Dear Seventeen-Year-Old Me,

Let’s talk about boys. It’s going to be rough for a while. You’re going to crave the attention of boys, but mostly because you want to know that you’re OK. You want to know that you’re pretty enough, smart enough, and fun enough… And sometimes you’ll be convinced that you aren’t enough of any of these things.  

There will be a time at McDonalds when you overhear some boys (in the booth on the other side of the half wall) talking about the tall blonde girls they like, and you’ll realize that they are talking about your friends (who are tall and blonde) and not you (who are neither tall nor blonde). This will make you wish that you were tall and blonde. It will make you sad. You’ll convince yourself that everything will be all right if just one boy will notice you  and like you.

Over the next few years, you’ll start singling out that ‘one boy’ (and then another boy and another) to think about. You’ll fill up entire notebooks, writing about whichever boy you’re liking at the moment. You’ll dissect his sentences, and try to decipher embedded meanings. You’ll concoct mind games to inflict on him, and you’ll agonize over whether he even knows you’re alive.

But let me tell you a secret. None of this matters! It truly doesn’t! Soon enough, you’ll toss all those silly notebooks into a garbage bin, and eventually you won’t even remember the names of the boys that you stayed up late trying to decipher. It just won’t matter anymore.

When you are twenty-three (which feels like an eternity from now, but really is not so far away at all), you will meet the husband God chose for you. His name is Ken,  and even if I told you how great he is, you wouldn’t believe me. If you took all the  happy moments you’ve recorded in your notebooks and rolled them together, they would seem meaningless compared to the joy you’re going to experience with Ken.

So for now… just wait. Put boys on hold, and wait for God’s timing; for God’s man. God isn’t against you on this! He’s for you! He’s getting Ken ready, too, and he’s got an incredible romance planned. Meditate on this verse: