Every woman longs for love. But perhaps you have given up looking for the man of your dreams. A past hurt, or constant frustration, may have left us thinking that love does not exist.

But love does exist. And women deserve it. To give it. To receive it.

God made us to love. He will show you the way to love, if you let him. The difficulty sometimes lies precisely in the hurt that you may have experienced at the hands of a man. Maybe you think things like ‘my body just is not good enough’, or ‘if I say no to his advances, I might lose him’, or ‘maybe men are just like that and if I am to be happy then I need to just let boys be boys’.

Such thoughts are deceptive, because they tend to make  us think that there is a kind of impossible dream that will never be realised in seeking the deep love that we yearn for.

But the opposite is the case. Love does exist, and we can attain it. We need to start by accepting our dignity, and not necessarily wanting to give ourselves to the first man that comes our way. This is what the Church calls ‘guarding the heart’. Guarding the heart does not mean cocooning ourselves behind high walls. On the contrary, it means giving ourselves the chance to take the time to allow true love to blossom. As the love song in the Bible says: “Do not arouse, do not stir up love before its own time” (Song of Songs 3,5). And that requires courage and patience.