"You"complete me
PSA: This story involves lots of talk about sex so if you are 1. My amazing elementary school principal, 2. the priests who led my high school, 3. my mom, 4. my mom’s friends (my dad), 5. anyone who doesn’t want to think about me even typing the word "sex", then please forgive me for the next 15 minutes of your life. I love you all and I love that you all read my writing & encourage me just as much as you did when I was little but i think this message is important. I promise it has a happy ending and you’ll get to hear about my Maxy! (You’re going to love him.) So I invite you to push through the “uncomfy” with me—you always have so patiently!
You guys! It’s been a while! Let’s get right into it! I dove head first (like I do most things) into the deep end of unhealthy relationships at the ripe age of 15. I used to look for relationships to complete me. I would become so enmeshed in my relationship that if we weren’t seeing eye to eye or if I felt like I cared more than they did, it would completely derail me. I would become an emotional nutcase, unable to function through the breakup. I mean the recovery time for a break up for me was like…years. The point of all of this is that
If you’re making your relationship your god, it is going to fail you.
Human beings were not meant to fill the parts of us that only God can fill. You know how many times Jesus disappointed somebody? Never. The world may have made it easy to believe that, for example—bad things happen to good people, people die, people hurt us, etc. God doesn’t cause our pain, but He will absolutely meet us in it and use it to propel us towards a piece of our purpose.
Singleness for me was really about digging through the reality that there were many things that I desired over a relationship with Jesus. I lived my life saying, “I’m gonna be so happy when I find my husband, when I get that job, when I lose 10 lbs, when I ….” Whatever. It wasn’t until I found myself singing a worship song containing these repetitive lyrics one Sunday: “For me, for me, only Jesus. For me, for me, only Jesus. Let my heart want for nothing but You. Just You.” The peace I found while really meditating on that chorus is indescribable. It’s like surrendering what you want, while acknowledging that you really have NO idea what that is. You think you want all these things that are probably not right for you, while God is asking you to SEEK HIM so that He may show you the desires of your heart. After all, He made you. I imagine I used to sing my heart out “for me, for me, only everything I want and that boy I’m selling myself short for. For me, for me…”
So, relationships. Until very recently, I’ve never had a healthy one. My first relationship was 5+ years of two emotional lunatics trying to love each other from 15-20 years old. But throughout those foundational, developmental years, I wasn’t exactly feeding myself a healthy understanding of how a relationship should develop or function. After that, I “fell in love with my best friend” (sweet little tragically predictable coming of age lifetime movie). It was one of those beautiful whirlwinds ending with two people rushing into talks about forever, completely lacking in emotional compatibility, and killing each other by refusing to let go. There’s healing in the singleness. It’s the time that God gets to spend one-on-one with you. Maybe you’re single because He wants to spend some special time alone with you, His daughter. Don’t wish that away. We tell ourselves plenty of lies while we muddle through the necessary process of finding joy in our independence: “ I’ll never find anyone.” “I’ll never get over this person.” etc.
Eventually, I started feeding myself so much of God’s love, that the fear stopped being louder than my faith.
After a few years of being totally single, no texting to gain attention, no dates, no nothing, I decided to try again. My last relationship was a quick little bonfire—still reflecting the unhealthy patterns of previous relationships; but this time, I was looking at the relationship through a clearer lens. Is this what God promised me all this time? No. Am I being treated like God’s Daughter? No. This relationship showed me my non-negotiables. There was never a nasty fight, yelling, cursing, hating. There was just clarity. After this relationship, I told myself & God that I needed the next one to be different… but I wasn’t sure what I could do to make a relationship different… to change the patterns that I had become so used to. Instantly, I felt God say “Don’t sleep with them. Let the man I’ve chosen for you show you that he loves you in EVERY way without sex.” I thought, no way. I’ve allowed sex to be a part of each relationship from very early on. If we weren’t understanding each other, we’d always have sex to force us back into fake comfort and imitative peace. But could I do that? Could I stick to my guns and say no? Not in 2018. Not while my favorite rapper is Meek Mill and every good Beyonce song or romantic comedy focuses on sex being a guaranteed part of any instant relationship. How could I do that? Then I remembered that God loves when we worship Him. If I became more aware of the Holy Spirit in me, God would have the room to do something seemingly impossible. Maybe you’ve never had sex. Maybe you’ve only had healthy relationships. Maybe you’ve always known Jesus and His love for you. But that’s just not my story.
