To All the Single People Out There [for Rachel]

My dear friend Rachel, a fellow single woman, sent me the link to this video today. She must have been tipped off by Someone how much I needed it.
It blew my mind. I watched it three times in a row.
If you, like me, are waiting very impatiently for your future husband or wife, I urge you to listen to this spoken word piece.
If you're waiting for someone who will hold you, hug you, kiss you, take care of you, touch you, support you, miss you, pray for you, value you, respect you, and love you, don't settle. Don't settle. DON'T settle.

DON'T SETTLE. You hear me? Waiting is hard, I know that. But you'll never forgive yourself if you settle for someone who doesn't treat you the way you should be treated. That will hurt so much more than you hurt now, seeing your friends get married and find the fulfillment that you are so desperately searching for.

People can go on and on about how all you need is Jesus, He'll fill the void in your heart, He's the perfect man for you, etc. I believe all that. But I also believe that He's not going to simply fill that void with Himself. That's why I ache the way I do. I was designed to have a companion. Some day, we'll meet each other.

In the meantime...I guess I'm learning patience. Ha. Better than that, though, is this dear friend Rachel. Perhaps the funniest thing to me is that Rachel and I have known each other since middle school, when we started 7th grade at the same school. We weren't good friends, necessarily, but we were certainly friendly. A.P. Calculus definitely bonded us tighter than the strongest duct tape ever could. Other than that, we were always on the periphery of each other's social sphere.

Then we graduated from high school, and even graduated from the same college! Here's a picture of us.

As my impeccable timing would have it, we became close friends about two weeks before she moved to Indiana for grad school. I miss her a lot. We are fellow comrades in singleness. She got me started at Madison Square Church, where I've been attending the last few weeks.

I'm really proud of her, for moving, for starting over, for following her dream of becoming an eye doctor. So very proud. She's a lot braver than I am.

I'm so thankful for you, Rachel. You (and really, your entire family) have been an enormous blessing to me this year. I love you a lot.

I hope you all have someone in your life like Rachel.