Falling in Love Takes Work - Guest Post Series

I am excited to introduce to you the author of today's "Living as a Single Christian Woman" guest post, Michelle from Being Single.

Michelle and I have been friends since college and have plenty of blackmail information on each other. But we won't speak of those things.

Well, maybe just one! She once dared me and another friend to throw her in a lake (it was March or April!!). You can guess what happened. Ah... fun times!! :)

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Work and effort. Those two words make me tired just saying them. In this era of fast food and technology we want things our way right away. This selfishness has found its way into our relationships as well.

Single adults and married adults alike have bought into a false idea that the best things are those which we don’t have to work for. Take a look at commercials. Easy is what sells. Even commercials for dating websites make you believe that it’s easy to find the love of your life when you let them do the work for you.

I think everyone at some point or another buys into this idea because we want to coast for a while. We want God to be a genie in a bottle and snap his fingers and voila, life is grand.

I can share this with you because I realized recently that I bought into it.

I had a date a couple of weekends ago. I won’t mention how long it has been since I had one of those (If anyone I know, specifically Lendy, is reading this-Shhh.) Suffice it to say, it has been a very long time.

I didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to be a pleasant afternoon with lunch, talking, walking and a movie. I had a good time, but I was disappointed as well. Some part of me had been hoping for love at first sight with everything falling into place and a happily ever after story to tell. What I got was a really nice guy that I’m going to have to invest time in to determine if he might be a happily ever after story.

I felt frustrated because I realized that I honestly didn’t want to work on a relationship right now. I want to eat, sleep, go to work and be in love; not eat, sleep, go to work and find time to work on another relationship.

The truth is that relationships are rarely easy. Even those that are easier, require effort to maintain and grow. However, the end result, more often than not, is much better than if things were easy. I have seen the fruit of it time and again in my relationships and in watching the relationships of my friends.

Work doesn’t have to be a four letter word. My encouragement to you, whether you are single or married, is to take some time to review your relationships. Ask God to help you see clearly the areas that you need to work on.
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When not working on her relationships, Michelle reads books, plays Nertz and talks to her nephews on the phone.