The Grown Woman's Guide to Online Dating: 5 Days of Finding God's Goodness in DatingExemplo

Although I wouldn’t have chosen some of the hurts I’ve endured in this dating process, I can see the ways I am growing through them. I’m becoming smarter about reading the signs. I’m releasing control and trusting in God. I’m protecting my heart in the best way. But hurt is still hurt.

Human love fails. It just does. Even if you or I were to find our Mr. Right—I mean a really emotionally healthy, godly man—he would still not be equipped to love perfectly. Nor was he made to. 

Thankfully, there is One whose love does not fail.

Hear me: I don’t mean this in any fluffy, trite, “even if people don’t love you, God loves you” kind of way. Never. Blech. The steadfastness and reliability of God’s unflagging love for you is weighty, and solid, and more real and enduring than any human experience. It doesn’t mean that God’s love is a substitute for the human love you’re missing. It means that God’s abiding love is always with you: as you’re browsing through profiles, when you get ghosted, and over all the months and years when finding someone is taking much, much longer than you’d prefer. In every moment, God’s love abides with you.

If you’ve felt beat up in this process, I am so sorry. And I’m also very confident that our gracious Father is close to you, longing to comfort you in your sadness. Sometimes that comfort will come through the fierce tribe of women God has given you. Sometimes it may be a phrase from Scripture that you recognize to be truer than the naughty voice of the enemy. And sometimes it might be as simple as closing your eyes and visualizing the Lord’s promised nearness to the brokenhearted.

Sister, you are not alone.

In fact, I believe that you are even equipped to survive and thrive if a man never responds to you at all.