Jilli Davis and Elena
Barrientes- Too many memories come with these two names together. Happy, sad,
loving, caring, rough, vulnerable but most of all real.
Jilli and I met at
Grand Canyon University our freshman year. Ironically, we were interviewing for
a spot to serve on leadership together as an RA. By the grace of God we were
placed in same dorm building and little did we know we had both found a little
piece of our hearts. I had immediately gained a best friend someone to share
serious life and some childish adventures.
The one thing I am so
grateful for in the midst of our friendship is that we share the same heart for
women to find their identity in the Lord. Our hope is that our vulnerability on
the topic would encourage you.
Being a girl is so difficult. We are basically programmed to wake up
and make sure we are perfectly aligned with the world standards. We are
programmed to fall in love with the “man of our dreams” However, do not get us
wrong there is nothing wrong with being in love. I know your probably thinking what
do two single women know about being in love? When Jilli and I think about it
do we even understand it? Do you even understand it? Oh is it the mushiness of
facebook post? Is it creating our fantasy wedding boards on Pinterest? Is it
having someone follow your every move complementing you? Is it dating? Is it
marriage? Questions that we ask ourselves every day. Please fill free to fill
us in..
We all create Pinterest boards that evolve around planning our big day
picking things out for our unborn children like it is our job. After a first
date, we are already designing a wedding ring, picking out children’s names and
putting his last name behind our names.
I get blinded by the idea of marriage and kids and living a boujie
lifestyle with my man.
I’ll admit, I get discouraged sometimes. But, I wait. Sometimes I
wonder if waiting is really what I should be doing, but I wait. People tell us
all the time “you should be out there dating” but we wait. Friends tell me my
standards are too high and they are not attainable and unreachable and that is
going to be the reason that I continue to stay single. But I wait. And that is what Jilli and I decided we were going to
start telling people: we wait because this is our life and we are happy with
the path that we are on. Is it ideal heck no! But we wait because we refuse to
settle for less than what God has for us
We wait because we know that our
worst and loneliest day as a single person is better than our best day married
to the wrong man.
I want to preface this
by saying that I am a woman who has desired to be married for as long as I can
remember. Probably why Jilli and I always talk about marriage, kids and our
happily ever after. After my last relationship I chose to allow God to heal my
wounds. I needed to encounter this man Jesus. I needed to allow his love to
cover my sins. I needed to identify myself as Gods child.
It wasn’t till talking
about it with her I had realized I had set myself to maintain my singleness
well. I had seen to many women grow bitter and angry that their future husband
had not come. I had watch one to many women running to other lovers. I had
watch relationships fail between man and women that I didn’t want to follow
either of those paths. So I made the decision to seek God harder, faster and
deeper than I ever had before.
Recently I discovered that I was
leaning on my singleness as a safety net it had become my crutch.
Jilli and I came up with this. Singleness keeps us from getting hurt.
Singleness keeps us from putting ourselves out there. Singleness keeps us from
getting our hearts broken. Because we had been hurt recently in relationships
we were just in.
We both know that God gives us desires to be married. Marriage is a
system that God set up and ordained. Honestly, marriage is a beautiful picture
of the gospel. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ love the
church and gave himself for it. Wives are commanded to submit themselves to
their husbands as the church submits itself to the Lord. As the woman submits
to her husband and her husband submits to the word and to the Lord, the gospel
is shown to all who look on their marriage and God is glorified.
So what about the single people? I don’t want to miss the chance to
live out the gospel for the world. I want a life that proclaims the glory of
God? What about me? What about Jilli? What about you?
We would love to tell you that we are spiritual giants who don’t
struggle with loneliness or never looks up and says, “God, what are you doing?”
because unfortunately that is not true. This was not my plan. This was not
Jill’s plan either. We thought we would at least be in a serious relationship
by 21. I mean everyone else was finding someone at GCU. What about us? Guess
this whole “ring by spring” was not intended for us. Unfortunately, God rarely
does it the way we think He should. So now you are left with asking; are you
willing to trade your timeline for the schedule of the Author of time?
Do you think it was David’s plan to fight Goliath or become King of
Israel? Do you think it was Daniels plan to be thrown into a den of lions? Do
you think Moses’s plan to wander the wilderness with God’s people for most of
his life?
Right now I am in a season
of life where I am just so encouraged with being single. I know I ABSOLUTELY
know that it is not about finding that perfect person because the good Lord
only knows I would be single forever if that was the goal. I’m NOT perfect I am flawed with a messy life and I have a lot of
pieces that I am putting back together right now and I hope and pray I don’t
find someone who is “perfect” because they would hate me and think I am too
“broken”
So many of us are desperately searching for that person here on earth.
We are waiting for somebody to come along and fill a void. We look for someone
to complete the loneliness in our heart that was only meant for God to
fill.
Until we discover this, we will not be whole, relationship or not.
A human can never fulfill what was meant to be filled by
the one you were made for, and it will destroy your relationships if you expect
them to.
Ladies if God has saved you, He has chosen you and set you apart. You
are his treasure, and he will always take care of you no matter what. Stop
listening to your friends, stop listening to the world, stope listening to
yourself and tart listening to the
promises of our great God.
My God doesn’t break promises.
We beg of you to realize you are worth the wait. You are worth waiting on God to place a man in your life who will love you like Jesus does. He won’t be perfect that’s for sure, but neither are you. He will love you through God and he will strive to be all that God wants him to be as a man. He will recognize his flaws and strive to be better everyday. He will challenge you as you grow as an individual and as a godly example of marriage that is a delight to the eyes of the Lord. Oh girls, please don’t settle for some man who doesn’t know the first thing about God. Don’t settle for some selfish guy who is “Christian” in name only. We know this is not easy we are just two 21 year old girls still trying to figure this out as we grow and fall more in love with our creator.
