Chapter 5 - Are you Date-able????

I once heard something that forever changed my view of the way that I approached finding the kind of guy I wanted to be with. “You need to be the type of person that you want to be with”. If you could fully capture this and live by it, I promise your dating life will be revolutionized! Like everything else we have talked about so far, it all starts with your self-esteem. Who are you? How much time do you spend making you a better person, a more giving and selfless person? It is so attractive to a guy when he sees a girl that is vibrant, kind, loving, considerate, and confidant. Are you that kind of girl? Don’t you want a guy that is considerate, kind, protective, respectful, and in love with Jesus? Don’t you want a solid guy? How solid are you? How loving are you? How giving are you? How considerate are you? Only you and God know your heart. I bet if you spent some significant time focusing on how wonderfully created you are, you would get lost in time and before you know it, your knight in shining armor is in front of your face! It would be a quality man because you are quality.

I see girls all the time complaining about how they always find the “losers” or the “jerks” and how they want a man that will treat them right and love the Lord. I ask where they met them and the answer is usually at a party or at a bar. They usually didn’t know them very well before they started dating and then jumped into a relationship. How can you find a good and solid relationship this way? I am not saying that it never works, but for the most part I believe that the failure rate is higher this way. Who are you as a person? How often do you spend time in prayer and the Bible? How often do you spend more time focusing on your relationship with your loving creator and less time on the relationship you don’t have or long to have with a guy? I was just thinking the other day about how the girls that aren’t searching for a guy their entire life are usually the ones that get married first. One of my best friends in high school never talked about marriage or finding “the one” and she was the first of us to get married. Same with my little sister Jamie, she never wanted a boyfriend. Every time she would get a crush on someone in high school she would “pray her crush away.” She would always say that there was no point because she wasn’t going to marry them anyway. She got engaged at 20! She wasn’t looking and it smacked her right in the face. I think its because both these girls were just focused on life and living it to its fullest so they weren’t distracted by the opposite sex. I on the other hand never talked about anything else but getting married since I could talk. I bet my first word was husband! My older sister, Julie, used to always tease me and say when I got married I would have nothing else to talk about. I really missed out on a lot in high school and college because I was so consumed with finding “the one”. I always said that I would be 25 years old with three kids. I will be 29 in two months and I do not have even a baby in my tummy. I am so thankful that the Lords will is stronger than mineJ I would have missed out on so much life and opportunity if I got married when I wanted and had kids when I wanted. I also would have married a very wrong person for me. Jason was worth the wait!!

I believe that some of you readers are really pressing in to finding who you are in Christ. You are lonely and you are wondering where that special guy is. He is there! Remember that the timing is all about the Lord knowing exactly what we need and when we need it. Do you really want something/someone that is wrong or off just to have that person??? I promise you, you don’t! I’m embarrassed to admit it, but there were several guys that I prayed would be my husband-THANK YOU JESUS for your protection!! Jason is incredible. Like earlier on when I wrote about my non-negotiable list and how Jason had everything even the bonuses! Don’t settle!!! Jesus knows what you desire and He knows what you need and He will bring it to you, all in good time. Trust me, I know it’s hard. I did not get married until I was 26 years old. That felt like 99 since I wanted it since I was out of the womb! It was so challenging to just rest in Jesus and know that He had my mate out there, the timing was just wrong. I have now been married for over two years and it has flown by! I have the majority of my life to share with Jason. I just wish I had enjoyed my time without Jason more. Marriage is amazing, but my memories of my single life are that I was always looking and longing for a man. That is no way to live! Live in the present and live it to its fullest! You will never get today back!! I will leave you with this thought on the subject: God created you, knows you, and loves you. He will take care of you, please don’t get impatient and settle. There is no greater disservice to yourself, your spouse, or your kids. Hold out!

Before I end this chapter, while we are on the subject of dating I want to take a few minutes to discuss the importance of purity. Now please trust me, I know how fun it is to make out. I know how fun it is to do things that we know that we are not supposed to do. I just want you to think about whether or not you want your future husband to be doing the things you are doing with other girls that are not you? How much more special is it to say to your spouse that you saved yourself for them?? It is such an amazing and beautiful thing that the world has tainted and distorted. The main thing that I learned from not being the most pure girl ever in my dating life is that it gives you false preconceived ideas of how it is going to be when you get married. I gave so much of myself away to the wrong guys just to fulfill a longing or because they told me they loved me, or they told me I was pretty. I lost pieces of me that could belong to just Jason because I did not value purity and self control. I challenge you, no matter how difficult it seems or how much he says he loves you, HOLD OUT! If he really loves you, he will value you and respect God-given boundaries. I promise it will make your wedding bed so much more special. Once you get physically intimate it really takes the relationship to the next level. You will grow more attached which isn’t always a good thing, you will be prone to get way more hurt when things don’t work out because you gave so much of yourself to him. The heart is fragile and it is your responsibility to take care of it. Don’t give your heart out on a golden platter. Guard it and make that God-honoring man work for it. And then your first night married you can hand it over and trust him to take care of it. Not only does it jack us girls up when we are impure, but emotionally there is also physical consequences that can take place. I doubt any of you want an STD or that any of you want to be a single mother. I think you would be surprised to find out how often these things happen. We are fortunate to have a God that loves us and is full of grace, mercy, and redemption, but it is still a process of healing to get to the other side of these consequences.