Single...and waiting on Jesus!

My housemate has just come from a date with her boyfriend, excited and lovey dovey and all. It’s nine thirty pm. I go to the kitchen to prepare something to eat and my other housemates are having a jol, loud music and all. “Uhmm, what’s with the noise? What are you guys celebrating?” I ask one of them. It’s my boyfriend’s birthday today, so we’re drinking.” Back in my room I find a text in my phone, “friend I am going to party and sleep over at my man’s place tonight.” Yea. In the stillness of the night and the only thing that seems to be making the loudest noise is the loneliness around me, the groaning and the moaning of my other housemate’s girlfriend. Oh gosh, really. I shut my ears. I open my bible. I kneel. I get intrigued by the sounds. Ughrr, I give up. I helplessly sit on my bed. I listen closely. I envy. I slap myself.  I try to compose myself, I clear my throat, I’ve got this! 

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who act on behalf of those who wait for Him. Isaiah 64:4

“So it seemed that it was cool for everybody to be in a relationship but me. So I took matters in my own hands…and ended up with him. Jannette Ikz). Lately for some reason I have been feeling the greatest need to have a boyfriend, like it’s so intense, I just want somebody I can hang out with, I can watch movies with, I can sit all day and talk with. So yes, I agreed to date the “church” guy from home who had been pursuing me since last year December. I call him church guy because that’s what they want people to see them as, honourable, respectful men who never skip a church service. Deep down in my heart I knew that even though he tries to go all out for me he’s not the man God intended me to have. When you end up getting so swayed away by what the world thinks you will readily conform to the pattern of the world. You know the kind of man that you’re supposed to have, but people around you say that you’re just looking for a fairy-tale which just won’t happen, or you’ll get old and die while you’re still waiting for your ideal man.” Oh well, I left him because I knew that I don’t want to be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t respect the standards I set for myself, or even worst makes me feel like I’m crazy for having such standards. He cries, and whines quoting all scripture, but I am not going to allow any man in my life who tries to separate me from God by initiating sin and claim that it is love. I have learned in the past that if somebody is not yours, they’re not yours, keep moving. In fact nobody will ever be ours because we all belong to God.  Find solace and identity in God and not in another human being because you will lose yourself in the process. Establish a firm relationship with God, and as a man, when you pursue a woman and she rejects you, your world doesn’t fall apart because you know that God has somebody better in store for you. Of course this only applies to those who have their utmost dependence on God’s promises alone. 

I came back to Bloemfontein and I met Kabelo who stays right in front of my room. Unlike all these other guys who have been displaying a sense of an identity crisis, Kabelo looked like the kind of guy who’s stable in who he is. He’s the first guy in such a long time that I can really have an interesting conversation with, with no need to even mention anything sexual. I really liked being around him, you know, for someone who felt like she didn’t get much attention from guys unless of course they wanted sex. But Kabelo took me to his basketball games. He told his friends that I’m his girlfriend, sitting so closely to me. When we leave the court and I’m just thinking…what just happened there, he remains silent as if everything was normal not even mentioning why he just told everybody that I am his girlfriend. 

I’m all excited now about Kabelo. Clearly he’s against my relationship with Jesus because he insinuates that I am following a religion so blindly, but perhaps I can change him. I now have visions for him, seeing him on the pulpit testifying as a pastor how his girlfriend brought him to Christ. I don’t think that you can ever bring anyone to Christ by sinning with them, so yes it is possible to bring your partner to Christ as Smith Wigglesworth’s wife did, but not by sinning with them but by God’s goodness extending to them through you. We spend so much time together. He comes back to my room after work, we chat until the early hours of the morning, clearly he’s taking Jesus’ place in my life but that doesn’t really matter much because nothing that a two minute prayer cant solve before I sleep.  

He comes to my room one evening and sees my underwear on my bed. I didn’t take that notice of that until one day I decided to share something interesting that I was reading by Barara De Angelis, “Men are turned off by woman who wear ugly underwear.” He said yea, Its true. But I know that you don’t wear ugly underwear, and grins. Oh my gosh, I feel like I’ve been ripped naked but I honestly I like it. He focuses on me, he’s watching me. So I find myself looking for the “sexiest” underwear in my drawer. I put on something that looks irresistible and just put it above my jeans for some exposure. Yah, this is a catch. Holy Spirit forgive me, I need to get this man’s attention.

We are watching a movie together one morning which for me was really quite funny so I kept giggling and trying to point out the funny stuff. He seemed quite annoyed but it’s alright as long as I’m just with him watching a movie. The last time I laughed at a funny scene he just snapped at me asking what’s there to laugh about. This is a serious movie and I’m always ruining things with my smile. Whoaa. I felt belittled and unwanted and I know that a man who God gives me will not make me feel this way. Sat there for quite some time awkwardly watching the movie until I decided you know what, “I’m out. I’m not going to change my personality for you. What am I doing here anyway when I’ve got my own comfortable bed and room?” I came back to my room and you get that reminder that says always trust your instincts. If someone doesn’t feel right for you then he’s not right for you. Sometimes he might feel right for you, but is he right for the purpose God wants to achieve through you?

