What I Look For

What I Look For

    The title of this article may give off the wrong impression.  This isn’t at all meant to be a personal ad.  The purpose of this article is not to advertise myself to try to get potential wives to send in their resumes.

    Rather, this article is meant to, very simply put, let single ladies know what sorts of things guys like me appreciate.  Your female friends or your parents may already encourage you to cultivate traits such as these, and I know their advice can be very helpful.  However, I realize that, as a guy, I am in a position to speak to single ladies from a unique perspective.  I can tell them straight from personal experience what guys with my priorities look for and appreciate.  Perhaps my advice will carry an extra degree of credibility, not because I’m an expert or especially smart (it’s a coincidence), but simply because I am a guy, and a guy very much attracted to the fairer sex, which makes me perfectly qualified to tell you what sorts of things I look for.

    The most important thing I look for in a girl is a close relationship with God.  I pray she has an unconditional love for him.  I want her to be totally sold out, totally surrendered to God and what his will is.

    The reason why this trait is by far the most important is that I know it will affect every other trait in her life.  If the engine of a train is going in the right direction, then every other cart will naturally tend to follow.  In the same way, if a girl’s heart is going “full steam ahead” for God, then all of the other qualities I pray for seem to fall into place.

    I have been amazed to discover that I am often able to detect whether a girl’s heart is close to God without anyone telling me.  There often is an indescribable aura of steadiness and peace about her.  It can’t be faked, and it can’t be hidden.  Gals, one of the best beauty tips I can give you is to get your heartbeat in tune with God’s.  Love him fully.  Let his light shine into, and out from, every part of your life.

    Outward appearance does have some value, but I don’t want my future wife to be so focused on her looks that she neglects more important attributes.  Wanting to look your best is a good goal, and I hope she takes that goal seriously, but there’s so much more to a girl than just eye candy.  Of course it’s important to take care of yourself, to stay in shape, to make the most of everything you’ve been given, but an over-emphasis on outward appearance can sometimes mean an under-emphasis on something more important.

    But while we are on the topic of outward appearance, let me briefly share what I find attractive.  Ironically, I find that the girls who are not attempting to lure guys by dressing scantily are actually more attractive.  Skimpy dressing may get more guys immediately interested in you, but only temporarily and for the wrong reasons.  I’ve found it actually becomes an obstacle in me becoming truly, permanently interested in a girl.  If all I can see when I look at her is a body on display, it makes it much more difficult to even notice her personality, her unique heart, or what makes her different from every “body” else.

    However, the girls who have gotten my highest admiration in this area over the years were not the ones who shunned all attention to outward appearance, seeing it at as too superficial, nor were they the ones who seemed to focus only on their looks.  Rather, they were girls who each seemed to see themselves as a gift to their future husbands, a gift with many dimensions — a heart, a soul, a mind, a personality, and, yes, a body.  And out of a deep love for him, they didn’t want to neglect any facet of the gift they’ll give him.  They made a real effort to make themselves attractive not out of selfishness, but out of love — not to receive attention, but to add to what they can give.

 To me, outer beauty is a stained-glass window.  Yes, it makes sense to polish the glass and make it look its absolute best, because physical attraction does have its place, but even the most beautiful stained glass still looks pretty dull in the shade.  A love for God and for others, an honesty and simplicity of heart, a well-developed personality, all create an inner light that shines through the stained glass, making its colors and features glow.  The girls who have really attracted my heart’s attention, not just my eyes’ attention, were those who had an inner radiance that made their outer beauty — and every other part of their being — beautiful.

    In my opinion, a contentment in God is one of the most desirable character traits a girl can have.  I don’t want to only be a crutch for my wife.  I don’t want her to have been so desperate to find somebody that she came after me.  On the contrary, I want her to be so content with being single that I have to prove myself worthy of her time and attention.  Of course I want the girl I marry to wantto be married (especially to me!), but I want her to have learned to be content and happy wherever she is.

    What I really want to do is catch my future wife in the very act of being herself.  I don’t want her to be desperately looking for a guy, but rather to be peacefully following God and making the most of her present situation.  I want us both to be so busy looking upward at God that we forget to look in front of us, and we bump right into each other.

    I pray that she is selfless.  I want her primary focus to be outward, on loving and serving others, rather than worrying only about her own world.  No, it’s not that I want a servant.  See, one of the things I look forward to the most is serving my future wife, looking out for her needs, making her happiness my priority.  I want to be her servant, but I can’t do that if the position is already filled.  If she has found full-time employment serving her own desires, it leaves little room and little need for me.

