I Am Slowly Learning That Love Takes Time

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“It’s not enough to take the one you love for granted

You must remind her or she’ll be inclined to say

How do I know he loves me?

How do I know he’s mine?”

I used to sing this song all the time when I was in high school. And it’s something that I still keep on pondering to this day. It reminds me that love is indeed a commitment. It’s not just about uttering those words to someone and expecting them to stay, regardless of the situation. Love is a continuous work.

Being the romantic person that I was, I used to think that if you and the other person truly loved each other, you both would always choose each other no matter what. I think I got this whole concept wrong. People can love each other at one point in their life, but it is understandable if they decide to separate along the way.

The thing is, most of us are too focused on finding someone, to the point where we fantasize about spending the future with someone even if it isn’t working anymore. And in this era of online dating, people often visualize a future with someone they like but who they barely know. It is not necessarily wrong, but the foundations should be there.

Love means trusting someone, and to trust someone, we need to get to know them, not just the things they post on their feeds or random things we talk about with them. We need to know them on a deep level. Their traumas, their fears, their past, all that is hidden, and things they don’t usually share. Love takes time to unfold. It’s not something we should rush and force.

If I could add a few lyrics to the song I mentioned earlier, I think they’d be:

“You have to learn how to trust. 

That’s the only way it will work.

That’s the greatest way to show someone you love 

and truly care for them!”

Trust is an essential component of love. And since it is a key ingredient, it is something that is earned and should not be freely given. As such, it is really important to invest time in getting to know someone and to never force things.

It can be frustrating at times to wait for Mr./Ms. Right, especially if you see photos of your friends happily spending time with their beloved. But if we intend to find someone true and to genuinely love, we will have to be patient. The process takes time.

I hope that during the process of finding that someone, however hard and long it may take, we never lose faith. There’s someone for us. Trust the process and trust that God grants us the desires of our hearts when it is time.