Yesterday I looked hella good. I was wearing a gorgeous midi (calf-length) dark blue tutu with a black shirt tucked in to it. The red ends of my hair looked vibrant and my new necklace tied the whole get-up together. I needed someone, anyone, to take a picture of my outfit so I could show the world. One of my friends tried. But the photos got deleted from my phone before I could share them. As I was pouting about the pictures that had gone missing I looked up and saw the most beautiful, rustic building. (Silly, I know, but bear with me). I didn't have anyone in the car with me, it was just me and my fab outfit in my Prius. BUT LUCKILY There is a handy little aspect on cameras called "self-timer" mode. I set my self-timer for ten seconds, propped it up against my door handle, and ran quickly to the building. My camera took a burst of 10 shots. The first three were stunning. (the last seven were literally just me pulling up my skirt, wiping my nose and walking back to my car). Yesterday I learned a lesson about being single. And it is that I'm getting pretty dang good at it. There are VERY FEW things I know or understand better than being single. You could say I am more qualified to speak on this topic than any other. Here’s why: I can count in a peace sign how many boyfriends I have had. I dated my first boyfriend during my sophomore year of high school. He and I went on three dates. The first was bird watching with his mom so you can imagine how the other two dates went. I dated with my second boyfriend just this past year. We dated three months, long distance, and went on two official dates. So… if you're keeping up… Four fingers and a thumb. One hand. Yep. One hand covers how many dates I have been on in my 24 years of life. Now I know y’all remember Homecoming week in high school. The dress up days, a pep assembly with the marching band, the Friday night football game, and a big huge dance at the end of the week. It's a big deal to have a date and get a fancy dress and to have a date and to get your nails done and to have a date and to make a reservation at an IHop and make sure to have a date because you need to have a date. Such a weird, awkward tension to sit on. Due to what I believe was a clerical error, I was chosen as a member on the Homecoming Court. I wasn’t really popular. I wasn’t on the dance team or cheerleading squad, the basketball or volleyball team. I wasn’t dating a cute football player. I was just the loud cymbal player in the marching band. I was just the kid who was in every club. I was just the swimmer that was as fast as Michael Phelps’s (dog). Y’all, I was just plain nice. I found out I was on the homecoming court four weeks out from the big dance. I waited and waited and waited and waited for literally ANYONE to ask me to be their date. No one ever asked. At the time, I was absolutely devastated. I remember looking down the decked out hallway HUGE stars with the names of the other members of the homecoming court and their dates written in beautiful script. My name, lonely, took up the entire star. A few hours before the dance started a very nice freshman boy I had known from student senate told me he would go with me so we scribbled his name at the very bottom of the star. He is still in my phone as “Tanner Da Date.” Such a sweet dude. The night ended up being just fine. I went with my best friends and I had a blast. I didn’t have to dance weird and got to leave whenever I dang well pleased. Graduation from high school came and I was given the honor to speak to my peers about memories we all shared. I sat on the front stage as 210 of my classmates walked in front of my eyes. And you know what? I knew every, single person that passed in front of my eyes. God has given me the gift of making and keeping relationships, loving and truly knowing people. But only in the capacity of friendships it seems. The next fall I chose to go to a Christian college in Missouri. Before I went I was warned: you will come back married. Everyone gets married there. Another term for Bible college is “Bridal college.” This is the kind of place where there are unspoken rules about walking around the campus with the opposite sex. If you walked around with them more than once you were already married with four kids. I was asked multiple times if I was there to work on my MRS degree. Now this is not a commentary on every student at this particular school (just most) and it is certainly not a comment on the professor’s stance on dating. In fact, I know most profs want to bust that myth. I was at this college for five years. Ten whole semesters. And I did not get asked out ONCE. I am not going to lie. It was hard watching most of my friends go on a lot dates, many of those friends getting engaged, and married. All the while not even one person was interested in pursuing me. Here I was, with some of the most incredible men I have ever known in a large group, all single. And none of them wanted me… Mol… the funny girl… I pretended most of the time like I didn’t care. I didn’t want to date anyone anyway. But that simply wasn't the truth. If a man, a Christ-following man would just link to me, maybe I would be more effective in ministry, maybe I could be a dainty little wife and mom like I thought I was supposed to be. I actually cared a lot that no one seemed interested and… sometimes I really wondered what was wrong with me.in His armsHowever, (and this is a big however,) it was during that time I learned so much about myself and about how to minister to the broken well instead of taking the time to learn about how to date, about how to be married, how to be a wife, and a mother. I got to devote my time to the Lord instead of to a man. It was in those five years I learned how to truly love myself. I have dozens and dozens of deep friendships that have come out of my years at school. I developed an event for people with intellectual and physical disabilities to meet new friends. I met four or five women and one brother that will be my forever best friends. I am reminded, yet again, that God gave me a gift to love and cherish people, to pursue friendships and people for everything they are worth. But again, only in the form of platonic friendships. But again, I say, It was in those five years I learned how to truly love myself. Mark 12:31 says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” There is no greater commandment than this. Many people seem to focus on the first part, “you shall love your neighbor…” I have heard hundreds of sermons about loving your neighbor well. And, to be honest, I am actually willing to bet that we are not awful at that. We, do, however, seem to be in the habit of completely abandoning the second half of that verse. Over and over and over I hear young people, precious children of God, tearing themselves apart. I hear words of destruction boiling over their mouths. As a kid, when I would make fun of myself, my mom would scold me saying that I was spitting in the face of God. What an imagery, me, spitting in my heavenly, holy Father’s face. It makes me shutter thinking about it. Such an act of disrespect. But she was absolutely right, when we say something that tears ourselves down, we are saying that we are not enough. That Genesis 1:27 is garbage. It is not worth it’s weight. And that the Creator of the universe made a mistake when He crafted you. We MUST learn how much our God loves us, we must learn how beautiful we are to our Savior. And we must learn that BECAUSE He loves us so much, we also must love ourselves. God does not make mistakes. We must learn to love ourselves before we can learn to love someone else. Period. If resting in the Spirit instead of a boyfriend’s arms has taught me one thing, it is that I am enough. Guys- YOU are a child of God and you are ENOUGH. Girls- YOU are a child of God and you are ENOUGH. I am a child of God. |
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