It’s morning and I want more than anything to choose life, to choose me. I have a pain in my heart, a pain I don’t know how to heal. I’m torn….

When I was a little child I needed to be loved accepted and kept safe. I was born in circumstances where I couldn’t be, I spent my whole life battling the thought, ‘if my own parents couldn’t love me enough to choose me…what does that say about me.’ And really what would it have looked like to be chosen? What does it look like…?

I have no relationship with my father or any male father/uncle figure in my life. I’m struggling to build a relationship with my mother and have no other parental relationships. I’m almost 30 and I’m just trying to parent myself, parent my children and figure it all out. Maybe I’m complicating things for myself but this is where I’m at.

I live in a world divided, my faith tells me to stay holy and sanctified, to find a godly man and get married, but before I do, do not engage in premarital sex. The world around me tells me I will meet a guy, he will be attracted to me, we will get intimate and together ‘get to know each other’ eventually we will go our separate ways and if we are lucky 4 or 5 years later we will get married.

And then I meet him, he’s handsome, he makes me smile, we chat and he makes me comfortable. I develop feelings for him, he is around, he wants to be with me every day, he wants to cuddle, he want to be intimate…I’m torn.

And then the shoe drops, he’s got a girlfriend…no he’s seeing someone, it’s not that serious, no wait they just getting to know each other. He just really enjoys my company and wants to see where it goes, why worry about this other person…

As if that wasn’t enough here comes the knife through the heart, I’m such a calm understanding person he feels like he can talk to me about anything, he’s honest, very honest, he tells me about her, talks about her effortlessly, now I know something she doesn’t, does that make me special… no it just means I bear the responsibility of this whole mess, I can’t be hurt because he’s honest with me. I can’t share my pain with him because now I’m stressing him..too.

But the thing is I have love to give, pure love, it is not dependent on who he is or what he does, I have respect and honour to give. I see through him, his pain, his hopes, his frustration. I look into his eyes and I can see the road he has been through, I have compassion, I hold him until his invisible tear dry(because you know men don’t cry)…and then he gets to go and “get to know her more”

The bible tells me I’m loved, God chose me, he made me. It tells me he has plans for me, plans for joy to give me hope and a future. It keeps telling me he gives me the desires of my heart and his promises are yes and amen. Oh the bible tells me that God is love, his desire for me is to love and be loved,

But I’m 30 years old, from the day God breathed into my lungs and I made my first sound, I desired to be loved, for someone to choose me, before I did anything, for someone to hold me, without expecting nothing. As a human the very first thing you want in this world is love.

Everyone I meet gets the gift from me, the gift of which I long for, the gift of love, I selflessly love them like Christ loved the church. I lay my life down for my friend. I don’t complain about it, it gives me joy…does the fact that I want someone to do the same for me take away from that? they all want me to pour into them. But who pours onto me?

Maybe he will come back, they all have. But when he does, would he really have chosen me? Or would it be that he discovered I have something special that cannot be manufactured by the world. It’s a gift only God could give me. A psychologist once asked me, ‘if you were competing in the Olympics and you came second, but the person who was first was disqualified wouldn’t you be happy to now have the first place medal?’

No I would not, the fact that the person broke a man made rule doesn’t change the fact that they crossed the finish line first. The fact that she did not fulfil his expectations doesn’t change the fact that he picked her as deserving of his heart more than me. The fact that I can soothe this heart doesn’t change the fact that he deemed her worthy of risking being hurt by her

Song of Songs 3:5 “Oh let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem…don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe and you are ready” MSG

Some of my ‘friends’ tell me I think too much, I’m over complicating it, I expect too much, I’m too picky. But I don’t think I am. I don’t have a long list of must haves, I don’t want someone to make me happy or provide for me or cater to my insecurities, I have God for that, I just want someone to choose me and choose to do life with me. Is that really too much to ask?

Is it funny that every single one of my past- could-have-been-relationship-situationship could read this and think I’m talking about them. I wanna find the humour in it just so i can make myself feel better.

God has come through for me. I have so much in my life, I have a job and a career that fills me spiritually, I go to work and I come home filled knowing I did work for the Kingdom. I was blessed with children, easy to birth and easy to raise. Everyday I’m amazed at who they are becoming, I know its only God. I’m provided for in ways I could never even have imagined.

But when it’s all said and done, I have put the children to sleep, I walk through my house. I thank God for it all as I head to my bedroom. I’m all alone. I wish he would choose me and love me, but I know he never will. I fall on my knees and pray..

God ever since I was a child, you choose me to carry this love and pour it onto the world. I never run out because you are my source. No matter the rejection, the abuse I continue to pour your love out into them. But God why did I have to carry this desire to be loved for this long. I know in heaven a thousand years is like a minute, but here on earth a minute feels like a thousand years. I’m almost 30 years, and untouched. You said that it is not good for man to be alone so I know you desire for me to be touched and to be loved. I don’t know what to pray for anymore, I have exhausted my prayer for you to take this desire from me. Do I pray for you to make him love me, I know you can if you wanted to….

“Psalm 42:11 why my soul are you downcast, why so disturbed within me. Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my saviour and my God” NIV

…and just like that he stops me on my tracks. I lay my head on the pillow I’m broken.

I contemplate as I close my eyes, soft things tear, hard things break…and then I fall asleep.