I don’t think I knew how much God loved me until I watched Him light the fire in my heart that told me to be good to myself and to honor Him and the promises He has shared with me. I knew that sex had kept me in broken relationships for much longer than I should’ve been. We’ve all seen those movies where the drunk college girl calls her boyfriend up and they get back together for an hour or two until he leaves her naked in her apartment and heads over to the next girls house. No? Never seen that movie? Oh... Every relationship ended in me getting cheated on and every relationship broke me down to nothing but Jesus. So I figured let’s take sex off the table. By the way, I’m sure some of you are thinking “I could never do that…” I know you are because ME NEITHER. But the Holy Spirit lives in us and He CAN do that—piece of cake. So if I have enough awareness of the Holy Spirit in me counteracting my impossible stubbornness, it might just be possible.
Fast forward to meeting my Max. He was “the nice guy” from church who I had zero interest in. Why, you ask? Because he was good for me. Because I had no experience with men who helped you move from one apartment to the next with no underlying intentions. Because he treats women like they’re daughters of the King, so clearly I put him in the “brother” category in my head. This is broken behavior and only a heart healing with Jesus could go from “I’m going to marry an NFL player who is at least 7 ft tall, has 8 million dollars, and a range rover” to “I’m going to marry Max”. You know who said that first statement? The girl I was about 2 years ago. You know the brokenness I see in that statement now? “I’m going to set some sort of unrealistic Hollywood narrative for myself because I don’t trust that God has someone for me who will love me in a way I’ve never been loved before.”
As my heart healed, my eyes changed. As I pursued God and began to learn His heart for us, I also started to notice qualities of God’s heart in my Max and the way He lives. As I began to open myself up to the idea of Max being more than a friend, I noticed Jesus changing my heart, almost like preparing it to receive the type of relationship He always wanted for me. The more time I spent with Max the more I fell in love with Jesus. Max only says what He means. Jesus never said “you are my daughter.” And then “jk, it’s actually not a good time for me right now.” Jesus never “ghosted” anybody… ok so there was the whole resurrection I guess some could argue but even then He kept His word. He said “you are my daughter and THAT IS IT.” There was no “I don’t know.” Or “maybe.” There weren’t either of those with Max either. One day we got stuck in conversation in the car outside of a Mexican restaurant (which we never ended up going into to meet up with our friends). I told him, “my husband will not sleep with me until he’s my husband. If we sleep together he’s not my husband. I promised God I’d do it differently this time.” A few weeks passed and Max and I were getting pretty serious and by pretty serious I mean he came over to my house to “give me a hug” and said “Emily Rebecca Sharp, I am going to marry the heck out of you.” Bold. But it felt sure. I knew him—he was my friend and I knew he never said anything he didn’t mean. See I noticed that in him because I say things I don’t mean all the time. He’s changed me in that way and now I’m more intentional with my words and I try to say what I mean and mean what I say.
Eventually Max had shared with me that he was looking for a relationship which had God at the center, and that he was praying for a woman who would desire the same commitment to purity to which he felt called. We both did relationships our own way before each other and we knew this one was going to be different. When the subject of sex came up—because it does, it will, we’re humans, he’s tall and really handsome—he said “you told me your husband won’t sleep with you until you’re married and I want you to know that I take that very seriously”. In that moment, 1: I fell in love with him a little more than I had been before he said that, 2: I panicked and wanted to take that statement back, 3: I doubted myself, 4: I asked him “what’s the difference between a glorified friend and a boyfriend then?” 5: Panicked some more, 6: I doubted that he thought I was attractive, desirable, or even sexy at all, 7: I cried when I got home. This man is NEVER GOING TO SLEEP WITH ME, I thought. “He means what he says and I know he’s a man of his word” (which was super attractive until his Godly heart & integrity were reintroduced to my brokenness in this moment). I prayed, “God, does this mean we can’t do anything else either?” (Don’t judge me, I prayed about foreplay. Jesus knows. We’re fine. Jesus and I are FINE) The answer was “Yes, nothing else. Kiss his face and give me the rest of your heart to heal.”
So a few days go by, he’s stopped our make outs with a soft “holy spirit kiss” as I call it. Each one said “ok I love you, we have to stop.” And I hated every single one of them. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. He would say “Baby, you’re God’s daughter. And I want to marry you.” “I’m just trying to love you how Jesus loves you.” “God said your husband won’t sleep with you until he’s your husband and I’m going to be your husband.“ It took lots of prayer and lots of him staying while I tried to push him away. It took uncomfy conversations and praying together. It took days where I didn’t feel like we were on the same page. It took trusting The King of our hearts. God knows the damage that I’ve done to my heart and the things that I’ve taught myself to be true about relationships, men, and myself. Through this new way of doing a relationship, God was going to heal all of those things. He just asked that I not make a God out of my relationship and that I don’t have sex, because for me, sex made everything cloudy and I can’t remember a time when I prayed to God after having sex. I can’t remember a time where I thanked God for the “healthy and loving relationship He provided” while I was having desperate makeup sex.
