By now it’s old news that I am living in my parents’ home and assisting with their care. They are actually still quite independent in many areas, so I’m more the “in-house, on-call” person! It has been a joy to be near them and to get to represent all of my siblings and myself in this endeavor. Yes, there are challenges when you place three adults under one roof—challenges for all of us—but I think the transition is going much better than I may have even anticipated.

Sometimes in the evening hours, we enjoy reading a book aloud together and then just talking for a while. As we talked one evening, I opened my heart and shocked them when I started with, “I don’t like living here.” After I had their full attention, I continued: “Though I have sincerely accepted that God has chosen for me to be single at this time, I don’t think I ever really knew what I was missing until now. I want what you have—companionship.”

My father, in his quiet wisdom, said, “Be patient” and smiled at me in the way that a daddy does when his “little girl” wants something he has already been praying for.

My mother, in her role as mentor said, “Don’t jump ahead of the Lord. He knows what He has planned for you, so let Him carry it out.”

And, as parents and children do, we then talked about some of the unmarried men that I know. I clearly spoke more highly of one man in particular, and my parents asked what it was that seemed to draw me to this person. “The bottom line is that he loves God, and he’s just…well…he’s…amazing.”

Now when I tell you my mother’s reply, you may think it’s cruel, but please know that her direct and pointed questions are framed in a way that she, as my mother, knows works best for me—in order to get me to think.

She said, “Does he think you’re amazing?”

I didn’t know the answer, which, in actuality, was the answer. And suddenly everything changed.

My dear single friends, always remember that the husband is commanded to love his wife. Both parties are commanded by God to give and to love. Yet so often, as single women—particularly the older we get—we are willing to give and give and praise and praise and admire and admire. But that’s not enough, and it’s also not the right approach. God addresses husbands in the Bible, and in His words to them He calls women the “weaker vessels”—not in a derogatory way, as some would try to tell you, but because we are to be cherished and valued…and to be thought of as amazing.

And even if you meet someone you think is amazing, if he doesn’t think you’re amazing—or at least until he does—God doesn’t want him to have you. Remember what the Psalmist said: “Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted” (Psalm 127:1, NLT).

So please, dear friends, focus on God alone and let Him take care of His creation—you! He values you (enough to have His Son die on your behalf); He loves you unconditionally; and He thinks you’re amazing (read Psalm 139, below)!

Psalm 139:1-18, NLT

1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.