The Regular Plan

I have not seen Sony's new movie, How do You Know, but I was drawn in by the trailer. Reese Witherspoon's character; Lisa, finds her career at its end and her heart unignited as she reaches her thirties, and she pensively reflects that "Most girls plan to meet a guy, fall in love, have a baby...but I don't know if I have what it takes for everybody's regular plan."
I wanted to curl up on the couch next to Lisa, squeeze her shoulder, and say, "I know how you feel, honey."

"I don't know if I have what it takes for everybody's regular plan."

As I add another page of broken relationships to my dossier, I wonder if I have what it takes for everybody's regular plan. One well-intentioned friend told me that easy, shallow relationships seemed inherent to my personality. Another told me I was "created to love and be loved," and couldn't go for long without. I remember one of my guy friends nicknaming me "heartbreaker." I laughed at the time, but now the memory stings. Do I really not have what it takes for the love of a lifetime?
Perhaps I don't. But I believe with all of my heart in a love that "alters not with its brief hours and weeks, but bears it out--even to the edge of doom" (Shakespeare). A love built of two lives pointing toward God, "forsaking all others, as long as they both shall live." And I'm waiting for it...and dreaming...and learning from the one who perfected it. And "in this is his love made perfect, that a man lay down his life for another."

They say that the best way to detect a counterfeit is to know the real thing...so until my perfect love shows up, I will be memorizing His example.

 And then--even if I don't have what it takes for everybody's regular plan--I'll be okay. Thank God He has his own plans...plans to give me a future and a hope.