celebrate love.

it's february, which (for most) means one thing: valentine's day. for me, it means girl scout cookies, which are 10x better because flowers wilt and die & sometimes you bite into a chocolate that has nasty filling. i know what i'm getting with thin mints: bliss.

i used to loathe the day of love. i walked around with a scowl and rolled my eyes at anything that resembled love or hearts or cupid. my mama used to warn me when we'd go into walmart, "amber, their valentine's items are out now. behave yourself." no joke, i was a hater. 

i changed my tune a couple years ago. basically i decided to stop feeling sorry for myself. i focused my energy on hating v-day so much that i was missing the blessings of love i currently had in my life: my Savior, my parents, my brother, my friends... the list goes on.

being single in today's society has become a 'thing'. i feel like so many girls have this assumption that their life begins when they get married; that the ultimate goal is to have a husband, children, and a house with a white picket fence. it's great to have dreams and desires, but when they take the place of Jesus, it becomes an idol. a boyfriend won't cure your loneliness and a husband won't take all your problems away. only Jesus can do that. His love will sustain you and satisfy you.

there are so many how-to articles for single girls. most of them make me want to throw up because they're written by women who got married between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. they end their "five tips to being single" articles with something like,

"honey. just keep waiting. i know how you feel."

. . . . you know how i feel?! you got married at nineteen... i'm twenty-seven. how the heck do you know how it feels to go through an extra eight years of your life as a single woman? to watch friend after friend get engaged and married? to get the sympathetic pat on the shoulder and some quip about how God has a man for me? to be labeled as that girl in her late twenties who still isn't married and is probably days away from owning twenty-nine cats? oh wait, that's right... you DO NOT know how that feels. so please don't come at me with that mess.

all da single ladies, listen. instead of wasting your time watching the seconds that you are not married tick away, get out and LIVE YOUR LIFE. if you are constantly focused on finding a husband - honey, get a grip. if it's supposed to happen, IT WILL. faith in God is not only trusting in Him, but in His timing as well. just because you don't have a significant other doesn't mean you aren't significant.

please don't think i have it all together though. i am human - i have days when i think it sucks to be single. i can't open facebook without a picture of a left hand adorned with a sparkly ring or a cute pregnancy announcement greeting my eyes. yep, sometimes IT SUCKS. but marriage is not something i take lightly. i have shifted my thinking from waiting on a husband to the notion that if i can better serve God with a boyfriend right now, i'd have one. if He wanted me to be married, i'd have a ring on my finger. in the meantime, i want to live my life; i don't want to waste my energy on things i have no control over. i will not let society and clueless bloggers manipulate me into thinking i have to be at a certain cultural level by a specific time in my life. this is exactly where i am supposed to be. if marriage is in God's plan for me, then so be it. 
if not, that's okay, too. in the words of horatio spafford, whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul. 

this valentine's day, i choose to celebrate love -- in whatever form it comes.