You cannot take your Question to Adam. You cannot look to him for the validation of your soul. But so many women do. If I have a man, then I’m okay. Then I’m loved. It happens around adolescence for women too. The time for her father to speak into her life begins to wane. A new window opens up — boys. And if her father has not been there for her, she is starving for love, and she’ll give herself to boys in the hope of finding it. Remember the old maxim “Girls give sex to get love”? It’s true.

What makes this seem so natural, especially for women, is that Eve was made for Adam. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make [an ezer kenegdo] for him” (Gen. 2:18). Eve was literally fashioned from the rib taken out of Adam’s side. There is an incompleteness that haunts us, makes us yearn for one another. How many of you sighed at the end of Jerry Maguire, when he runs through the airport and races across town to get back to his wife, who has separated from him? He says, “You complete me.” That is true; it’s part of the man-woman design.

And yet.

No man can tell you who you are as a woman. No man is the verdict on your soul. (Dear sister, how many of you have lost yourself in this search?) One woman said to us, “I still feel useless. I am not a woman. I do not have a man. I have failed to captivate someone.” The ache is real. But the verdict is false. Only God can tell you who you are. Only God can speak the answer you need to hear. That is why we spoke of the Romance with him first. It comes first. It must. It has to. Adam is a far too unreliable source—amen!

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