I have learned so much this last year watching my favorite relationship podcast, Dear Future Wifey. Culture teaches us we must have a certain amount of money. We must have a master’s or a PHD in this or that. We must be completely healed. We have to date this long. We must marry a high valued man or woman. Then after we get our person, we discard them like a badly colored picture outside the lines. We are failing in our relationships while investing all our time educated in jobs that are not rewarding and fulfilling. We are fighting political wars and causes that are not on the agenda of heaven. We are investing in things more than ourselves and each other. We must start growing and developing and fighting for our legacy, our families, when souls are the only thing, you can take to heaven with you.

As children one of the first things, we do is learn to color within the lines. I was the youngest of four children. I was the last to go to kindergarten. I was the last to learn what my siblings already knew and one of those things was how to color in the lines. One of the things I admired most about my sister that was a year older than me, was to watch her color. I couldn’t wait to learn how to color inside the lines. However, we live in a culture that to survive in our marriages and our relationships we will have to learn to color outside the lines better.

The American dream and in years past, people got married young. This can be seen as coloring inside the lines of the norms of society. They got married before the baby carriage came. We know that the culture has changed. We now have some two parent homes, and both are working full time to survive, and the kids are being raised by the nanny or the daycare. Our babies are away from us sometimes 10- 12 hours a day and the monotony starts over each day. The woman is working just as long hours as the husband and still required to cook, clean and be the loving homemaker. Now we have so many unwed single parents. Some women have a scarcity mentality and are settling for just having a piece of a man and are sharing him with multiple women. Back then the man worked, and the wife was a stay-at-home mom with the kids. They stayed together but now our families look like bad pictures colored outside the lines.

We need to be okay with our own journey. Will you date or don’t date? Can God put you on preserve and you believe at the right moment like Esther that God will bring you in the kingdom? Are you okay with an arranged marriage like Abraham did for Isaac?

Esther was a virgin. You may not be a natural virgin, or you might be, but you could be a spiritual virgin. Don’t allow culture to cancel your values and kingdom principles. Are you open to finding love in the DM’s? Are you open to finding love in dating apps? Or are you still waiting for that man to walk up to you and ask you for a date? How long will you wait to get engaged? How long will you wait on God to send the right man, or will you shoot your shot as a woman? Or have you given up on men as a woman altogether and have turned to another woman? How many children will you decide to have or not? Will you marry a man that has an education or not and you have a PHD? Will you be a stay-at-home mom or a preacher that travels the world and you are a stay-at-home dad? Will you work together and build the brand together?

Will you have a baby at a late age or adopt one? Everyone has a different coloring book with a different picture. The colors you choose and the way you color your picture is completely unique to your story.

We must be okay coloring outside the lines and what that may look like.

One of my favorite love stories is Jacob and Racheal. Jacob loved Racheal and was willing to work for her for fourteen years. He pressed past what culture would have called him today a simp. What is a simp? A simp is defined as a silly or foolish person. His father-in-law tricks him after slaving for her father and he ends up with the tender-eyed sister, Leah. Then he must work another seven years to get Racheal. Let us stop here everybody. The bible doesn’t say he got her after the verbal agreement. I am going to assume that he had to wait those additional 7 years, totaling 14 years after working twice as hard to get her. How many men today would commit to this type of growing and development to get the love of their life? This is coloring outside the lines.

So, I am encouraging everyone to allow God to create your picture, enjoy your journey and don’t be afraid if your picture appears that you colored outside the lines.