Our bodies naturally want to express our emotions with the person we love. Sometimes it feels totally unnatural to wait. Sometimes I tell myself it’s “religious” when I forget why we wait. I’m not waiting for marriage because religion says its wrong to have sex outside of marriage. I’m not even waiting for marriage because the bible says so. I’m waiting for marriage because when I prayed about my dreams, my future husband, and how to conduct a healthy relationship, God personally convicted ME. God sent a message of clarity to my heart. I’ve always jumped right into relationships. I’ve said “I think he’s the one” more than once for sure. I worried if I would ever “know” the way that people say “when you know, you know.” How could I know if I had already known, and fallen flat on my face when I got to know the character and heart of the person I thought I could do life with because I was “soooo in love”. Sidenote: I was—I was super in love. But I was in love in the way that I understood it. I was in love but it looked more like infatuation and codependency. I had yet to experience love in a relationship with the creator of LOVE. Knowing LOVE, Gods love, helped me to have a relationship that looked nothing like I’d had before. I wasn’t hoping to save my boyfriend. I wasn’t falling in love with potential. I was in love with exactly who he was. So how do you “know”? When your relationship with Jesus is deeper because you’re doing life with a man who does everything in his power to love like Jesus. He is powerfully gentle, strong and honest, compassionate and loyal, and just… every good thing. If he cares more about your relationship with Jesus than he does about your relationship with him, I can promise you that your relationship with him will bring heaven down to earth every single morning. But for me, that means being with someone who won’t let me hide my face when I’m crying. That means being with someone who wants me to talk about how I’m feeling and won’t walk away until I do. These things are challenging for me because what do I know about relationships based on my previous experience? Crying means you’re “too emotional” or “too much”. Wanting to talk about your feelings is “exhausting” to him and he will probably “need space” for a week or so after seeing a piece of your heart come to the surface. But not my Max—he puts his face to mine when I’m crying, when I’d rather be hiding in a closet a couple million miles away. He says “I’ll stay awake until 5 am until I understand how you’re feeling.”
This isn’t “the jackpot,” I didn’t’ get super “lucky” with Max, so the rest of you are screwed because I got the last unicorn. No. This is a man who is led by Jesus with a specific assignment, so we just obediently responded to our connection. We aren’t each others “type,” he’s only dated actors, I’ve only dated a**holes. (haha! sorry this made me laugh out loud), he loves Harry Potter and Star Wars, I made fun of those kids because my attention span was never long enough to read the “nerd” books (or any books—be real, Emily). In healing the dirt in our own hearts and filling ourselves up with Jesus, we were able to see all of God’s promises in each other. He isn’t who I would’ve picked for myself a year ago, and thank God for that. But He is exactly who Jesus would pick for me. The promise is to stay close to Jesus and He will give you all the desire of your heart. I could not be more wildly attracted to my Max. He is a man after God’s heart. He is perfect for me. If I didn’t take the one-on-one time with Jesus, I wouldn’t have seen Max. I would be at the club feeding myself more unhealthy messages about my worth and my future. My Max—he loves first, always, and everybody. It’s not about finding a good man. It’s about positioning yourself so close to God that you start to see through clear eyes of Love. You start to see things in people that reflect God’s heart. If you’re filled with Jesus you will know when you see someone who is fully walking as one of God’s children. You will know that this type of love is unconditional and never ending. Naturally you’ll come together because light recognizes light. If you check in with the King of both of your hearts who is individually leading the two of you, you will notice Him starting to lead you two as a pair—together.
It all sounds so sweet, I’m sure, but there are some really salty parts that I like to call “growing pains”. Love is beautiful, but when you’ve spent most of your life receiving lies about love, relationships, and yourself, it’s a full time job to work with Jesus in breaking down some important walls. It means explaining things you’re more comfortable repressing. It means not just having sex to avoid communication. It means thinking before you speak (it’s as hard as it sounds). It means saying “I’m sorry” when you’ve forgotten that you’re in a relationship with your future husband and not a boy who has one foot out the door. There is so much healing, and sometimes the healing hurts before it feels better.
Who are you partnering yourself with and spending your time with? Do they remind you of God’s love for you? What you want is not too much. What you’re looking for is not “unrealistic”. There is absolutely no perfect person. But there is a God in heaven who knows your heart perfectly, and if you seek Him above all things, you will navigate the obstacles of this world and your relationships through a difference lens. No one can complete you but Jesus. The goal of being alone with God is to be so complete and so whole that you notice His invitations for you: to do work with Him and to bring heaven down to earth. And I can bet you that He will partner you with someone who is equally as prepared, whole, and ready for you. Because of God’s love for you, the two of you will get to be a light of love together, heal relationships together, empower other people with your testimonies, get married, and yes…have sex for the rest of your lives. (It’ll happen, God promised.)
The goal isn’t a husband, the goal is Jesus.
The promises come, but first and always—Jesus.