He apologized. Maybe we could work something out? After all if we are going to build a relationship there’s going to be fights along the way. Yes there is certainly going to be fights, but not fights because somebody disapproves of your personality. Not fights because somebody is constantly trying to bring you down making you feeling small and stupid. Not fights because somebody cannot accept you for whom and how God created you to be, but those fights that occurs due to the temporary frustrations of trying to improve yourselves to becoming people that God wants you to be. 

Kabelo is sweet. It seems as if he wants to bring me something from work. I’ve never had that from a man unless really I have something in turn to offer. 

No wait, Kabelo is really sweet. It’s 12 midnight, he’s just from work and he wants to see me. I am feeling really special.

We walk together to campus one morning and he comes across one lady that he knows. “Aaahh thought you were gonna kiss me”, he says to her. I giggle, a bit disappointed that he’s been flirting with me and now he says this to a girl right in my presence. We are in the kitchen one evening cooking together and he says to one of our housemate who passed by, “I am going to fight your boyfriend…for you.” The girl giggles; it reminded me of how I always giggled when he said all the cute things to me. I felt stupid. He’s playing basketball in the court and I’m sitting there by the benches with his phone right in my hand. I know I’m not supposed to go through his phone but I went through it anyway, good thing I did because all I saw was flirtatious message after message, erotic pictures after erotic pictures. Same approach to many different girls, and guess what all of us giggle, we flirt with the idea that a man is in love with us.  Oh man I feel really stupid. I cannot even compete with these girls. I am just a girl who’s always annoying people with my smiles and laughter and these girls are on point, on worldly standards. They send him pictures of their private parts, they are so cool, they drink and smoke, and I’m just a person, metaphorically, a piece of meat rolling in the butcher.

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.Psalm 27:14

I realise that I was no better from all the ladies who sent pictures of their bodies to him. I mean I at some stage wore my underwear for all the wrong reasons. Trying to get a man’s attention by selling myself short and displaying the temple of God in an inappropriate manner. Truth is if you are going to attract a man and you want the relationship to last, your motives must be genuine and sincere. Don’t try to change yourself for another person be you. Be the woman virtuous woman God intended you to be and if he finds you boring then clearly he is not the one. He might have the body, the sweet charming voice, he might go to church and do all things right but please don’t be fooled by artificial things. I was chatting with my friend Gina the other day and she told me how a guy went all out for her. She was walking back from work and this guy drives next to her offering her a lift and she says, no thank you, I’ll walk. The guy persists and Gina sticks to what she said. The guy even went as far as parking the car and running to her, and Gina still says no. In my mind I’m thinking, Gina has just missed out an opportunity to find a great guy. And I ask what if he’s the one? She says, “God knows that I really want to get married, but I’m not desperate enough to take any man that comes along my way.” I think its very inspirational. For some of us who are not accustomed to being pursued we are ready to take anybody that just comes our way even though we know they are not right for us. Is it the excitement of being wanted? Well, you are not the only girl that he wants! Have your King’s standards; don’t just be like the people of the world because you are desperate for a relationship.

Young women of Jerusalem, swear unto me that you will not awaken love or arouse love before it’s proper time. ~Song of Solomon 8:4

Ok, I’ve been desiring a boyfriend so badly, I’ve been thinking of the times I’m going to be making love with my husband paying back for all this time. I have been filled with so much lasciviousness and my eyes not so much focused on God, the giver of love and relationships Himself. It seems as if the more I desired all that the more I seemed dissatisfied or disappointed. With that little hope that I had to find a boyfriend, I log into my Facebook account and boom, the guy that I thought would be the one for me is married. Now I get time to talk with the Holy Spirit. “Do you think I’m going to find a man and get married though, and when?” “Yes, it depends on how long you want to wait. ”Let go of the things and people that don’t matter, stop flirting with the world. You are portraying a wrong message of who the Jesus that saved you is by your public uncertainty and doubt. (I’ll stay in bed… alone and write poems about how I will wait for you. Jannette Ikz). Develop a relationship with Jesus, be content in who you are that you won’t need a man to define your worth because you know your worth. Stop going into social networks and eyeing every man who puts a bible verse as his status update because words can be deceiving. (I will no longer date, socialize or communicate with carbon copies of you to appease my boredom or to quench my thirstiness I have for attention and short lived compliment from “sorta kinda”. You know…He’s sorta kinda right but sorta kinda wrong. His first name is Luke, His last name is Warm. Jannette Ikz). I am now convinvced that there is a right time to find love, don’t force it despite what I see all around me. Letting go off the worldy lusts and focusing my energies on things that are eternal. Your peers are having “fun”now, you feel like you are missing out. Some people get married  and no one has shown any interest in you, well wait on God, allow Him to write your love story and you will be a living testimony of Exodus 34:10: Before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee. God says, as soon as you have let go off all the wrong desires and motives and people, and playfulness, I will bring the right things and people in your life. As soon as you put the mentality of hoping to get married just to satisfy your sexual desire, God will bring the right person in your life who will work with you to fulfil the dream and purpose God has for you. 

I will wait on you Jesus. Even if there are tears and lonely times along the way, I will not look back. I will keep my eyes on You and believe your promises for my life.