“Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” (Song of Songs 3:5)

I’ve fallen in love with a total stranger. Not once, but twice.

The first time was when I saw someone intently reading a book on the train. I fell in love with the way his shoulders and head were hunched over; I loved the fact that a story between his hands could captivate him so much.

The second was when I saw someone who stuck to his guns, stuck to his convictions when everyone was trying to cajole him to do otherwise. I fell in love with his courage, that he would stand his own ground without disrespecting anyone else.

That’s all it took for me to want to give my heart away. Hello, stranger.

It felt like I couldn’t be complete until I had someone to love and who would love me back.

But I’ve come to realise that by falling in love so easily, I’ve been doing a disservice to myself this whole time.

I thought I was being empathetic, open-minded, allowing myself to fully experience the vastness of human emotion even in others, rather than defaulting to being too guarded or walled up to share in the passions of others.

I came to realise I should be a little more careful about awakening love until it so desires, as Solomon put it.

WHAT ABOUT ME? 

I’ve fallen in love a few — but one too many — times. I unwittingly gave away pieces of my heart.

Over time, this took its toll, and I felt the gravity of the void in me. It felt like I couldn’t be complete until I had someone to love and who would love me back.

All my friends starting getting attached, one by one. Even my own sister, who had been so jaded about love, met someone and they’re already planning to ballot for a BTO flat. The great Singapore love story!

While my heart rejoices for them, the question comes spilling out before I can stop myself: “What about me?”

I am desperate for love. I crave to be sated with it and to be fully submerged in the experience.

Who doesn’t want to love and be loved?

The human condition lusts after love in all forms; as long as it temporarily satiates the desire for love and affection, it’s appeased for a time being – even if the experience is a counterfeit one.

HOPELESS ROMANCE

I know what we’re all told as good Christians: True love can only be found in Christ. But my human mind has not been conditioned to accept that; and hence the hopeless romantic in me seeks out this love in all the wrong places.

And so my heart is tickled by beautiful poetry and stories about love, songs with heart wrenching lyrics about love found or lost. And who can forget great films about human love, so imperfectly naive and desperate, like Moulin Rouge or The Great Gatsby?

The more we raise false hope in our hearts, the more disillusioned we get. Our expectation of how love looks morphs into an idealistic but inaccurate picture.
And that’s how we get stuck in the vicious cycle of searching for something that doesn’t exist.

There is no void. Only the perception of one. That is what we surrender to Him.

But our hearts must be disciplined. Only in the continuous inclining of our hearts towards our Father’s can it be subjected to the full measure of love He has intended for us. No pretence, no walls, no guilt or shame.

And definitely no shoddy rom-com level romance.

BE STILL, MY SINGLE AND ACHING HEART

The focus of singlehood is lack. We only think of what we don’t have. And so we fall victim to the pangs of loneliness, and we choose to focus on what those around us have that we don’t.

Our heart gets jumpier with every passing year, with every question about the lack of a plus-one at family gatherings, with every well-intentioned but still painful reminder from some (married) Christian senior about how we should “make full use of the single years”.

My answer to this lament over lack: Prayer.

If our heart’s desires are God-centered – not merely approaching Him with a list of demands or emotional blackmail – He will honour them.

When we pray, we put our attention on God, not on our empty Friday night schedules. I don’t think God ever gets sick of hearing us pray repeatedly; for example, for a spouse.

“Be still and know that I am God,” it says in Psalm 46:10. As we grow to know who our God is, our prayers become less about us demanding to have someone to love and be loved by – and to realise that is a role He already fulfils.

There is no void. Only the perception of one. That is what we surrender to Him.

So in prayer and supplication, the anxiety dissipates as I still my heart and learn how to love Him first.

AN ANSWERED PRAYER

When I was 13, I had a conversation with God about staying single.

I asked that I would be kept pure and single until I met my future husband.

While the past 10 years of waiting hasn’t always been easy – there were times I resented God for taking me seriously – I’m grateful that He has kept me safe from all the almost-relationships and heartbreakers.

I’m grateful that He loves me more than I do.