My 20’s were sprinkled with a few relationships and a whole lot of one hit wonders. A few relationships were serious and looked like they were moving towards marriage, but the Lord was always guiding me and showed me when to end things, even though it sometimes took me longer to hear Him. Some days I was thriving and other days were just tough. Through it all, the Lord was teaching me and growing me. As I grew I in intimacy with the Lord, I began to enjoy my time as a single woman.
I like to say that when it rains it pours when it comes to dating, does anyone else feel like this? One week you have 3 potentials and then you have a 6 month dry spell. After a particularly “rainy season” of short attempts at dating and just not feeling like anything was right, I decided that I would not go on a date until AFTER I turned 30. Gasp. Don’t panic this was just 5 months away. But with 30 creeping up on me, this felt huge. I had started to feel the ticking on the clock and this overwhelming need to find someone. My break was my attempt to take control and say “I’m not WAITING for anything to happen and I am CHOOSING to be single as I turn 30.” This little commitment I made did so much to free me from the pressure that I was putting on myself! I’ll be honest, I was seriously wondering about how I was going to tell my many suitors that I wouldn’t be dating for a while. Well would you believe it, but not one guy asked me out. Once my ego was healed I realized that this was all God’s doing. There were even a few times that a friend told me “SO and so is interested and he is going to ask you out!” and I wondered how in the world was God going to work this out, but He did and the guys never asked me out. I mean, really, I have BIG God stuff going on here ;)
What was I doing with all this free time and most importantly “free from guys” mindspace? I was reading through the Bible. Once I got to the Gospels I decided to slow down and began to really study it, because, I thought, these are Jesus’ words so it’s got to be pretty important. Y’all, it was amazing. If there is one thing I would recommend to anyone desiring to grow spiritually, it would be to go all the way through the Bible. Reading it through helped me to grow in ways that I never had before. And it was the time that the Lord spoke a lot of the truth to me that is written in the devotional. Disclaimer: the message of my devotional is not necessarily to stop dating, but if you are in a place like I was, just exhausted from the process and trying to figure out relationships, then I would definitely recommend taking some time to step away from dating and purposefully spend it growing in the Lord and just reading. Read the Bible. Read Books. Just read! Use all that extra headspace for good!
So what happened when my birthday rolled around??? Actually a couple things happened. Literally just a few days later was when I decided to write “Wholeheartedly” and it opened my eyes up to a purpose that the Lord had for me. Even the process of just writing the devotional for me was an especially intimate and worshipful time with the Lord. Then, just a week and half later, I met someone pretty special, who I now call my husband. He is a picture of Christ that I never expected a man to display and I waited for this man.
Now, let me be the first to say that I don’t think my break was a magic formula for landing a man… because it’s not. But it did give God a chance to work. I minimized the distractions and pursued Him wholeheartedly. In turn, I got to see a lot of cool things that He was doing and how God was weaving everything together. But believe me… there were many years where I didn’t have a clue what the purpose was for things that I was going on. 
There will come a time when you will be able to see the full picture, and recognize how everything is a part of God’s plan. It sure did for me.
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