My forever Valentine, single or not!
As a girl in my late 20’s who hasn’t spent much time in a serious relationship, I have sometimes found the idea of finding that special someone to spend the rest of my life with pretty daunting. And Valentine’s Day has tended to be a not-so-fun reminder of this!
The challenge doesn’t seem to be in meeting guys that I like, but rather in finding someone that is right for me in all respects—someone who embodies all the qualities I value, and understands and respects my deep love of spirituality. After a period where it seemed like I was destined to continue meeting the “wrong” kind of guy, I decided to spend some time thinking about what I was really searching for.
Talking with a Christian Science practitioner to gain some spiritual insights into my situation, I realized that I needed to change my thinking about many commonly held beliefs about marriage and relationships. I didn’t need to accept the belief that women need to get married before a certain age or the fiction that each of us is half of a whole or the notion that chance plays a role in finding that special someone. Most importantly, I started to feel a strong desire to really understand my completeness and satisfaction right now, single or not.
As I studied and prayed more, I found this passage in Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea”. 1
Wow! I loved the idea that I, as a spiritual idea, am wedded to the source of all goodness, to Love, to God, himself! That meant the Christ-idea is constantly present in my life—I could lack nothing at all, ever!
This also got me thinking about what the realization of this “weddedness” meant to me. If I was wedded to a person, I would be making the person a high priority in my life. I would spend a lot of time with them, communicating and confiding in them, learning what it meant to trust the person completely.
Well, these were all things I should be doing in my relationship with God! So I made the conscious decision to put God first in my life. I started spending more time in study and prayer every morning, contributing more to the activities of the branch church I attended, participating in Bible study, and praying more for people around me.
As I did this over the next few months, I went through a number of challenging situations, that all turned out to be wonderful opportunities for me to understand that it is God, divine Love, that is really the source of everything that I could ever need or want. Each time I was able to really see and hold to this fact as true, I was able to find peace, joy, and resolution of the difficulty.
I am really beginning to see that the people and things in our lives are the expression of God’s love and care for us. That Love is constant, even when the people or things seem not to be so.
This Valentine’s Day, while I am very grateful for all the dear people in my life who express this love, what I am most grateful for is the understanding of my inseparable connection to the ever-constant Love that meets all needs. And for the knowledge that, single or not, I am blessed to have a forever Valentine in my life!
Posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 10:46 am | Follow responses with the RSS feedTopics: Dating, Love | Tags: connection to God, individual completeness, Valentine's Day, wedded
This is a great post Nitya. There was a chapter in a book I read once called “finding your true love.” The great reveal was that you are your own greatest love. When people come into our lives and we think that they are giving us love, they are really just opening up our sight to see the love in ourselves that is already there. The thought extended to think that love isnt lost then, when that person isnt around because they never gave you anything in the first place so they couldnt take anything away. The love is always there and intact, as you say, “inseparable” from us.
I love the flash of inspiration that, just as you would do in a human, wedded relationship, in the one real relationship that there is, you would have God as your high priority, would spend a lot of time communicating with divine Love, confiding in it, and learning to trust it completely. That’s wonderful! Thank you for sharing this with us!
Thank you Nitya for sending all of us this special Valentine! No matter if we are single or married, all of us can feel comforted by feeling this ” inseparable connection to the ever-constant Love that meets all needs.” What a gift!
Happy Valentine’s Day and Lots of Love!
I was reminded of this quote from Mary Baker Eddy that has been so useful to me over the years. I’m learning to focus on being a consistent, self-sacrificing lover to everyone.
“Oh, may the love that is talked, be felt! and so lived, that when weighed in the scale of God we be not found wanting. Love is consistent, uniform, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, unutterably kind; even that which lays all upon the altar, and, speechless and alone, bears all burdens, suffers all inflictions, endures all piercing for the sake of others, and for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.”
(From the article, “Overflowing Thoughts”, Miscellaneous Writings, page 312)
This is a beautiful article. Thank you.
This is a really touching post, Nitya, and will bless more people than you know. Thank you so much for sharing this today. :)
Thank you so much for your pure and powerful inspiration – you are living this Love!
Thank you for these angel thoughts Nitya and for your angel-frienship. As you wrote, “Love is constant”. Therefore, it is a glorious Valentines Day, for everyday is Love’s Day!
Waow…!! You understood this sooooo fast!! It took me yeaaaaarrrrrs to get to that point! :-)
So congratulations! (I mean it :-)
But we can all get there, guaranteed! I like the clarity of your article.
Am sure it will help a lot of people.
Thank you!
Simply beautiful Nitya and well said. I def agree with the above writing about the clarity. Thanks for sharing this and your writing is excellent. God bless! and love ya! God’s love is DEF CONSTANT, even when we’re not constantly loving ourselves….we can always count on His unfailing love, and for that we give Him praise!
Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments :) Was so grateful for this understanding that i gained and really felt compelled to share it somehow. Writing this article around Valentines Day turned out to be the perfect opportunity! Had no idea how i was going to put together all my thoughts in a blog, and what i was going to write since I’d never really done something like this before, but the ideas came beautifully and quickly. A practitioner shared with me recently that for her, writing up healings can be a great way to solidify what she has learnt – so true! Writing this blog was a healing / demonstration in itself, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity – it has really been a blessing to me. To anyone thinking about sharing on this website – go for it, it will bless both you and others tremendously! and thank you to all you wonderful souls that have shared in the past and continue to share so actively on the blogs and discussion boards – I know I have so often received so much inspiration from reading about your experiences – you all are a blessing to the world!
i can strongly relate being a man in my late 20s and feeling like valentines day was the day yo throw in my face just how much im hated by woman but for me it dosrnt matter anymore iv come to realize jm destined to remain single but never alone
You’ll change your thinking soon enough, Jeremy! After my divorce I used to think “No more man for me, I’ll never remarried”. As I shared this with the man that was going to be my CS teacher 5 years later, he said it was nonsense, that God had a wonderful young man for me and that man was going to be ready when I was. I met him 10 years after my divorce… Never say never.
That women hate you, you can’t generalize because each one of us has our own connection to God and each one of us has to work our own salvation.
What really worked for me was not looking! I found my “Mr. Perfect” when realized that I was already completed in God and needed nothing and nobody to be completely happy.
Thanks for this beautiful reminder Nitya! You are a blessing to many people too – May the spirit of god continue to work through you. Keep writing :)