How Single Girls Spend Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day. An entire day dedicated to love. It's everywhere: cards, flowers, candy, teddy bears, coffee mugs, hearts, pink (ugh, SO much pink!!!)... absolutely everywhere. Girls giggle in anticipation of the cute boy they're crushing on giving them a valentine. Couples walk hand-in-hand and share a romantic dinner together at a fancy restaurant. It's a day that wraps people in a warm, comforting glow.

Then, there are those who recognize this day by a different name: Singles Awareness Day. To them, the day is a time to remember relationships - and lack thereofs - and ponder their current state of singleness. The day can be especially hard for single women. However, we make our own traditions for Valentine's Day. Some of them include:

*Shopping: because we seriously need to spend time with our first love: shoes.

*Chick flicks: because for some reason, watching romantic movies are the perfect way to forget about being single.

*Comfort food: ice cream, pizza, Chinese food, lots and LOTS of chocolate = best I'm-single-and-depressed medicine ever.

*Wearing all black: just because we can.

*Tweeting: because he needs to know that you're listening to angry-girl music.

Yeah, we women are creative, to say the least!

My own Valentine's Day traditions are fairly simple. I like spending time with my girl friends. Whether we're hanging out at Starbucks, walking around the mall like "Oh, you SHOULDA put a ring on it!", or going out for dinner, we always have a blast. We just have a girls' night and enjoy each others' company. Who says you need a date to feel loved in Valentine's Day? My girls have been here for me through everything; we're like sisters. And, all of their encouragement makes me feel completely and totally loved.

Go out there and make your own Valentine's Day traditions. Even if you're single (like me), you still have people who love you: your family, friends, pets (because they're *totally* people)... they're all around you. Take the time to let ten know how much you appreciate and care about them. Just remember how much they love you, and then, there's no way you'll miss out on the warm glow of Valentine's Day.

This One's for the Girls (and Guys)!

A quote that I read by Taylor Swift the other day really stuck out to me. It said, "When I look at that person [who is right for me], I'm not even going to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 27 seconds when I was eighteen."

The media likes to claim that you're nobody if nobody loves you. Take risks, wear your heart on your sleeve, follow your heart, fall in and out of love, and pursue romance no matter what the cost. Love is a game. Books, songs, movies, tv shows... the message is everywhere.

But, I can't help but disagree. Love is something that should be taken seriously. The book that most accurately describes love is the Bible. One of my favorite passages declares the following:

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

How beautiful is that??? Love isn't about fulfilling your own needs; it's placing his or her needs above your own. It's selfless. Marriage was created to paint a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. Christ is the bridegroom, and he always protects, he's always patient and kind, and his love never ends. That being said, true love waits. Yes, I have one of the rings, and I'll only take it off to put on my wedding ring. I know many people who are astounded by my decision to wait, but for me, it's simple: if I love my future husband, I'll wait for him.

And, you know what? God has the right person set aside for you already. You have no idea how exciting that thought is to me. He or she will be beyond worth the wait. Like Taylor Swift said, when you're with "the one," you won't think of...

*The one who broke up with you during a phone call or through a text message.
*Someone who used you.
*A celebrity you've crushed on for ages but will (in all probability) never meet.
*The one that got away.
*The one who cheated on you.

None of that will matter because true love lasts. So, wait for the right one. And, while God's preparing he or she for you, prepare yourself.

Wait.

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."

~ Traditional wedding vows

Dirty Diapers

Let's face it: change is hard. From the time we're little, we fight change. Last Sunday during nursery duty at church, the little one-year-olds in my classroom cried when it was their turn for a diaper change. Although it's a sight I've seen many times before, a thought struck me this particular day.

Those one-year-olds would be perfectly happy to keep their stinky diapers on, to never change them. They would rather be smelly than given a new one. More analogies came to me. I, for example, sucked my thumb when I was little. When people told me I was growing too big to be sucking my thumb, I defiantly told them I didn't care. I was content with the idea of being a thumb-sucker for the rest of my life. While I laugh now at my childish antics, I realize that the fear of change is deeply ingrained in all of us. Of course, some of us are better at adapting to change than others, but to a certain extent, there are things in our lives that we want to be constant: having a loving family, a good job, close friends, etc.

I'm not going to lie... sometimes, change can be the pits. When I was fourteen, my best friend moved away. I lost my grandmother this past January, and not a day goes by that I don't miss her. I've lost friends due to distance and time, and the list goes on and on.

Yet, change is a necessary part of life. This year especially, I've had to come to terms with the knowledge that I can't go back to being the little tomboy that I was ten years ago. I just recently graduated high school, closing one chapter of my life and starting the next. We can't prevent change, even if we hate it with every fiber of our beings; it's unstoppable.

The good news is that there's a reason behind change. If the one-year-olds had been given their way last Sunday, they might have been happy about it for a while, but those stinky, filthy diapers might have led to sickness or rashes. The other nursery workers and I didn't change the dirty diapers to hurt them; we changed them to help them. The same principle applies to those over the age of one, too. We often don't understand why change happens, and sometimes, we fight it. Yet, we can be comforted with the knowledge that God has us in the palm of His hand. That's one of the many things that's so awesome about Him: the stories of our lives aren't floating around in limbo. Before we were born, He wrote the stories. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for your welfare and not for calamity, plans to give you a hope and a future.'"

In hindsight (hindsight is such a beautiful thing!), I'm thankful I finally stopped sucking my thumb. I'm thankful I had braces, even though people teased me and I felt like an alien. I'm thankful for the hard changes, too, because they have made me mature and showed me that God loves me so much that He wants to teach me hard lessons that will benefit me in the future. 1 Corinthians 13 says that eventually, we have to put aside our childish ways and become adults. I can't become a child again, which means I have many more responsibilities now and more is expected of me. Still, I look forward to whatever God has planned for me, and I'm thankful that in an ever-changing world, He will never change.

From the Drama Queen's Mouth

Hey guys! To get this thing going, I just want to let you know a little bit about myself:

* I live in Alabama (obviously), but that's as much information as I'm giving out about where I live.

* My passions are reading, writing, and singing. I have a fanfiction.net account, where I'm listed as broadwaygirl818. I've been writing fanfiction since I was about fourteen.

* I'm an English nerd, but I also love history.

* The singularly most important thing to know about me is that I'm a Christian. One of my "theme songs (yeah, I have one of those...)" is "Jesus Freak" by dc Talk.

I'll be updating this (hopefully) at least bi-weekly, but no promises; anyone who knows me on fanfiction.net will tell you that. Life tends to get in the way, but hey, I can't complain! :)