Q+A: will i ever find someone to share my life with?

Dear Diane, Will I ever find someone to share my life with?

I am getting older and I feel like I will never find "the one", I'm not even dating... Is there something wrong with me?  Why do I have the desire in my heart to marry and start a family?

I have been trying to be patient and I pray about it a lot, but I feel like my life is going nowhere.  Don't get me wrong I love where I am in life (lots of friends, finally finding the right church, two good jobs, love for missions and travel which I get to do every year) but I feel like something is missing.

I love reading your blog, you inspire me.

Thanks for sharing your life.

Dear friend,

I love your questions and the passion I hear emanating from your words!  Yet at the same time there seem to be some underlying misunderstandings that I’d love to help you address. Let’s start at the top.

Will I ever find someone to share my life with?

It is my firm belief that it is a mistake for a woman to spend her learning, growing, independent years “finding” a husband. Instead, this is an invaluable season to find your own self!

Who are you? What do you love? What fills you with energy? What/Who drains you? How are you best suited to serve the Savior?

These are years of growing into the beauty for which God created you. Years for becoming lovely in every way.

The Bible tells the story of God presenting Eve to Adam as the perfect counterpart to make up for his lack. Adam responded to God’s gift of beauty and Eve responded to Adam’s response.

No one was finding or frantically searching or fretting about their impossible list of idealistic expectations. Adam was doing his job of identifying creation and Eve was simply being her beautiful self.

Take some time to read Isaac and Rebekah’s love story in Genesis chapter 24. Rebekah was doing her job— drawing water from the village well. Isaac’s emissary (remember this was an arranged marriage) prayed specifically for a quality he knew would be essential for Isaac’s success— enthusiastic helpfulness.

Isaac needed a woman to come alongside him and serve wholeheartedly and energetically. Rebekah met those criteria. Notice how often in the text it is noted that Rebekah responded “quickly”. She “ran” to the well to get more water. She volunteered to help without being asked. She enthusiastically invited the man home to meet her family. Rebekah was a woman ready and eager and willing and full of life!

She had the remarkable confidence to hop on the back of a camel and venture off to marry a man she had only heard about.

Now, I am not advocating whirlwind, cross-country romances by any means! Theirs was a different day entirely. But learn from Rebekah’s readiness. Admire her confidence. Emulate her energetic working for the good of others.

And don’t overlook Genesis 24:16. “…and the girl was very beautiful.”

Now, before anyone get all in a dither about outward appearance not mattering and men shouldn’t be so focused on what a woman looks like, etc, etc, etc, let me explain something I’ve observed.

Men are attracted to beauty. They always have been, they always will be. It is unrealistic for a woman to ignore a man’s desire for a beautiful wife. What is unrealistic is our culture’s insistence on a narrow definition of what beauty is.

God made every woman with a unique beauty. It is our responsibility to take care of what He made, to cultivate our beauty. By stewarding our bodies well (aka eating healthy, exercising, staying reasonably fit, smelling fresh, etc.) and developing healthy relationships, and by creating beauty everywhere we go, and growing more and more intimate with the Savior, we take on the beauty He intended for us.

All those qualities are apparent in Rebekah’s story.

So my advice to you is simple: be beautiful.

In God’s time, He may bring someone across your daily path who delights in your beauty, someone who needs what you have to offer, someone who will move heaven and earth to make sure he’s up for the challenge of loving you the way God intended you to be loved.

And that, my friends, is worth waiting for!

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. I’ll be addressing the whole idea of “the one” in a coming post…