Sometimes love comes around, and it knocks you down.
If I had a penny for every time I Googled ‘how to get over someone you never dated’, I would be a very wealthy woman.
Well, no, maybe not. I’d probably have enough to buy a Freddo or two at the corner shop, but you get the picture.
Call it what you want - a situationship, an ‘entanglement’, an inappropriate crush, unrequited feelings for a friend, falling in love after two months in the talking stage and a handful of great dates…only to crash hard and fast.
Disappointment is probably the hardest battle I’ve faced as a single Christian; loneliness isn’t too far behind, but we’ll talk about that one next time.
I once read a quote that described disappointment as “just the action of your brain readjusting itself to reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were”. But disappointment leaves me with more than just a migraine. It brings with it the ache in the chest and the lump in the throat as I realise what I long for hasn’t been found.
What’s worse is that if, like me, you are perpetually single, this isn’t your first rodeo. Disappointment in love is a strange and brutal beast; it never seems to get easier with practice. How many times have I prayed “Lord, if you want me to be alone, then can I at least be numb to it all?”
Unfortunately, such disappointment cannot always be avoided in this life. Real love involves real risk - Jesus demonstrated his radical love for us by risking his own life on the cross, after all. However, many times the risk doesn’t pay out the way we wished it would.
If you’re struggling with what seems like a continuous chain of painful disappointment in love and relationships, I want you to know that God sees you and that you’re not alone. What you’re feeling now is dark and crushing, but it isn’t unique to you and it certainly won’t last forever.
For now, I wish to offer three things that I’ve learnt about God through my own disappointment:
God is compassionate
I am a proud person. I like to think that I’m not, but it’s true. I know this because every time I’ve developed feelings for someone and they’re not reciprocated, I begin to scold myself - “How could I be so stupid?” “I must look like such an idiot” “I bet they think I’m such a fool for thinking it was going somewhere.”
Even worse is that I turn my voice into God’s voice. I imagine him chastising me for being the very thing he created me to be - a human being with feelings and emotions. Sometimes they can get the better of me, yes, but in those moments God is not looking to shame me. Rather, he is looking to embrace me, to remind me that I am so loved and cherished by him. He longs for his love to soothe me when human love has fallen short.
So don’t beat yourself up. It’s okay to feel things and it’s okay to feel the loss when those things don’t materialise.
God is omnipotent
There are many things that I claim I trust God to do, but secretly I’m relying on myself to make it happen. I’ll trust God for a new job, but I’ll praise my career credentials and interview technique when I’m hired. I’ll trust God for a place to live, but I’ll praise my mortgage broker and savvy savings strategy when I move in.
I’m starting to believe that this area might be the one where God wants me to learn an important lesson - that when he comes through, only he deserves the glory. Right now, asking for a partner feels like searching for water in a desert. No prospects and no leads. However, if and when God does lead me to the right person, it will be his name that I worship for providing them and not my own.
God is love
My biggest fear with disappointment is that I’ll wake up one day and no longer have the capacity to hope. After one too many let downs, I’ll simply resign myself to the belief that love is no longer worth the risk. But God is love! As an image bearer of God, I was created by love, for love, and to love. Love is a costly investment that we all hope will give us a return, but if we don’t choose to invest it - if we simply throw it in the bank to gather dust - it can never grow.
Therefore, I refuse to give in to fear and thereby cease to love. Yes, I pray for wisdom and for God to guard my heart always, but even more so I pray to love fiercely. I pray to show the world what it looks like to believe in love, as in real love and not artificial Hollywood romance.
And if again I face heartbreak, may God choose to plant the pieces in the soil of his goodness so that they can grow once more.
