So it’s the big heart holiday and you don’t have significant other with
whom to celebrate. No boyfriend or husband. No girlfriend or wife.
How will you respond?
Will you bemoan your state of singleness and complain to all your friends
that there are no single men—at least good ones—left on the planet or choose to
trust God for his perfect timing for whatever He has for you?
Don’t get me wrong. We all have our days. Who hasn’t grumbled with the
girls about being alone? We can let our needs be known, but we don’t have to
stay in a place of despair.
We have choices.
You may want to click on my LIVING SINGLE blog post about how Cupid is a procrastinator, but God is always on time.
And, here are some other ideas:
You can choose to embrace all
kinds of love on Valentine’s Day
and celebrate the love of friends, family and others in your life. While you
may not have eros or romantic love
today, you can rejoice in the phileo
or friendship love that’s all around you.
And, of course, there’s the agape
love of The One who loves you most, the One who created you, sustains you,
provides for your needs and will never leave you: God Almighty.
Nothing compares.
You can learn to become a
woman of love. A woman of love
makes smarter choices in relationships because she loves herself, others and
God. Loving yourself means you can
be
yourself, not an exact replica of the man you’re dating.
You have enough self respect not
grovel when he says he no longer wants to go out with you. You say “no” when
you really don’t want to spend time with a guy, instead of leading him on by trying
to be nice.
You speak the truth in love (Ephesians
4:15).
You can have faith, despite your
circumstances. Faith is confidence, trust, assurance and
reliance on one who is completely reliable.
“Know therefore that the
LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a
thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” (Deuteronomy
7:9)
“One way or the other,” says
Susie Larson in
The Uncommon Woman, “You
are called to faith—the stretching, reaching, I don’t-know-if-I-can-do-this
kind of faith. And when you shift all of your hopes and dreams into the arms of
the Most High God, you will find Him faithful.”
Consider praying, even now, for the spouse God has for you. Pray
for his walk with God, that he will be a man of integrity, a man of his word,
communicate well, be loving and affectionate, or whatever you need. Ask God to
lead and guide each of you to each other—and when you do eventually meet that
He will to protect and guide your relationship.
Remember, God has good plans for
you. His word says, “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the
LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope
and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Hope is confident expectation. Whether
your life will include marriage or not, only God knows, but you can walk on
with hope knowing that He will provide for all your needs.
Eugene Peterson says, “Hoping is
not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our
boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do
what he said he will do. It is a willingness to let God do it in his way and in
his time.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
May you
have an abundance of love in your heart today and every day.
