WHY I WAS SINGLE FOR 7 YEARS BEFORE MEETING MY WIFE

I never thought that I would be single for 7 years! Even when I say it now, it still seems like a long time. I thought that I would just find a cute girl, hook up with her, then eventually get married about 10 years after we got tired of having fun. But, boy was it more that God wanted me to learn in my singleness than that! In all honesty, if it wasn't for that time of singleness, I wouldn't be where I am, nor have who I have today. It was all a process, and apart of Gods plan.

So did I talk to ANYONE in that 7 years of singleness?

I sure did. But, let me explain. It began when I surrendered my life to Christ on February 13, 2007 (My testimony will be in another blog, another day). I had done things wrong in my past relationships, and didn't want my future to mimic my past. So I wanted to start clean. Before and leading into me giving my life to Christ, I was "unofficially dating" a young lady who I thought about committing to; but, she was giving me all the benefits without the commitment, so I definitely didn't have any rush in my game. Oh, you ask, "what's unofficially dating"? Well, you know that time when you're "talking" with someone, and you don't want them to talk to anyone else, and they don't want you to talk to anyone else? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Nevertheless, I broke it off with that girl when I gave my life to Christ. 

As I stated earlier, I had done things very wrong in my past relationships. I was that statistically viewed "dog" of a guy. I would get with women, and make them seem like they were the only one in the world, knowing that I would still had my options open. You ask, "why do men do that?" Well, I'll explain that in another blog another day lol. Let me try to stick to the subject. Yeah, I did women wrong, so that had to change. After I had gave my life to God, I actually reached out to every female that I dated officially or unofficially, and apologized to them. Thank God for Facebook lol. 

Anywho, now that I'm a new Christian, I thought that everything was just going to be peaches, cream, and holy ghost Ice-cream. I thought that it was gonna be all good days, with no struggles or tests. But boy was it more that God wanted me to learn in this singleness. As I began this Christian-man-singleness thing, I knew what I eventually wanted in a woman. So, what did I do? I wrote a list of everything that I wanted in a female. Then I prayed to God about it. And with me being the analytical person that I am, I wrote about 2 pages front and back. Yes, I was VERY specific. And I actually believed that I would find exactly what I wrote down. So let the waiting games begin!

After about 1 or 2 years, I begin to share with other people about "the list". Of course, I didn't jump out and tell anyone how specific I was - because I knew they would laugh. But I did tell them about the list, and almost all of them questioned my sanity. It would probably be more understandable to you if you would've seen how specific I was with that list. I mean, I went as far as saying that I didn't want a woman with hands and feet that were big or ugly, to certain skin completion. Yeah, I was serious. Don't judge me lol. Ultimately, I wasn't going to settle. But it begin to get a little harder when those that were close to me begin to discourage me. They started to depress my target, and mock my hope. So what did I do? I begin to act like it didn't bother me, when deep down it was really stabbing my faith. This had to have been the longest that I had been single now, so I begin to question things. I begin to loosen up on some of the things on my list. Because maybe the reason it's taking so long is because I'm too picky, right? Or maybe I should just get with an attractive female, and just pray that God fixes them while we're in the relationship? Hey, maybe God doesn't really care who I get with? Those were just some of the question I asked myself.

So, I tried that. I started to get to know females because they were physically attractive, and I begin to grow impatient. #Desperate. Hey, I didn't want to be the only one not in a relationship out of all my friends, so it should be ok. #Insecurity.

The only thing about getting with these attractive females is that I never had peace with any of them; and something would always happen for us not to be together anymore. I would get with a female, get emotionally involved with her, then something would happen where we would have to end it. Either she just didn't want to be in the unofficial relationship anymore for no reason, or we would just stop talking for some reason. It was crazy! I couldn't explain it, nor did I know what to do. So I begin to pray. Keep in mind, I'm saved this whole time, so I'm feeling like, "God you tripping, I'm supposed to be your son!"

(We should ask ourselves, "Should God trust us with His sons and daughters right now?)

After a while of dealing with those broken unofficial relationships, I just begin to want to be single for the rest of my life. So when I told my friends this, you better believe they didn't believe me. But I was oh so serious. I was thinking, "well, I can just be like Paul. It seems like he wanted people to be single anyway" lol. Nonetheless, this phase didn't last too long. But I will say that I did consider it for probably a few months.

Now that I have this desire to be married again, and I had been broken so many times by relationships that I wasn't even in, I had made up my mind to just trust God. I prayed to God and asked for His will to be done in my life. I laid aside the list and all of my will, and I just begin to embrace God for who He is. God begin to reveal Himself to me like never before, and he begin to reveal myself to me as well. God would tell me that, "if some of us would chase after Him like we chase after a mate, Maybe He would give us a mate". So instead of me trying to find "the one", He wanted me to be "the one". So in order for me to be "the one" I had to trust the "the One" (Him), to mold me into "the one" for "the one". So, I got "the one". And it's funny because after I met her, I found out that she was "the exact one" from my list.

"There are things that we don't want to happen but we have to accept; things we don't' want to know, but have to learn; and people we feel we can't live without, but have to let go... #TrustGOD".

- Carlis Howze