Set Apart SPOTLIGHT: Kirsten Neumann

I was reading a book a couple of weeks ago, and in it a character quoted Song of Solomon 8:6 “Place me like a seal on your arm and like a seal upon your heart.” This led me to listen to the song You Won’t Relent by Misty Edwards. 

For the last few years-since grade eight, really, God has been working in me and teaching me about love. It actually all started out because a guy I really, really liked kind of led me on and then told me he didn’t reciprocate the feelings after a few months.

So, God started showing me what love is. And not just Love, but how He saw me. He started giving me verses like Psalm 103: 17 “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.” Or leading me to books that really helped me see he loves me just the way I am.  

As an unmarried young lady, I’d like to get married someday. I have the whole white picket fence, two and a half kids and perfect husband who is completely romantic while working a good steady job and will never let me down. Unfortunately, even I know that it’s an unrealistic dream.

Last year in mid to late spring My brother picked me up from school and we stopped at the grocery store to grab a bag of chips to eat on the drive home. I remember sitting in the car and thinking to myself “What a beautiful day it would be to go on a date. Too bad I don’t have a boyfriend,” Right after that thought, I heard God whisper to me “Why can’t tonight be date night for you? I would love to date and court you! I would love to spend the evening with you, wooing you, loving you, becoming closer to you and you to me.”

Then it hit me! Is that not what my soul longs for? My soul longs to love and to be loved. I long to spend time with someone who is captivated by me, and who else better feels that way than the God of the universe?

It was an eye opener. God wants to court me. He wants more than anything to spend time with me and be with me. And I realized that my soul longs for that too.

The first lines of the song say “You won’t relent until you have it all. My Heart is yours.” When I think ahead to maybe getting married one day, I think about how I want to marry someone who won’t relent in courting me. In showing me his love. Even so, I have all that now. I have someone who won’t relent in showing me his unconditional love. Like I said, humans fail and make mistakes. It’s unrealistic to hold a man up to a standard that will just result in pain for both me and him. But, I know that there is one who loves me; one who will never let me down. One who will love me in spite and despite all the things I have done and will do. And, that’s what my heart needs. That’s what everyone’s heart and soul needs. To know that there IS someone who loves us no matter what we have and will do.  

I started to realize that he is the only one who can love me in a completely perfect, untainted, and steady way and will never let me down. 

I love the ESV version of Lamentations 3:22-23:

“The STEADFAST love of the Lord NEVER ceases; his mercies NEVER come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

I’ve heard it described that God left a hole in our hearts that can only be filled with him. A desire for love that only HE can fulfill. When I hear that I literally see a hole being filled in. God is literally pouring his love in. And not just pouring so that we may have enough, but pouring so much love and joy into us that it will overflow to the people around us.

Not only that, he loves us so much that he wants us to give him all of our anxieties and frustrations. Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 

And 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.”

He isn’t going to leave us, like a man might do. He outlines that in Deuteronomy 31:8 “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

God wants to court us; to date us and become close. To show us his immense love for us. But, like when two people are dating, in order for us to reach the level of intimacy he calls us to, we have to get to know each other. He wants us to trust him with everything. I think it’s safe to say the general population of women want a man who they can trust with their deepest secrets. Jesus Christ is that man. The only one whom we can fully trust with literally everything. He calls us directly to this in Proverbs 3:5“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”

One thing I have learned is that even though he already knows everything that is happening in and with us, he still wants to hear it coming directly from our mouths and hearts. When we trust him in everything-THAT is when he can start using all those little parts that we thought he could never use. Singleness included!'





Kristen Neumann is a nineteen year old fresh-out-of-high-school gal with big dreams of the future. Her biggest passion is talking to young women about Jesus and life and hopes to make a career out of it! Though she hopes to one day get married, she is enjoying her single life to the fullest participating in church activities, writing on her blog and baking up a storm in her kitchen! Blog