Beginning around middle school, I couldn't wait to find "Mr. Right." Maybe because, as a voracious reader, I had already encountered countless stories in which a man and woman fell in love and lived happily ever after. Or maybe it was because of all the movies I watched that told the same tale. By the time I saw "Jerry Maguire," in which the title character famously told his love interest, Dorothy, "You complete me," I already believed he was speaking the truth.

Although I had become a Christian at age 12 and trusted God to give me eternal life, I was a diehard subscriber to the world's notion that romantic love was the ultimate treasure in the quest for earthly joy and wholeness.

Soon after my 19th birthday, I ran into a guy I knew from high school who had just graduated college. After one date, and even though it was bad timing (I had three more years of college, and he was moving six hours away to start his career), we both knew we had found "the one." And despite warning flags that my romantic notions might be flawed, I held tightly to the lie throughout our courtship and many years of marriage.

I'm not diminishing marriage. On the contrary, I believe God created the institution for many good reasons. A strong marriage can alleviate loneliness and provide a place for raising children, growing spiritually, having fun, and sharing resources. In a healthy union, men and women complement each other in beautiful ways while also learning (albeit often the hard way) to be more caring, selfless, and godly. Plus, God doesn’t take out the trash, but my husband usually does.

No, my youthful zeal to find a spouse wasn't wrong. My error was expecting my husband and me to make each other feel whole. It was like expecting someone always to keep a cistern filled despite it being riddled with holes. Unfortunately, humans are too flawed to be able to offer that kind of complete and saving love.

I suspect many of us enter marriage or seek romantic love, unaware that this lie underpins our desires. Sometimes I wonder how much this disordered sense of love contributes to the brokenness and difficulty often found in marital unions. We will inevitably be disappointed when we place such great expectations on another person. In my marriage, the weight of my expectation created a heavy load.

Over the years, I noticed hints (some were more like flashing billboards) of my erroneous belief, usually in the inevitable moments of disappointment that every couple suffers – times of feeling discouraged, misunderstood, or not supported enough. But one day, a chance encounter at a conference brought the truth to my consciousness for the first time.

As I talked with a woman at my table during a break, she began sharing her story. Her husband had unexpectedly left her for another woman the year before, yet, despite the betrayal, she radiated joy and claimed to be at peace.

Baffled, I asked how she came to such contentment in her unfortunate circumstance. She explained that after her husband left, she experienced God caring for her in a way she had never noticed. He helped her to see that, with or without her husband, she was complete in Christ. Losing her spouse made her realize for the first time that, in Christ alone, she already had everything she needed to fill her heart. In Him, she already knew she had the certainty of salvation, the promise of provision, and the comfort and guidance of the Holy Spirit. But after her husband left her, she learned that God would never leave or forsake her. He had died for her. Christ was the cornerstone of her life, not her husband.

For weeks after hearing her story, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Despite knowing and loving God for years, I saw my doubts in Him laid bare. I had not trusted Him with my whole heart. Instead, having saturated my thinking with the world's teaching about romantic love's power over His, I had been taking my empty cup to my husband to fill instead of to God.

Thankfully, I made a course correction after the light dawned that day at the conference. Not surprisingly, it took time to change my behaviors because undoing years of incorrect thinking and its consequences is a process. The lies we internalize are woven tightly into the patterns of our thoughts and behaviors.

But slowly, I re-learned how to order my loves. I am still learning.

I know now that, as a Christian, I can lay aside my insatiable need to feel loved and accepted by others, spouse included. Instead, when the lie creeps in again, I can receive, into the deepest corners of my soul, the truth that the God of the universe already sees, knows, and loves me. Rehearsing that truth frees me to give and receive love in healthier ways, too. Interestingly, it turns out that I become a better wife when I love and turn to God first, asking Him to fill my empty places instead of my husband.

Although marriage isn't always the perfect picture painted in movies and books, it has been a gift. I am thankful for my husband. But I am more grateful for God, my first and eternal love. And whether single, divorced, widowed, or married, God's love, not man's or woman's, is what all human hearts seek. To paraphrase John Eldredge in The Sacred Romance, every soul cries for intimacy with God. "For this, we were created, and for this, we were rescued from sin and death…God has pursued us from farther than space…He has loved us before the beginning of time, has come for us, and now calls us to journey towards him…" (Sacred Romance, p. 97) 

We were made to love God. Love is so integral to His character (just as His other attributes are) that we need to look no further than Him to be fully known and only need to look to the cross to feel fully loved. Jerry Maguire may have sounded swooningly romantic, but he had it wrong. No matter how well we are loved on earth, only God can complete us and completely love us. And if we find ourselves looking for love elsewhere, maybe we are looking for God. We need to look no further because He is love.

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Curtis, Brent and Eldredge, John. (1997). The Sacred Romance - Drawing Closer to the Heart of God. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.