Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution that changed your life? When I adhere to the “New Year’s Resolution” trend, most of mine don’t make it past January. But a few years ago, as the New Year approached, I felt compelled to make a resolution...and to keep it. Little did I know that this would become a life-changing resolution.
I decided to give dating a break.
The summer prior, I had begun a 12-month dating fast. Having suffered through a slew of wounding relationships through college, I was ready to give dating a break. However, by New Year’s Eve, even though I was over halfway through my fast, I was kind of failing at it.
Not in the sense that I was going on dates with people, but more in that I wasn’t doing a good job of guarding my heart. Throughout the six months of “not dating,” I found myself considering every single guy I encountered as a potential partner. And not just a dating partner, but the partner, aka my “future husband.” It seemed like once I took the option of being in a relationship off the table, all I could think about was finding someone to marry. Kind of like telling a kid not to think about candy while you take them to a candy store...
But the gaping hole left by "not dating," needed to be filled by something, or Someone.
So finally, with the new year approaching, I realized that if I was truly going to make this dating fast count, I needed to be all in. The piece that had been missing in my dating fast was that in lieu of “not dating,” I needed to fill the hole in my heart—the one that I unsuccessfully tried to stuff every romantic relationship into—with the Person it was created for.
And this wasn’t my “future husband.” It was the ultimate husband—Jesus! He was certainly a big part of my life, but I wasn’t letting Him truly love me in the manner my heart desired. So the resolution I knew I needed to make was to spend the rest of my dating fast letting Jesus date me.
So how exactly did I carry out this resolution to let Jesus date me?
First, I told Him about it. On January 1st of that new year, I went to pray. I wrote down a promise to myself and to Jesus that I would spend the rest of my dating fast letting Him show me what my heart truly longed for. I asked for His help in viewing the men in my life as brothers first. And I made a commitment to spend more time in daily prayer with Him.
As my relationship with Jesus grew, my desires changed.
As the weeks went on, I found my heart changing. My daily prayer time was turning into my favorite part of the day, as I truly felt like Jesus was romancing me. Through praying lectio divina and Ignatian contemplation with scripture, it seemed as if Jesus became more real to me than ever before.
I was building a deeper relationship with a person who knew my heart more intimately than anybody else. The more I grew in my relationship with Jesus, the more my desires changed. I thought less about getting married, and more about fulfilling His will for me. I also felt less tempted to emotionally betray my fast with the men in my life, and actually began enjoying real friendships with my brothers in Christ.
Living out my “resolution” had allowed Jesus to fill that hole in my heart that was made for Him, and all I desired was to keep that hole filled up with Him forever. That March, I attended an unofficial “nun-run,” a two week span of visiting three different religious orders. When you allow yourself to date Jesus, it isn’t surprising when it leads to discerning a vocation of becoming Jesus’ bride.
I found myself caught up in the beauty of religious life, and declared to Jesus that I would be His bride, if He wanted me. However, in the most gentle and loving way possible, Jesus turned me down. Instead, He showed me what He had created my heart for. First and foremost, it was created for Him, but in addition, He wanted me to give and receive His love through sacramental marriage.
Learning to love Jesus while single prepared me to love my future husband.
The confirmation of my call to marriage coupled with witnessing the beauty of religious life allowed me to realize that the two vocations are really not so different. In religious life, one is directly committed to Jesus in the image of a spousal relationship, but in marriage, two people are connected in their love by the love of God. In other words, Jesus is loving each spouse through the love of the other.
Never in my life had I viewed marriage like that. If He was calling me to this kind of marriage, I needed to be filled up completely with His love so that I could give His love to my future husband.
In the 6 months that followed that New Year’s Day, Jesus filled the hole in my heart with His love, revealed my vocation to marriage, and helped me view men as brothers. I was changed, inside and out, and as my dating fast ended, I thanked God for the grace He had given me to keep my New Year’s resolution.
Who, coincidentally, I had met during my dating fast!
About a month later, I began dating a guy friend, who actually had entered my life the same January I had renewed my dating fast. Thanks to my resolve to keep my fast, we were able to build a solid friendship without any emotional pressure to date. And once the lens of the dating fast was lifted, we quickly realized our compatibility. Thanks to the friendship we already had built, it soon turned into a relationship unlike one I had ever experienced. That man is now my husband.
As 2018 approaches, if you find yourself single, perhaps consider making a resolution like the one I did. Jesus loves us all uniquely, but His desire to reign in our hearts is universal. Invite Him in, discern His plan for your life, and allow Him to change you, inside and out. Happy New Year!
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