While we wait we must learn to love ourselves: Most times when people talk about love we tend to assume it’s the love for others. The Bible says love your neighbour as yourself, if you don’t love yourself how do you then go about loving your neighbour? How do you love the husband/wife that you await and how do you love the children that are to come thereafter? This does not mean be self-conceited. It just means you value, appreciate and cherish yourself. This will help you make the right choice because you will know you deserve someone great, you won’t settle for physical, emotional or mental abuse, you won’t torture yourself and/or whoever you end up with, with any of these.
To love yourself you need to forgive yourself: You may have made wrong choices as a single person but as Christians the Bible says once we ask for forgiveness God is faithful and just to forgive us. If you have asked God to forgive you then He has. You don’t need to hold yourself to ransom for what is past anymore, let it go. Forgiveness is powerful.
Make friends: I’ve heard people say this a lot but they usually refer to friends of the opposite sex. Make lots of friends so that you can select from the pile who will be that special one for you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make friends of the opposite sex but what I mean by ‘make friends’ here is develop same-sex accountable relationships. It’s easy to be around someone who will dance to your tune all the time. But can you stand the truth? Can you stand to hear from someone that you got it wrong? That you need to straighten up your act? Like David who slept with Beersheba we all have blind sides. We need solid, accountable friends who can be the eyes that see the spots we cannot see and tell us the truth about those areas we need to improve upon. The truth isn’t always juicy so we need to develop taste buds for the it.
Have fun, be adventurous: I hear marriage comes with lots of responsibilities so now that you are somewhat free please don’t spend it moaning about not being in love. Enjoy yourself, travel, try new things, attend social events, mingle with others (within the boundaries of being a christian of course). Don’t seclude yourself just because you are single. Don’t let fear hold you back. Someone said, at the end of our lives what we will most regret will not be the things we did but the things we did not do (I don’t know if this person’s died before and came back to say this but it sounds plausible).
Discover yourself: You might not be conscious of this but you are a well of gifts, talents and abilities. You can discover them by trying things out. If you do not try, you may never know. You just might find something that you are passionate about and a role God’s called you to fill. If you try something out and it doesn’t work don’t beat yourself up about it, just try it again or try something else.
Avoid negative emotions such as jealousy: Jealousy, like every other emotion comes up like an impulse once it’s triggered. Jealousy is that emotion that rares it’s ugly head when someone else does better than you or gets what you’ve always wanted but don’t have (at least in my experience). The beautiful thing about emotions like jealousy is that we can choose to let it take over or send it back to where it came from. How I manage this emotion is that I make it a point to tell the person whose got the good news that I’m happy for them. According to research, we tend to believe what we say more than what others say to us. Also, Jesus said it is what comes out of a person’s mouth that defiles him/her and not what goes in. What we say can put negative emotions in check. I also remind myself of the passage that says ‘rejoice with them that rejoice and mourn with them that mourn’. Sometimes even after all this jealousy still tries to be stubborn so I give it a stern verbal warning which can often times be ‘LISTEN!!!! I’m choose not to feel this emotion’. And I let it go. I believe jealousy is a natural emotion every one of us feel (I haven’t got proof so if you don’t feel it please let me know). It actually has its positive sides, for instance two people who are in love are jealous OVER each other (notice I didn’t use the word OF). This type of jealousy will make them protective over each other. But then the negative sides of it we are also aware of. When it comes as a negative emotion (like every other negative emotion) you’ve got two choices: let it settle and make you bitter or fight it off till it goes away. The ball is in your court.
By Biebele Alex-hart
Tanx for diz words.
Nice one.