    Humility is a trait that seems to go hand-in-hand with this.  You’ve probably noticed how, when you see someone self-important or self-centered, you can’t wait to see him taken down a peg.  You tend not to admire him, because he already gets enough admiration — from himself!  But you may also have noticed how, when someone is humble and doesn’t try to draw attention to himself, you can’t wait to be the one to recognize and honor him.  I want to be my wife’s biggest fan, the one to continually discover new hidden and unadvertised treasures in her, to continually be awestruck that she has even more riches than she ever let on.

    Basically, I would like to see her so busy humbly serving others and thinking outside herself that she leaves a big void for me to fill.  The less concerned she is about serving or lauding herself, the more I can be.

    Selflessness and humility are two of the most attractive traits anybody — male or female, the young or the, um, ex-young — can have.  To me, the most captivating young lady isn’t one who puts herself in the spotlight, but rather one who is a spotlight, who is providing light for others.  When a girls attention is aimed outward, she not only tends to warm every heart she reaches, but she herself begins to glow.  Her whole person radiates.  Every part of her becomes so beautifully lit, but from within.

    Wastelessness.  I may have just made that word up (spellcheck doesn’t like it, anyway).  Nevertheless, this is an important quality that I look for.  I hope for a wife who makes the most out of whatever situation she is in, whatever God gives her, even if it takes some effort.  I definitely want her to know how to be still, to be peaceful, to relax, but I do not want her to aim any lower than her potential.

    Perhaps a better word for this would be industriousness.  I sometimes avoid this word because it brings to mind a factory belching out smoke, which isn’t the image most ladies are seeking.  Another good word would be resourcefulness.  Basically, I want my future wife to waste nothing, to always make the most out of everything she is given — her time, her appearance, her personality, and her relationship with God.

    Gratitude, thankfulness, joy.  To me, one of the quickest turn-offs in anyone is self-pity.  Joy, I have come to learn, is not so much a mood as it is a decision.  Sometimes it will come automatically, and the joy and gratitude will just seem to spill from you.  The true test comes, though, when things don’t go your way.  I have learned that it’s not so much your circumstances that determine your happiness; it is your reaction to your circumstances.

    I know some girls who I’m sure can hardly wait to meet their husbands, but they’re still single.  But rather than sitting around and moping about it, they’re using the time.  They’re joyful and radiant; they’re investing time in other people; they’re grateful for what’s right in front of them; somehow everything they touch seems to turn to gold.  Not only are they better off because they have found ways to be happy and productive, but their sunny attitudes have made them so attractive, so pleasant to be around.  For their joy alone, some of them have become quite the catch.

    On the other hand, I have seen people who also can hardly wait to meet the right person, and they also are still single.  But they let this fact defeat and depress them.  They may feel sorry for themselves, or just sit in a cloud of gloom, refusing to be happy until the right person comes along.  Not only are they sad, but their attitudes make them less likable, which probably in turn makes them sadder.

    The circumstances are the same, but one reaction is a turn-off and the other sparkles with beauty.  Self-pity can become an endless cycle producing more self-pity, but joy can become an endless cycle producing more joy.

    I observe my mom.  With all the work involved in keeping a family of sixteen people running smoothly, I’m sure she has earned the right to gripe now and then, but she chooses to be cheerful.  She decides to be thankful.  I’ll bet she’s not always in the mood, but she makes up her mind to be joyful.  Not only does it make her happier, but it makes the family happier, which gives her even more reason to be happy, and the beautiful cycle starts all over again.

    Ladies, keep your standards high.  High standards in a girl make me want to straighten up and do all I can to achieve them.  They pull out the best in me.  I want her to keep a high price tag.  I want her standards to encourage me to work hard to somehow meet them, to never let me slack off or take her for granted.  When I see a girl with high standards — for herself and in dealing with guys — I can’t help but have a tremendous respect and admiration for her, even if I’m not specifically interested in her.  I tip my hat to those ladies who find their delight in God and are unwilling to settle for anything less than his best for their lives.

    One thing I especially respect in young ladies is when they aren’t “available,” per se.  They aren’t available to anyone except their future husbands.  They are already taken, spoken for; they just don’t know by whom yet.  Their focus is not on being a partial fit with many guys, but on being aperfect fit with one right guy. 

    You can either be a rare key that fits only one lock, and by definition doesn’t fit all the other locks, or you can compromise and melt yourself into a putty that can fit every lock.  The putty approach does have its appeal because it will probably bring more guys who have a casual interest in you.  However, since putty has no distinct shape that makes it stand out, these girls will probably have very few guys who see them as extraordinary and irreplaceable jewels.  If you make yourself interchangeable, guys will quite naturally tend to regard you as interchangeable.  Yes, putty can mold to fill every keyhole, but it isn’t defined enough to truly unlock a heart.  If you give a dollar or two to every guy you meet, you’re likely to appeal briefly to many guys, but you won’t have much of a jackpot left over to truly mesmerize one guy.

