Just recently, a good friend of mine entered his first serious dating relationship.  You know it's going to be good when he makes her a paper chain of things they'll do together, all leading up to him asking her to go ice skating with him on their first date! 

I was asking him all sorts of questions about how it came about (surprised?) and somehow we got to talking about his timing in planning the whole weekend.  It turns out that he was perfectly chill to take his time asking her out, so much so that she went off to college without him saying a word!  But he was waiting patiently on God's direction, and after talking with her, apparently she was as well.  "Yah, that (waiting) was pretty hard for her," He said.  "But she handled it well.  One of the things I hear her say about lots of things is "God will give me exactly what I need, exactly when I need it"."

Something (everything!) about this beginning relationship, one that grew from years of being high school friends, gives me hope.  Buckets of warm, happy, HOPE.  It makes me excited for future happy times with someone of my own, and reminds me that holding out for a cool Christian guy is not some ridiculous expectation! 

But for right now, that cool Christian guy of my own is probably off feeding the orphans in Zimbabwe or digging wells in a slum in India.  You go, baby!  So here I am in little Manhattan, trying to complete high school and drinking my eggnog lattes and loving them and not really loving all the lessons God is teaching me in singleness. All seem to be lessons in patience that I sorely lack, but that's beside the point!  COUGH.

I'm truly so very excited to find that hilarious, thoughtful, sexy man who will cuddle under big blankets with me and put up with my notebook-collecting fetish and even my peculiar disdain for the corn casserole at Thanksgiving dinner that I still try every time, hoping my tastes have changed.  They never do.

It's easy to wish God would hurry up with the lessons and bring along the reward!  But you know....  There's a lot of life left to live with my special guy.  High school+college are only a few years in the grand scheme of things!  A couple years of dating maybe and many moments of awkward definitely.  And I'm okay with that!  I'm okay to wait it out, figure things out as I go, and call my mom a lot. She's going to regret getting me a phone by the end of my school years :)

There is still hurt from boys who seem to enjoy playing with my emotions and then leaving me high and dry.  There is still confusion, because I thought they liked me!  So why did they stop texting out of the blue?  Did I do something wrong?  It stings so much of rejection, disappointment, and failure. 

But God is the very best at turning my deepest longings and desires into beauty.  Because He never changes, I am going to cling to his promise of being my comfort and my joy. 

Can I wait a few years and be okay with not having a bae right now?  You bet I can.  Just watch me!

Because, after all, God will give me exactly what I need exactly when I need it.