Letting Love Grow

This weekend I was on the phone with my best-friend and we were discussing how our former mentor found her husband. Our mentor is a very beautiful woman who could have her pick of men and was always in a relationship, but she a met this man who had everything going for him, from personality to similar values, to success…but she wasn't physically attracted to him at first. But do to his persistence and his wonderful heart, he won her over and eventually they married and she is quite happy. Her secret to falling in love with him was letting love grow between them.

Society is quite drunk on wanting the perfect ten and amazing chemistry and Hollywood has been serving-up this delusional liquid to us since the days of silent films…hence our sad divorce rate. When people pick potential mates based on what makes their groin thumps instead of important things like values…then a relationship can fizzle out quite quickly.

You hear people say it all the time…"I have fallen out of love with you." In these relationships that "love" that people talk about isn't a companionship type of love but the chemically produced kind which comes and goes all the time in a long relationship. Which is why it is so important to not just look at physical features and other superficial components in looking for a potential mate.

Have you ever wanted something so bad for Christmas only to get something else and your first reaction is disappointment until days later you realize that the gift you got was something you never knew you wanted and can't imagine life without it? Like you wanted a shiny new bike, but get an art set instead and weeks later you find out that you are an amazing artist because your parents saw the potential in you that you didn't see.

Sometimes God is like that when picking out a mate for us. We may have some fantastic person in mind, but He knows better and will bring someone in our lives that we never knew we couldn't live without.

Now that isn't to say that we all don't have a dream person in mind. It is natural to have this perfect wonderful person you build-up in your mind when you consider what you want in a mate, but you must remember how unrealistic it is to get everything you want. You should consider holding on to the things you really need to make a relationship work and keep the rest in fantasy-land.


For me my perfect person is a guy who is about seven years older, 5'6, dark black hair, deep blue eyes, plays the guitar well, has an amazing voice (so he can sing and play lullabies to the babies), have a career that he is passionate about, have the same faith as mine, agrees with everything I believe, his parents must be young (since my are old)…and oh also must be Irish.

My dream-man sounds like the perfect unrealistic person ever…and you know what? I have yet to date a man with black hair and deep blue eyes…heck 75% of the men I have dated were blond and brown eye men. One of which was the love of my life and was much better then my list of requirements.

It was a situation of right person/wrong time which is why we are not together, but like most people I at first didn't give him a second thought because he didn't fit my "needs."

My first impression of him was not good. It wasn't because he did anything wrong, but I just decided that I would probably hate him. We met our first week of camp (we were counselors) and I try to spend as little time talking to him as possible. He wanted to get to know me so bad that during a 2 hour canoe trip he told the whole staff not to let me be their canoe partners because he wanted to spend that time with me.

I was reluctant to partner-up with him because I had absolutely no interest in getting to know him, but let me tell you by the end of that trip there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.


It is amazing how if we let certain people in our lives that we usually wouldn't somehow they will surprise us….despite them not fitting into our little modes.

So often we complain that there aren't any eligible people in our lives, but if we just look around in our friend circle, the office, church, or school just a little bit harder, perhaps you are overlooking some catches based on some faulty thinking.

Now I am not saying you have to consider people you are repulsed by, but start considering people who might fit some important values instead of just the superficial ones. Perhaps when you are spending time with this person, your heart doesn't necessarily skip a beat or you don't want to rip their clothes off every time you see them, but if this is a person who you know will always be there for you and share your same values, then maybe there could be something there.

Falling in love with someone doesn't happen overnight or even in a year for some people. It takes time to let love grow between two people and it has to be nurtured and cultivated.

Love that last is built on a strong foundation of mutual respect and common values, not on amazing orgasms and the perfect body.


So the next time you see that shy and quite guy/girl at the water-cooler…get to know them because you never know what can happen.