How I Learned Not To Settle

For the longest time in my head I figured the man I would end up with would be a man that I just settled for.

All my relationships were just there but there was always something missing, my heart was never really in it. Therefore, my head, gave me the idea that I would just have to settle for whatever came my way. But little did I know that God was saving my heart and me for a man who was worth it. For a man who pursued not only me, but God, a man that never backed down when my demons surfaced, and a man who saw the world and mess that I came from and continued to love me.

When I was growing up this was the man I had always hoped to find, to love, and to call mine. In my heart this was the man that I wanted, not the man that my mind told me I would “settle” for. But as I went through high school, and college, and boys, and a lot of emotional stress I began to lose my faith and belief that a man like this existed. I then began to make myself for the boys I thought I would settle for, because in the end that just seemed the easiest.

I started to work out more, eat less, take way too long to do my hair and makeup, but for what? The boy I was just going to “settle” for? It wasn’t until I started to (excuse my language) not give a shit, that I started to transform myself into the woman that God wanted me to be (at this point I did not know that God was molding me into the woman I needed to be, I just thought I was “doing me”). So the summer of my sophomore year of college, I got signed with a modeling agency, I started working on me, and less of what I thought everyone wanted me to be and with that I found myself, and the MAN that God had me wait my whole 20 years of life for.

So what is my point? Is this a post about finding the love of my life? Finding myself? Finding God? It’s actually not about any of those things. What it’s really about is not settling.

In all honesty, my first mistake was thinking that I should ever just “settle”. When you settle you miss out on your full potential. And truth be told, settling is just a defense mechanism. Of course it’s easier to settle than to fight for what you want, and of course settling is easier than falling in love. I mean falling in love requires actual emotions, and opening up and the Lord knows that is NOT my strongest trait.

But imagine if I would have settled for the kid at the pier who thought cat calling me was the appropriate way to talk to any female, imagine if I would have settled for under eating and working out to impress a boy who at the end of the day just wanted one things from me, imagine if I would have settled for a boy who couldn’t handle the tears that sometimes come from not feeling good enough? If I had settled for any of those things I would have never found the MAN that God designed for me, the man that never lets me settle for anything less than my all, and a man that refuses to let me see anything less than beautiful when I look in the mirror.

Trust me falling in love is scary as hell but, like I said, it is SO much better than just settling.

My point is, never settle for what you think is easiest or the safest bet. Go for what scares you, dare to fall in love, never settle to protect your heart because God only gives you what you can handle, and settling is not it.