasure. I am to be honored and loved. I spent so much time trying to get those guys to fall in love with me, but I only want one man to ever have any of my energies focused on him that way again, and I will marry him. It's absolutely crucial that this man pursues me- that he's absolutely amazed that a woman like me exists. That he's not sure how his life was complete before he found me. I'm not saying that I think I am the most incredible woman in the world, but my man will. I feel really weird saying all of that, but I know it's true.

So, that said, I realized something- the man I am in love with will be so happy that he found me, and feel so blessed that God intended me for him. He'll have insurmountable happiness. Together we'll be able to serve our Christ in a way that we could not when we were single. The Lord will use us. And if for any reason God's will is for my "one" to die young, then even though I will hurt in the ensuing years, I'll always know that he died after living a life of joy and filled with blessings because I was in it.

That's my conclusion- it's not about me. When that incredibly, wonderful man that my God intends to unite me with comes into my life, I need to love him fiercely and never take a moment for granted, dying to myself and putting him first, whether we have five years or fifty to spend together.

I don't know what it feels like to be in love, but I still think Alfred Lord Tennyson got it right when he said:

Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

That's really all I have to say about that. Reply at will.