An Epistle of Love

To my future,

Now that I write this, your identity is still unknown to me. I don’t even know if I have already met you. I am utterly clueless, although I sometimes wish you were already part of my circle. Regardless, I am hoping to be surprised when I finally meet you. I hope you also will be. You will be a pleasant surprise, a gift actually. A beautiful gift. An answer to my prayers. To my tearful cries. To my longings.

I have been waiting for you. For years. Quite abnormally long years. But I am patient. I have to be. I want you to find me spotless. Pure. Reserved. Yes, I have reserved myself for you. I won’t say, however, that I have been entirely faithful, although faithfulness while waiting is questionable because there is no one to be faithful to in the first place. But there is, I think. You. I have to be faithful to you. This is my choice. To wait for you.

It is not an effortless thing, I have to say. Because I’ve been tested several times and failed quite a few times, too. I battled with self-doubts, with self-pity, and every so often I questioned if you would ever come to find me. God says you will. And I trust Him with the intensity that I hope you have, too. Let’s trust God. Even though you are there and I am here, with our individual anonymity and the unknown future separating us, I know in my heart that God will cause us to meet someday. It will be a sweet thing, like finally locking the ends of a priceless necklace, keeping it secure, its diamond pendant radiating with the streaks of sunlight. I can’t help my excitement. But in the meantime, let’s wait.

Please be patient. I am being patient, though it requires too much of my strength. We will meet when God decides we are finally ready. I don’t want to go against God’s plan, and I know you feel the same way, too. Let’s obey. We will both be pleased if we allow God to work between us and unravel the love story He has already authored for you and me.

Right now, I know the Lord is still preparing us. For our meeting. For our union. And for every lovely thing He has for us. Indeed, it is the reason for this singleness. I often wonder why I have been in this season longer than many of my friends had. Do you often wonder, too? The only answer I have is because He wants us to be a testimony not only to our friends but also to other people, strangers even, who may have unfavorable opinion about love and marriage. The world needs models who can credibly demonstrate the rewards of waiting, and even if we didn’t plan to take that role, we were chosen. I want to be used you know, and if my, our, waiting is designed to create more impact and make our story more powerful, then I have no questions about it. In fact, it makes my heart glad. Because I also know that there will be a beautiful ending. A very beautiful ending to our singleness and an equally beautiful start to our togetherness.

I have to admit, though, that using us, we, and our is somewhat new to me. I have always been alone and I have never considered anyone to be part of myself. It has always been I, me, and my. So this is how it feels. It feels great. It feels as if you were here, next to me, watching me write you a letter, looking over my shoulders, peeking at every word that I put, holding my hand once in a while. But I can’t see your face. Until I see you personally, your face would always be a blank, hazy image. It’s okay. I have the rest of my lifetime to lock my gaze on that face God created with me in mind.

I have always loved you. I told that to a friend long ago, riding the train, with nothing to talk about. She probably didn’t see that coming and so doubted my feelings. She told me that this may not be the case, that I may not actually love you, that I loved only the idea of loving you or the idea of you. I pondered for a moment and thought that she may actually be right. No, I said. I love him. I love him even without knowing him. I love him even without knowing who he may actually be. I love him.

I didn’t convince her I know. Because if it weren’t me, if it were another person professing her affections for her unknown beloved, I would have scoffed at her. For who would believe in the idea of loving someone you haven’t met? Who would actually love an imaginary person? But to me, you are not imaginary. You are as real as anyone I know. Only you are not here. You are not with me. Yet. But that doesn’t give me any reason not to love you now.

Love is not just a feeling. Because if it is, I may have long ago abandoned the idea of us and have chosen to cling to someone else. But I did not. I chose to stay. Because love is a choice. If I didn’t love you, I would not have chosen to wait for you.

I believe it doesn’t require physical evidence to trigger love. I don’t need to see you to love you. It just happened. An occurrence even I can’t explain. And I don’t need to find reasons for feeling this way because I believe love demands no reason. You just love.

This is how I am toward you. And I will continue to wait for you until God says it’s time. You are part of neither my past nor my present, but you certainly will be part of my future, and to me, that’s better than enough. I will meet you. Soon. In God’s time. And we will be happy.

Lovingly,

Your future