I’ve been having a rough time lately, I’m just gonna be real with you. I’ve been trying to get a business off the ground (and having to work 3 other part time jobs to support myself while I do that). I’m a deacon at my church; but now that I have actual responsibilities, I have no motivation to do them. A few months ago, I asked God to show me my sin and the ugliness of it; so now I’m having to confront some deeply-seated character flaws, and all of the soul-searching and repenting that comes along with that kind of sanctification.

On top of all of that, my roommate (who has been “my person” for almost 7 years) has fallen in love with the man of her dreams, and she’s spending more time and energy and emotions on that relationship than on ours – and even on my best days, when I’m most supportive and least jealous and happiest for their relationship, it still sucks. A lot. In ways I have yet to put into words. (And even though part of me knows that it’s okay to acknowledge the suckiness, I feel guilty for saying that publicly because it feels selfish to be anything but happy for her.)

Theeeeennnn, on top of all THAT, I picked online dating back up for a couple of weeks recently, and if that doesn’t cause you to question everything you knew about life and people and your self-worth, nothing will. (It’s not actually that dramatic, but you know me and my drama queen-ness – and my online dating stories, haha.)

Anyway, all that to say, I’ve been feeling a little…um, unraveled lately. There’s a lot to unpack there, and probably about 5 different ways I could take this post, but I want to talk about one thing that really kind of made me stop and think lately, and be thankful for Jesus.

I’ve been thinking about how my roommate has been “my person” for so long, and how I’m not her person anymore (and maybe I never was). She is quite honestly probably the biggest reason (other than Jesus) that I’ve been so content in my singleness these past few years. She has been the person I invited as my plus one to my holiday parties, the person I drove to church with, the person I text when I’m out of town to say I miss her, the person I hug good-night, and holler “I love you” to when one of us leaves the house. She’s the person I fight with and reconcile with; the person who has seen me at my ugliest, most sinful moments, and the person who shows me Jesus in my repentance; the person who has taught me why empathy is important, and pushed me to choose a church that extolled Jesus in everything. We’ve chosen two churches together, lived in 3 apartments together, and had several other roommates together. We’re the first person the other asks when airport runs need to be done, and the first person the other goes to when we need to be reminded of the Gospel.

And…I’m losing that. All of that. Sure, she’s not gone yet. She’s not even engaged yet. And I have a place to go whenever she does leave. But she doesn’t come home to me every day anymore; most of the time, she goes to her boyfriend’s house when she gets off work or out of school. In the past 9 days, we’ve only had two conversations that didn’t involve her being sleepy-grumpy when she got home from school. This morning, I was missing her, AND I STILL LIVE WITH HER.

I think maybe that’s one of the reasons I started online dating again about 3 weeks ago – because I feel like I need another “my person.” She’s moving onto a different person, and I don’t want to be left behind without a replacement. Actually, there’s no maybe about it. That’s what I was doing. And that’s not a good reason to try to find a husband.

You know why it’s not a good reason? Because no one person can possibly be everything I need a person to be in my life. Even Nicole hasn’t fulfilled my every emotional or physical need. Sure, after all these years, we’d settled into a comfortable place with each other’s quirks and flaws; but she hasn’t been and never will be my EVERYthing.

You see, there has never been a time in history when one person could fully be everything that the other person needed, in complete unity with each other. Even with Adam and Eve, Adam stood by while Eve was tempted by the serpent and deceived into committing the first sin.

And so, because sin was now in the world, and we had broken unity with God and each other, God send his son Jesus to become a human to restore that unity. Jesus took on humanity, so that the divine and the human could once again be in perfect unity with each other. Jesus lived a perfect life, yet the people around him did not fulfill him the way he came to fulfill them. He died a horrendous death, because the people around him deserted him, told lies about him, and then stood by as he was murdered. He rose in a glorious resurrection, yet some people still did not recognize him or see him for who he was.

Yet through all of that, through all of the sin of the people in his life, death, and resurrection – through all of the times I turn to other people for fulfilment instead of to Jesus – through all of the times I turn my back on him and look to myself or to my sin for satisfaction – Jesus remains faithful, offering always to be “my person.”

Nicole is not my everything. My family is not my everything. My husband one day will not be my everything. But Jesus is. He is my everything. He’s the only one who can bear that responsibility and weight. He’s the only one who can be my complete emotional support, the only one who can fully appreciate the ways I serve him, the only one who can serve me completely in the ways I need to be served, the only one who can fully understand me from my motives to my actions, the only one who can be my full confidant, my every-minute partner, and my perfect communicator.

He could have done that even if he had never become a human; but now that he has, he can empathize with me in every way. He knows what it’s like when your closest friends fall asleep when you need them; what it’s like when the person who says they’ll never leave you ends up leaving you; how it feels to have people leave you out of important life moments; how it feels to have the one person who were counting on forever suddenly be unavailable. He has had to settle into life with the quirks and flaws of sinful humans, and he has had to forgive them. He did, after all, forgive me. Forgives me. Will keep on forgiving me as I keep getting stuff wrong in my relationships – with him, with Nicole, and with my future husband someday.

And one day, Jesus will be my perfect, eternal, heavenly husband. And he’ll never move out, he’ll never find someone he loves more (or differently) than he loves me, he’ll never give me a reason to miss him, he’ll love me exactly right in exactly the ways I need to be loved. And he’ll always be my person.