Teenagers and college kids, every form of media is telling you about love. You don’t turn on the radio and hear songs about riding horses or flying drones. You don’t see teen magazines in the store with articles about identifying birds or fixing engines. No. Everything you hear and see has to do with the opposite sex. And a lot of the time, you’re getting fed bad advice from bad examples, or frivolous “tips” from people who are shallowly hoping to sell their products rather than seeking to genuinely inform you.
Even though it’s so alluring to imagine giving your heart to someone, they might not care for it the way you want them to. Especially if they’re 15 or 20. It’s definitely possible, but it has to be intentional.
What I can tell you today that I didn’t know as a teenager is that every time you give your heart to someone, you will carry them in your heart for the rest of your life. There’s nothing flippant about the heart. The heart wants to love and be loved. Permanently. With care and without drama.
This is how I know. I still wake up some mornings astounded by the fact that I’ve had dreams of my first love at 13. I never even think about him in daily life. That was 32 years ago! But apparently my subconscious still ranks him worthy of contemplation. Because it was the first time I had ever been loved not as a daughter or a sister, he marked a really huge transition in my life. All of a sudden, I was not only capable of familial love, I was capable of romantic love.
I’ve always known that my heart isn’t into discord, neglect, drama, or brokenness. It has always wanted a companion for life. A best friend. Someone to love and be loved by consistently. There’s already enough unpredictability in life; my heart wants to know who it’s putting its effort into and that that person will reciprocate those intentions.
In college and in my 20s, I dated someone for almost eight years. I just knew he was “the one.” The one I’d live out my days with, laugh with, cry with, and stick by. Everything important was there. I guess the feeling wasn’t mutual in the end. It took about ten years for my heart to fully resolve the fact that he wasn’t the one. In other words, my heart was bound up in him, either consciously or subconsciously, for 18 years.
I tell you this because a lot of people tell you things you should and shouldn’t do. But perhaps they should tell you why.
Here’s the why. If you’re anything like me, when you give your heart to someone at 13 or 18 or 29, it wants to settle into that person’s love and revel in it for a long time – for life. My heart wasn’t meant for loving someone, breaking up with them, loving someone else, breaking up with them, and loving someone else. It has shown me over the years that it doesn’t let go of lost love in a day, a year, or a decade.
So when you hear shallow songs that talk about love as though it’s recyclable, know that the heart doesn’t work that way. It cares. It persists. It holds on. It takes decades, sometimes, for it to let go of a person it spent its time loving.
Guard your heart. Wait for the person who is mature enough to want to love you well. Wait until you’re that kind of person too. You won’t be missing much. If attraction and desire derail you, it can take a long time for your heart to be ready for long-term commitment. But when you put your heart ahead of physical attraction, you’ll find someone worthy of your love.
One of my biggest and most long-standing prayers for my boys is that they find life companions early on – that they love their wives well, their wives love them well, and they commit early on to being consistent with each other until they’re old and gray. No time wasted on heartache.
