I just read a disturbing Facebook post.  It was a screenshot of a Facebook post of a single mother choosing to give, what looked like in the picture, her four-year-old son over to foster care because, among other reasons, she was “tired of being lonely”.  My heart hurts too much to think on this that it may be more than a bogus post.  But, we live in an “all about me” kinda society these days that for it to be true would not be a stretch.  How could she possibly be lonely with this adorable little guy to share her life with?  If the post is true, then she is lonely because she has bought into the lie that we will only be complete with an adult companion to share our life with.  “You complete me” and “Someday my prince will come” ring in the ears of so many young (and older) women.

I bought the line.  Hook, line, AND sinker.  When a great guy came along in my early twenties and opened the car door and bought me roses and treated me nice and… well, three months later asked me to marry him, he HAD to be my prince, right?  He was a great guy.  So I immediately said yes and ran to the alter within the month.  Three years later walking out of the courthouse with divorce papers proved I was wrong.  It didn’t really take THAT long.  A month later after “I do”…I didn’t.  I knew I had mistaken prince charming as the “end all to beat all” completeness of my life right away, that nice as he was, he was not who I should have chosen to partner with in life but I had been raised that marriage was for a lifetime and was determined to make my mistake work out.  The decision to end my marriage is another story for another day.

“You complete me”… words us women are taught to long for.  If only we could encourage each other to strive to be the best version of us, to seek out the places in life we are to linger and grow, to serve the purposes we are created for and then, if someone enters our life and wants to journey through it together until the end, they will receive a whole person, not one seeking their other half.  Like many others the “Do you have a boyfriend?”and “When are you getting married?” were the questions that flowed so freely and made me continually ask questions of myself “Why don’t I have a boyfriend?”, “Why doesn’t he want to marry me?”. Then, I made a hasty decision and mistook what I thought was love for the idea of being in love.  I didn’t realize it at the time I said “I do” but I had settled…settled for being with the wrong person because the alternative of being alone was not an option I thought I had or wanted.

Eventually, I did marry for all the right reasons.  Recently, I shared with my daughters how excruciating it was many years ago to initially turn down their Daddy’s invitations to go out on a date.  I was then in my mid-twenties and was trying to reprogram my thoughts on singleness and marriage.  I was striving to figure out who I was alone and to be content with me as that person.  I told him I wanted to be with him because I wanted to be with HIM, not because I didn’t want to be alone and needed time to get to that place.  Eventually, I reached the place I was striving for and accepted their Daddy’s date requests and ultimately, his proposal of marriage.  But, even in the midst of over twenty years of marriage, I find it still takes intentionality, on each of our parts, to be who we are as individuals so that we can flourish as a couple.

My hope is that I am teaching my girls to figure out who they are, what they enjoy, what they dislike.  I have always chosen my words “IF you marry someday…” not “WHEN”.  My heart’s desire is that they choose contentment in their lives, not because of who they share it with, not due to what possessions they acquire, not because of the career or status they achieve but because they seek out their Creator and His plan in each and every day of their lives. The only “happily ever after” we are promised doesn’t come in this short season of life but in the eternity that waits ahead.