Becoming Someone Worth Finding

Some of the best advice that I have gotten about relationships, courting and marriage has been pretty simple: become someone worth finding. Everyone wants to find that one special person to spend the rest of their life with. We spend so much time analyzing that person and going through their nuiances with a fine tooth comb that we often neglect the most important critical analysis in the whole equation...ourselves. After putting this person through the ringer and our own checklist of must have qualities, do we stop and ask ourselves if we measure up to their expectations? Are we even someone that they would want to spend the rest of their life with?

Every relationship starts with a healthy you. It's our job to deal with our own hangups, hurts, and issues before entertaining the idea of becoming someone's significant other. It's never the job of a man to heal a woman's broken heart and insecurities. Those are repairs that only God can do with perfection. When I decided to follow Christ wholeheartedly, I knew that I had to leave guys behind for a while because I had about 28 years worth of wounds and scars that needed time to heal. I would be doing a guy a complete injustice if I were to enter any relationship knowing I could never give him my whole heart because parts of it still belongs with so many other people from my past. I knew I was not someone worth finding at that point.

I can officially say that I am at a point where I know who I am in Christ. I am firm in what I believe and what I will never compromise on. I love me enough to know that I refuse to settle for anything less that God's absolute best for me. If that means, I am single longer than most, it's not the end of the world. I have a passion for God's Kingdom and the lost who are far from Him. I have a heart for the body of Christ and I serve faithfully. I will be the first to admit that I have some insecurities but I will never allow the enemy to exploit my weak areas because my faith in God and my identity rooted in my Savior will always triumph.

Talking with a friend about a guy she likes made me even more aware of just how far I have come. After asking her those tough questions (Where are you in your relationship with Christ? Are you persuing your passions? What is God's purpose for your life? Have you dealt with your own insecurities and past hurts?) and seeing that she is still struggling with finding her own way, it made it even more clear about how important it is love yourself and to know the love of God. I knew her main purpose for our talk was about how to deal with the "notice" phase of a relationship, but I could not in good conscience let that be the focus and neglect where own personal and spiritual well-being. Too many relationships start when we are not even at our best selves. People spend so much time and energy trying to be with someone instead of learning to be happy in their own skin. I'm not anti-relationships but I am very pro-healthy and whole lives. Woman want the guy to meet all these benchmarks on their list never realizing that she doesn't quite measure up herself.

If he needs to have a great relationship with God, so do you.
If he needs to love children, so do you.
If he needs to be good with money, so do you.
If he needs to know what he wants to be doing in 5 years, so do you.
If he needs to have good morals and values, so do you.
If he needs to have boundaries, so do you.
If he needs to respect you, so do you.

I firmly believe that no man or woman should be in a position to make someone happy. That expectation is too unrealistic and unhealthy. No one should have that much control over your emotional well-being. Your significant other should add onto the happiness that you already have in your fulfilled, purposeful, and passion filled life. Together, you will both travel down the same path together, becoming better as a unit, operating in the calling that God has for you as that unit. Sometimes people think that my idea of God center relationships are a little far reaching and almost unrealistic, but I know my God well enough to know that He writes stories like this everyday. Nothing is impossible for Him and He takes delight in showing His majesty and power in the form of a healthy, godly relationship.