The People who Fall in Love with You

I grew up in church and worked in Sunday school since I was 10 all the way until I moved out of state after college.

When I was in college I co-taught a first grade Sunday school class with another young single woman.  One of the children in our class had a single father. I knew he was single because of the strikingly sad prayer requests his son would share with our small group. It was clear that the couple had had a nasty divorce.

I lost touch with the girl who taught with me and the father and son. Years later when I visited for Christmas I noticed the Dad walking to church hand in hand with the girl. I found out they were married.

I was reminded of this instance today.  It was encouraging to me. When she loved that little boy through his pain something about it caught the dad’s eye.  We may not know the eyes we catch when we are serving.  We may not fully comprehend yet what our surrendered lives look like to the people around us.  We don’t know who’s watching when we choose to pour out our hearts for others.

I’ve noticed people frustrated that no one is dating them. I challenge those of us in that category, how are we investing our time? Are you attending the same church and have people there who are in your life, regularly spending time with you?  Are you serving other couples? Are you invested in your community at all or are you just church hopping, looking for the church with the most eligible bachelors?

I want to be clear, dating around is not a bad thing. In fact, it can actually be good. Yet I think we would all be surprised by how much of our identity is revealed to us, to God, and to the men around us by serving our church and our community.