"Your true love will always come for you."
Perhaps that sentence makes you smile in amusement, like it first did me. Or maybe you rolled your eyes in sarcasm. Maybe it brought back painful memories of a past relationship."True love?" You might be thinking, "Prince Charmings and knights in shining armor belong in fairy tales and movies. This is the real world."
Well, I'm here to tell you that your Prince does exist.
Firstly, your Prince. How do you imagine him? Strong, handsome, and dashing to your rescue? Maybe gentle, steady, a man of integrity. Or perhaps you lean more towards the rugged type -- a bit rough from working hard, and sporting a beard. Maybe you could care less what he looks like as long as he loves you more than anything else in the world.
Let me share with you a bit of my own story...
I was around my Prince all my life, but never really fell in love until I was halfway through my teens. He'd been with me through life's joys, and through life's heartaches. He tried to comfort me during my rebellious years, but I insisted on being alone and the last thing I wanted was his advice. He was spoken highly of by my parents, especially my mother, who encouraged me to pursue a relationship. He tried talking to me many times, and I began getting frustrated. He was not the Prince Charming I wanted, and I had no interest in a relationship. I started doing everything I could to avoid contact with him. Sometimes I couldn't avoid him, so I could shut him out and look the other way. When Mom talked to me about letting him back into my life, I would leave the room. I was convinced a different Prince was out there for me, and I wouldn't listen to a work otherwise.
A couple years passed by and my anger and rebellion deepened, and still I shut out my Prince. He never got frustrated with me, and he never stopped trying to reach me. Every now and then he would knock on my door, asking me to open it, but I ignored him. Then one day, I realized I was tired or being angry. I was tired of fighting, I was sad and weary of my self-isolation, but I didn't know how to get out of it, or where to turn. Then a familiar knock sounded on the door. Tears filled my eyes as I suddenly saw all his faithful efforts that I had turned my back on these past years, and I felt ashamed. I now knew I needed someone to share with, to hold me. And I knew I needed to open the door. I hesitated a minute, then threw doubt aside and I opened that door, letting my Prince into my life. I knew I didn't deserve Him. I had treated Him so badly for so long and still He forgave me and told me He loved me. He's not Prince Charming, He's the Prince of Peace, Jesus, and it's because of Him that I have the hope of a Happily Ever After.
You didn't see that one coming, did you?
Before going further, let me say that no, I am not one of those girls who doesn't care for relationships and says "Jesus is all you need!" I watch Pride&Prejudice and other chick flicks, I dream of getting married and yes, there are guys I like, but when I really thought about it, I realized that it is possible for me to live without a Prince Charming in my life and still be happy and content. I used to feel scared even to the point of feeling lightheaded, when I thought of going through life without a "true love" to be there to hold me. I can't count the times through my teen years that I wasted time crying my eyes out that I didn't have a boyfriend, that I thought I wasn't pretty and that no one would ever want me for a wife. And that's exactly what it was: wasted time. I was depressed a lot because I didn't have a guy right then when I wanted one (ridiculous, really, considering I was barely 16 years old at the time!), but it was in recent years, that God showed me that I don't need a boyfriend in order to be happy and fulfilled. And He showed me that I had been placing a higher value on the love of a fellow fallen human, instead of the love of my Savior who died for me. What could be more important than the love of the One who created me, dying on a cross so that I could one day be with Him in paradise! And I was ignoring that and instead placing that importance on something else that I wanted.
The moment we let our happiness become dependent on the fulfillment of our
earthly desires, is the moment we are saying to God,
"You are not enough."
It is not wrong to desire a relationship with another human being. What is wrong is to let that desire become more of a focus than our relationship with God is. I still want to be married one day, that longing did not go away after coming to these conclusions. What it did do was settle down into a better perspective, and that perspective is that God will always be my #1 priority, and if I want a Happily Ever After, I need to leave it in His hands, and let Him do the work in my life that He desires.
In His Love,
Shannon
