I’ll be honest: Turning 21 and finding myself still single whilst watching more and more of my friends start dating was painful.

In a culture that still finds it abnormal to remain single for a prolonged period of time, and it became excruciating on the worst days.

I naturally started worrying about my looks, thinking that only the pretty girls got asked out and pursued by guys. I wanted to believe I was attractive enough too. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to enter a relationship some time after my 21st birthday. It lasted all of two years.

Now I’m back to being single again, and have been reflecting on it.

Are looks the most important thing about attraction? If looks were the only thing that mattered in a relationship, then the so-called love will disappear as I get old and inevitably wrinkly and saggy.

I wanted to be attractive and dress myself up for someone to think so and love me for that, but if that was my intention, the only kind of guy I was bound to find would be someone who responded to that exact call. A guy who fell for my looks and dressing and nothing much else.

Was that the kind of guy I really wanted?

If I wanted a godly man, I needed to be a godly woman.

And by extension, if I wanted a godly man, I needed to be a godly woman.

I realised how important it was to grow spiritually in my walk with God and to truly love Him. I’ve decided that I want to set aside my pursuit of looks and love to focus on my relationship with God.

It was a quote by John Piper that changed my perspective and compelled me to pursue Christ: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Every aspect of my life, singleness and dating, and marriage later, is meant to glorify Him.

I don’t date to find satisfaction or worth or validation in someone else.

Even in dating, my joy is found in Him. It’s true that being in love and having someone pursue you makes one feel loved, but butterflies and fuzzy feelings are short-lived.

I’d based so much of my dating season on those feelings, and only now do I know that building a love on such temporal things is a rocky foundation for a future marriage. Looking back, my heart was looking to someone to do the things only God was meant to do as the source of my validation, worth, assurance and identity.

It shouldn’t be a determinant of self-worth whether someone is pursuing me or not.

I hadn’t been looking to glorify Him with my dating life – I was simply dating for my own pleasures.

Pleasures that were exciting and enjoyable yet were burying the real issues of my heart. I couldn’t even see the flaws in the person I was with, not even when my friends told me they could.

And as Gary Thomas describes in his book The Sacred Search, this is a clear sign of infatuation. It became evident over time that I was holding on to the person than I was to God.

It’s been just nine months back out in the field of singleness, and I’m honestly so content I have not actively started dating again. I’ve been meeting my girl friends, having Bible studies, reading and working hard. I see the grace in God’s sovereign plan as He slowly transforms my spirit.

How do I know? My physical appearance matters much less than what my soul means to Him.

“… Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness – with good works.” (1 Timothy 2:9-10)

Now, I don’t think dating is bad or that we should kiss it goodbye. I just feel that it shouldn’t be a determinant of self-worth whether someone is pursuing me or not. Because Someone always is – and always has. And eventually when my season comes, I believe He will lead me to the man after His own heart.