    What I hope for is, not a girl who will give me a few dollars, but a girl who is storing up a jackpot that is worth laying down my life to obtain.  Not putty that can temporarily fill my lock (and any lock), but a girl who is willing to set herself apart, who is happy to close all other options, so that she will be a perfect, priceless fit for my lock alone.  She’d be worth doing anything to win, because there would be only one of her in the world.  She could command any price, she’d be worth giving up everything and everyone else for, because she would be a true rarity, a one-in-a-million match that could never be replaced.

    Above I have highlighted a handful of the characteristics that I would encourage any young lady — in fact, anybody at all — to try to cultivate.  It may seem like a lot to take in, but you know what?  You don’t have to print out a checklist to make sure you’re developing the right traits.  When you’re following God fully, I think you’ll find that these characteristics naturally start to grow in you.

    An illustration I like to use is the difference between an artificial Christmas tree and a real Christmas tree.  When putting together an artificial tree, you have to focus intently on the minutiae of the directions to figure out how to perfectly pose each branch so that it takes on the right shape.  However, a real tree doesn’t have to be posed; it is healthy and lush not because it had to be perfectly adjusted, but because of its simple and thriving relationship with good soil.  To be properly shaped as an artificial tree, you have to be so self-aware and conscientious, but to be properly shaped as a real tree, you merely have to be!

    Most of the girls who have really caught my attention over the years weren’t straining to follow some complicated self-improvement formula.  Most of them didn’t have a flashy Christian resume.  It had nothing to do with talent, intellect, accomplishments, or even how long they had known God.

    In fact, one of the most amazing things about them was their simplicity, their ordinariness, their childlike hearts.  Yes, their traits stemmed from decisions — because we all have a choice — but what captured my attention was merely the results of a relationship with God.  Because they were planted in him, their lives produced love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  And guess what?  These things were like beams of light shining through stained-glass windows, causing them to truly dazzle!

    It wasn’t a perfection so much as it was a direction.  They weren’t perfect, but their hearts were turned toward God.  They loved the right things, and the results were too lovely to ignore.  I can make as many lists as I want, but if I had to sum up what I look for in one phrase, it would be: a girl who loves God.

    I write this not to hasten the arrival of my future wife — that’s up to God, not me — but to encourage those ladies out there who are humbly loving God and his principles.  Please, stay rare.  Please keep serving God, please keep doing as you do.  I know for a fact that there are still guys out there who are longing, praying, pining for girls just like you, hoping that godly women like you still exist.

    I know that sometimes you may feel like you’re the oddest person in the world.  You may feel so different, so unusual.  You may sometimes look at other people and cringe at how strange you must look compared to them.  You may occasionally get discouraged by how rare you are.  I want to encourage you that it is precisely because you are rare that the right guy will appreciate you so much.  Yes, it is true that you’re uncommon.  But so are diamonds.

by Mark Andt fromhttp://www.famteam.com/waiting/

Crushworthy :>

Cute poem! xD

“Crushworthy” by R. Eirik Ott

I want someone
to have a crush on me
for a change

to notice
when I don’t come to class
and wonder if I’m okay

to get nervous
when I enter the cafe,
to fumble
with her papers
and books,
to pick at her clothing
and check
her reflection
in salt shakers and napkin holders

to catch her breath
when she sees me from across campus,
tug on her best friend’s collar
and point with her eyes
and whisper loudly,
“There he is!”

to run around the block
as quickly
and nonchalantly
as she can
just to walk past me
make eye contact
and smile
to look into my big brown eyes
(such long lashes!)
from across the room
and think, “Yes…”

to look at my full kissing lips
and think, “Oh yes…”

to hear my voice
and imagine
how her name
would sound

if I said it
if I whispered it
if I…

“Oh yes…”

I want someone
to make up nicknames for me

to talk about me in code
“I saw Backpack Boy today
in the library
in the Romantic Lit. secion…

I saw Steel-Toed Boots Boy
talking to some girl
(some girl!)
in the bookstore today…”

I want someone
to go straight home
every night
and check her answering machine
just in case
just in case

and check the phone cord
and check the battery
and check the tape
and make sure the goddamned blinking light
isn’t burned out

just in case

I want someone to say,
“You’re wrong about him
because you don’t know him
the way I know him,”

because she can just tell

that I’m a good person
must be
a good person
gotta be
a good person
because I write poetry about my mom and my cats

and because she likes me so much
for some reason
some unexplainable psychic supernatural reaction
to me

me.

I want someone
to mark her calendar
“He talked to me today”
to wonder
what I would smell like
after a long warm sleep
under a down comforter

to close her eyes
and picture
what our kids would look like

to write silly wretched wonderful
poetry
about me

for a change