Here's a Love Story

As some of you may know, I am in a relationship with a really cool dude. We’ve been dating 6 months, we know everything about each other, it’s the most mature relationship you’ve ever seen, and the plan is to be engaged and married by late August 2012. With none of that sentence being true except the 6 months part, let me share what I’ve learned about dating and give you my very best relationship advice in case anyone is seeking it. The lesson that I continued (and sometimes struggled) to learn while I was completely single is the same lesson that I’m learning now that I’m dating: I need Jesus. Trusting in Jesus is really hard when you’re single. Trusting Jesus is really hard in a relationship. I think (and am pretty confident) that trusting Jesus is really hard when you’re married. Trusting in Him is also really hard when you hate your job, when you love your job, when your paycheck is enough, when your paycheck is too little, when you have a hundred friends, when you have zero friends. And that is all due to the fact that the human heart will always want more. If you’re single, maybe you want to be dating. If you’re dating, maybe all you want is that ring and it can’t come quick enough. If you want to be single the rest of your life, well, there’s a lot of other things that your heart could want. I’m not ashamed to say that at times, I let girl world get the better of me when all of my friends were starting relationships and getting engaged and married and I was like “What the world? Where is all of that fun stuff for me?” Well now I do go on fun dates with Eric. We eat really awesome food together, we play kickball and golf together, we watch basketball together and he pretends to know stuff about soccer. It’s really cool, but let me be absolutely clear in saying that my life is not complete. No relationship will ever do that. It’ll never be enough to make my heart joyful. I’ll never need a boyfriend or a marriage or 3 kids and a house the way I need Jesus. I know this because I’ve heard and seen in some ways how nothing in my life (as awesome as my life is sometimes) will last except what God did once for me. I think a lot of people see relationships as some next form or stage of maturity and I just couldn’t disagree more. If it's possible, I think I know less about relationships now that I’m actually in one, making me think that REAL maturity comes from imitating the character of Jesus. I like this way that he created humans. In HIS likeness, in His grand image so that nothing else besides Himself would ever satisfy us. Knowing that, the only thing I can ever hope to gain in this life is more of Him. I’m down with that.