When will I meet you, or have we already met?

When will I see you looking back at me knowing you feel the same?

When will I know how it feels to hold  your hand?

When will you put your arm around me, signifying to the world I am yours?

When will we sit in comfortable silence, simply enjoying each others company?

When will I know that you are the one?

When will I be able to look back and say ‘it was worth the wait’?

When will I wear a white dress on that day I always dreamed of?

When will we live life together?

When?

O.k. so I am a girl, I think ahead and often dream of the future and sometimes it can get so frustrating waiting for the ‘right’ timing. It’s so easy to look at what others have and think that that which I long for, may never actually happen.

Looking at my past there is a string of events that has caused much damage in my view of self-worth. The sum of it all is that often I feel like I am not pretty enough, or don’t have the right body type, or am nothing special. Why would a guy fall in love with me, and if he happened to be deceived long enough to do so, there is no way he could truly discover the real me and still love me. BUT there is something really important I have slowly begun to discover. Everything about me of which I am self-conscious about really does not matter. I am made exactly as I am for a purpose, and I have begun the journey of loving myself in a true unconditional way.

As the saying goes, “you can’t expect someone else to love you, if you don’t love yourself.” I have realized that there is a reason I must wait for my ‘true love.’ It is because on this journey of learning to love myself, I am in turn opening myself up to one day be loved by the one I am waiting for.

Though it frustrates me having to see the bigger picture and having to be patient, I would not have it any other way. I want to wait for ‘true love’ to surprise me when I am good and ready.

I think a huge thing that inhabits a girls thoughts is marriage, boys, and that fairy tale we all have a dream of at one point in our lives. The big thing we can struggle with is the fact of loneliness and wanting that perfect man. One of our biggest weaknesses is chick flicks! Those cursed movies like PS I Love you, making us want that cute little Irish man to sing to us and make our lives perfect! We love them because they are gorgeous men we can’t seem to have, but we hate them because we never get them. Sometimes, some of us jump into this depressed phase of thinking we are not good enough to have a man, and then self-issues jump in. It doesn’t seem too much so, but boys and wanting a perfect man has so much to do with our inner and outer beauty!

You see, it falls into two categories. The first one may as well be outer beauty; this consists of thinking we are not pretty enough for the guy, or how other girls are more pretty and more likely to get this guy. But it goes both ways, we can look at it as us being superficial about the boy as well. So often you hear people say, “Oh they look so cute together”, or “Yes, they are a very good looking couple…” And so we jump into categorizing it. This guy won’t like me because I’m not blonde, or I’m he’s too skinny. We start looking at our friends who are in relationships or getting married, and we automatically see their outer beauty. We think that that is why they are ahead of this “game” and we are lagging behind.

Another thing we fall hard for, is to do with out inner beauty; this is more about self-issues and confidence. Maybe I’m not grown up enough, maybe I’m too serious. I shouldn’t act this way, or I should start acting this way… We conform ourselves to fit this ‘idea’ of perfect woman and in the end we just become horrible. Some times the reason why we can’t get the guy because of who we are is maybe we aren’t meant to be…

A lot of it has to do with who and timing. It could be just the wrong guy, I mean we have powerful crushes in our loves, but are they the one destined to us? The compatible one? Or maybe we are not ready at this time (or he is not), so we don’t even think to wait. We seem to desire more of what is not obtainable, the ‘right now’!

How do we stay content, how do we become that independent woman (at least for the time being)? There are many ways to do this, but two main ones come to mind. The first one would be thinking about us! That can usually come off very egotistic, but if thought right it isn’t. More so thinking about our independence, our abilities our dreams… things we can do while waiting for the perfect man. Maybe an ideal job to achieve, school to graduate, places to visit in the world; goals to set that don’t seem to stress us out as much.

Another thing to do is to focus on God. This is not a Christian site, but a Christian based site, and so I have to bring this up briefly for all the Christian girls waiting for their God-given man. Maybe concentrate more on his will for us, the ministry he wants us to complete, and even just loving him and letting him satisfy us.

Christian or not, the best relationship seems to pop up when it’s a surprise! Even if you hate surprises, you’ll love this one. Timing is key, and it’s always different. Men can be a want, but they don’t have to be a need! Love will come, just wait…

TLW

(True Love Waits)

1 Corinthians 13:4-12

Your inner beauty is the most important beauty you possess. You’ve heard this a million times before, I’m sure. This message can be found everywhere, especially in the clichés “It’s what’s on the inside that counts” or “don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Even though this idea is so widespread, we certainly don’t believe it and certainly do not play it out in our actions. Level with me for a minute. When you see someone who doesn’t fit the mainstream conception of beauty what is your first reaction? Is it, “I would really like to get to know that person and see their inner beauty”? No. Chances are your first reaction is to pity this person because you think that they will never measure up. Chances are, you have also thought that you will never measure up.

The world tells us that we should find our purpose in the pursuit of happiness. We feel like everyone else has found the key to this happiness and wonder why we can’t be like them. In reality, we are all simply looking to be told that we are worth something. We are looking to affirm that at the core of our being, we have value. However, the question of our worth can not be answered by anyone or anything around you. No one can love you enough to affirm your self worth. No relationship will fill that part deep within you, that part that whispers, “Am I enough?”

So why will we not believe it when others tell us we’re beautiful? Why are encouraging words from friends not enough? It’s because our misconceptions of ourselves are too deep for these words to penetrate. There’s a difference between hearing words and believing from the core of our being they are true. To begin to believe we must first discover the truth for ourselves. The quest for the realization of our beauty is an ongoing process which in essence can never be completed. We will continue to accept new lies as truth because each lie we are faced with is stronger and more convincing then the last. No one can convince you you’re beautiful inside and out, you must learn to recognize this truth for yourself.

So why do we place so much pressure on each other to try to live up to societies standards? By judging each other with these unrealistic expectations we create a negative perception of what a girl has to be. Because of this, the beauty that originates within all of us has been distorted leaving us with faltering confidence and damaged ideas of self-worth. Somewhere along the line this distortion eventually becomes what we perceive as the truth. The ability to recognize this is not an easy task but imagine what our world would be like if we learned to recognize not only our own beauty but the beauty found in every human. We must look past all the false remedies such as diets, makeup, the newest “self-help” book, etc and learn how to recognize the truth this world has desperately tried to mutilate.

A slideshow in a pdf. format expressing the beauty of a woman.