I look around and many times, maybe too many times, I see young women searching for true love. I see them looking for their own true life love story, one they can begin living right now. Not in the future, but right now.
That’s not all bad. Don’t get me wrong. I certainly believe we were designed with relationships in mind, so I don’t want any young ladies feeling guilty about that. Or older ladies for that matter. I don’t think the desire for love is all our own doing. I believe it was placed there. It wasn’t placed in everyone, but for the majority it sits in your heart like a seedling starting to sprout. It’s just waiting for a little sunshine and water to make it grow.
Aside from the large number of women looking for love I also see some broken hearts along the way. I am witness to the pining of love lost. Apparently true love. For instance, if you can make it a day without seeing someone post on Facebook weepy lyrics to a love song after their ultimate and unexpected break-up then you may only have twenty people on your friends list. It seems that broken hearts abound.
I thought of my own love story, a true life love story. Many people know it. Some don’t. But even more probably don’t know the entire story.
My husband and I have been married for four years. We started dating sixteen years ago. In fact, he proposed fifteen years ago. I guess I’ve always decided to do things a different way than most, and I suppose so has he. It wasn’t our intention in the beginning for our life together to take the path it did, but it did.
When we were teenagers we fell madly in love. We especially thought so at the time, having never experienced such a powerful emotion with another person. We were in love. We knew we’d get married. We talked about our children we would have. We talked of our dreams for the future. We discussed what we felt like God had planned for us as a couple. I dreamed of the ministry we would have together; him leading worship with his guitar and me… Well, doing something. I knew God would show me my talent one day. I wasn’t sure exactly what I could do well, but I knew who I would be doing it with. My true love of course. I never doubted for a minute that he was “the one,” the one man that God had in mind just for me. Isn’t that exciting?
It certainly was. For a time. Then it wasn’t. Then my dreams crashed down on me. I found myself in the “heartbroken girl” role. We broke-up, our relationship ended, and I was devastated. That’s actually putting it mildly. I can recall my mother wanting to put me on an antidepressant because all I did was mope around.
I was stunned. I was in shock as to how and why my true life love story had reached an end. I had been so sure that he was the all elusive “one,” the man God intended for me. When he wasn’t I didn’t know how to react. I prayed, and I mean I prayed. A lot. All the time. I asked God why. I cried to God. I yelled at Him too. I asked Him to just tell me already if Ben was the one or not!
He surprised me when He said, “Yes. He is.” I couldn’t wrap my head around that at all. If he was to be my husband then what was going on?! How could we get married if we were apart?!
I tried and tried to figure it out, but I just couldn’t. And since I couldn’t see the how or why or even the when, I decided I must have it all wrong. I decided I must not be hearing God right. Then I told myself that maybe I never had.
I was hurt, I was mad, and I was beyond confused. I decided the best bet was to run away. I didn’t just run away from home, or from Mississippi. I also ran away from God. I don’t want to make it sound like our break-up was the sole cause of my rift with The Lord. That would be grossly inaccurate. It wasn’t the only reason. There were many. Too many to say in one post. At the time I felt I obviously had no clear picture on what He was trying to do in my life. I didn’t think I could hear His voice, so I stopped listening. Not all at once. Sometimes you may meander away rather than running. When you do it slowly like that you hardly notice, and when you finally do you feel it’s too late to turn back.
You would be surprised how quickly a decade can pass. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe you know exactly what I mean. So much had happened between the two of us, but not between the two of us. What I’m saying is separately we had lived entirely separate lives. We had forged into new relationships. We had experienced happiness, sadness, success, and failure. A lot can happen in ten years. But I still remember the day I first saw him again it was almost like not even a minute had passed.
He looked into my eyes, my broken, sad eyes, and he knew me still. I had experienced rocky changes in my life that brought me back. Back home. Back to Mississippi. It would also be the beginning of coming on back to God. The good Lord had been with me the whole time. I’m just not sure I began to realize that until my true love stared into my soul and said questioningly, “you ok?” He just somehow knew I wasn’t. But I guess he also knew that one day I would be. One day I would be ok. One day I’d be just fine.
When I wrote above about the sprouted seed I thought immediately of my three year old. We recently planted some daisies. They started as tiny seeds that we sprouted in the rich soil. Every day she would ask me, “have my flowers grown Momma?!” She would ask to be lifted up level with the kitchen window sill so she could glimpse the progress.
Each day she’s been disappointed. She wants to see flowers, wild daisies like the picture that came with the kit show they should look. I read the instructions and told her it would take at least three weeks. “That’s too long!” she moaned.
I think we’re all a little like that, or maybe a lot, when it comes to relationships. We see a picture or read a manual representing what love will look like when it blooms for us. That gets us really excited and we end up pretty eager for the desired outcome. What we may not always realize right away is that sometimes the most beautiful things in life take time to grow into what we desire.
It’s hard sometimes to remember that if God promises you a garden and puts the desire within you for it then He will bring it forth. He will. It just may not bloom when we think it should. It doesn’t mean it’s not promised anymore. It just may not come the way you envisioned or in a timetable that suits your impatient heart.
It means He will give you the desires of your heart. They may change along the way. Or like in my case, He may bring you back to it at the perfect time, the right time.
He brought me right back to where He had promised, but that was just the beginning.
To be continued…