To All The Boys I Loved Before…

Hurt people hurt people, and humans without identity or a solid understanding of love can easily tear apart the hearts of others. And at one time was me. 

I could give you a million reasons why I suffered from low self-esteem and didn't value myself, but most of those reasons are better left to an in-person conversation instead of being displayed all over the internet. This is already a heavy enough post. 

 From high school into early college, I was starving. What a long time to be hungry. I was hungry to feel valued, cherished, beautiful, loved, and wanted. I looked to others for the provision of things I lacked within myself. I looked to others to fill a deficit. 

 Learning how to give and receive love is a process and journey for everyone. In high school, my journey was in its dark ages. I was figuratively speaking "asleep." I had no sense of how to have healthy relationships and spent those four years blazing through boyfriends and leaving them dazed and confused. 

 When I tell people in my adult life about the condition of my soul in high school, people are astonished. Their eyes get big and what I'm assuming is shock spreads across their faces. The girl in my stories is unrecognizable. And I admit, sometimes thinking back on the person I was feels completely foreign to me as well. 

 But God does amazing things. He heals people beyond recognition and restores people in ways we can't even imagine. God does His best work in broken people, in broken places, with broken things. God was working on my heart. 

 Throughout college God slowly started healing my heart, which lead to healing my relationships. He taught me how to love, how to accept love, and what love actually looks like. I learned these things not from relationships I pursued in college, but from the relationship I pursued with Him. I was baptized in college and during those years I really began to learn through His example what true love looked like. 

 However, it wasn't until I hit a relationship rock bottom and gave everything I had left to God that my love life changed. It wasn't until I was only looking straight towards God that He sent my husband into my life. For our first dating anniversary, Brandon gave me a glass heart on a stand with an inscription. "It's one of my favorite Bible verses," he said as my eyes rolled over the words that had been my mantra all throughout college. God really has a way of sending you signs huh? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 

 That heart still sits on my nightstand, in the home I share with my husband and it always points me back to the greatest example of love in my life, God's love for His people. 

 To the all the boys I loved before, this is an apology. I was trying to make a recipe without having the right ingredients or even knowing what I was trying to make.  The relationship I was looking for was truly a relationship with God, and instead of seeking Him first, I looked for God in man. 

 To my husband, the last boy I'll ever love, thank you for being the man that God created you to be. You are wonderful in all your ways and I am so thankful and privileged to be your wife. 

 And to God, who loved me enough to send His only Son to die for me, thank you for showing me unconditional love every single day. 

 If you are looking for love, look inward first. Well, inward and, upward? Spend time finding out how to be a good partner before you try to be a partner. Let God guide you and shape you into the partner He designed you to be.  Have patience and allow God to mold you. Don't rush, even though it's difficult to be patient and enter into a relationship on God's time rather than your time. Root your identity in Christ instead of in another human. Read your Bible. There is no greater love story than the story about God and His people. Read about Jesus, the greatest living example of love. Let God lead your love life. He is a better captain than we could ever be.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).