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Day 6: Loss

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God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. –Psalm 46:1

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Grief is heavy. It hurts—physically, sometimes. And even in dating, the only way past it … is going through it.

It stings to want to date or marry a man or a woman who doesn’t feel the same. It hurts when you hope for a marriage proposal, but you get a breakup instead. It’s painful to learn that the person you want to date doesn’t want to date you.

The loss you feel when relationships end—or never start—is real.

But what if what you wanted wasn’t actually what’s best for you? What if you only clung to it so tightly because you didn’t have enough information?

It is healthy to grieve the loss of what you’re attached to. But it is easy to get so attached to what you want that you forget a significant possibility: God might, and in fact does, have something else in mind for you.

Your life, according to His plan, will serve a specific purpose. Perhaps your purpose doesn’t involve that marriage, that man, or that woman. And perhaps that man or woman’s purpose doesn’t involve you.

Sometimes, God asks us to sacrifice our personal desires in obedience and deference to His plan. He allows us to endure a loss, to love to the point of letting someone go so He can fulfill His plan for that person’s life—and for yours.

One day, God’s plan will be clearer to you. And you’ll look back at what you once wanted and realize: it wasn’t what you wanted after all. And that it wasn’t what He wanted for you. One day, what once brought you pain will be revealed as God’s blessing, favor, and plan.

You just don’t know that yet. Give God time to prove it.

Pray

Oh, how my heart hurts, God, over what I have lost. But I believe You have my best interests in mind. Help me to cling more tightly to You than to my desires, so that You may refine them to align with Yours.

Reflect

What losses have you experienced in dating? Have you ever been in a relationship you were certain would never end—and then it did? How did you feel when it ended? How do you feel about it now?