God never intended for love to feel like waiting for someone to become who you’ve been praying they would be. The love he has for you will meet you where you are, not keep asking you to sacrifice your peace for someone else’s potential.

You’ve spent so much time wondering whether you were asking for too much that you never stopped to ask whether you were asking the wrong person.

Love begins with who someone chooses to be

Jacqueline Whitney

You started believing that if you loved someone deeply enough, patiently enough, or faithfully enough, they would eventually become the person your heart kept waiting for. So you stayed longer. You understood more. You made excuses that sounded like compassion, when they were really hope wearing a different name.

But love was never meant to be built on who someone could become.

Love begins with who someone chooses to be.

I never asked you to spend your life carrying the weight of another person’s potential. I asked you to trust that the love I have for you would never require you to abandon yourself just to keep believing in someone else.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop confusing hope with home.

Jacqueline Whitney is the author Held: A 50 Day Devotional For Parents and All That You Deserve.