A: I wrote the book for singles that have wanted to marry for a long time but are disappointed that it is taking longer than they wanted. I want to help them move forward toward marriage—to turn their marriage dreams into goals.

A: Let me say first that I talked to God a lot in my single years about how it felt to go through life alone. He consistently answered me and encouraged me, sometimes in what seemed to be miraculous ways. When I decided to stop talking to him about it because he must be tired of me bringing it up, that is when I struggled with bitterness. So, I went back to pouring out my heart to God. While my book is not intended only for people of faith, my experience is a story of faith and of God helping me through the challenges of living life alone for a long time. Anyone who buys the book needs to know up front that faith is a strong element. But I hope the wisdom I share from my mom and from a therapist, as well as the processing steps I offer in the workbook, will give a boost of hope and confidence to anyone who wants to move forward toward love.

A: So many people live under the influence of Hollywood that love will just show up at their door one day. People of faith can put the onus 100% on God in this one area of our lives even though in work, friendship, hobbies, or service we take initiative. Maybe it’s a fear of rejection that is the true source of passivity. Or we’ve been convinced by a therapist or a spiritual leader to pursue contentment. If we think about changing our mindset to turn a dream into a goal, what does that look like? We begin to take steps to move us toward finding love. We share our goal with friends and ask them to introduce us to people. We use dating sites to meet people. We develop relationship skills. And if we don’t experience success after trying, we can find a supportive therapist to help identify patterns, hidden issues, patterns of sabotage.

A: I coined the phrase to capture the message that might come from a therapist or a spiritual leader that singles need to be content by themselves alone before they find love. Or it might be shared innocently by a friend saying, “As soon as I was okay being alone, I met my spouse.”

I think the intention is to encourage people to shun a focus on discontent or to prepare them for singleness in case they don’t find love. But the message discourages many from pursuing their heart’s desire to find a partner. It supports the idea that we have no role to play in finding a partner.

A: Absolutely. The first therapist I sought help from in my thirties, to figure out why my dream for marriage continued to elude me, said her goal would not be to help me find love but to help me develop my life as a single. I didn’t go back to her. I already had a very well developed life. And for me, the fuller it was, the more I had to share with someone.

The second therapist I approached had written a book to help singles overcome barriers to marriage. In a handful of sessions, she uncovered with me an approach/avoidance pattern of behaviors that got in the way of potential relationships. I changed my behavior and stopped chasing men away with my panicky interactions. Four sessions did what 22 years of analysis with countless friends could not uncover. We need relationship experts to help us, not to discourage us from pursuing love.

A: A therapist I saw said that to find love, we need to put on our plate the risks of pain, rejection and failed relationships. It gave me courage and understanding that these experiences are common because not everyone we date is compatible to us, so there have to be some failures. Such hurts are not indications of our personal worth even when they feel like they are. They’re just part and parcel of the dating experience.

A: For me the answer is to pour out my heart to God when I am hurting, when I’m angry—even perhaps with God—or when I am feeling hopeless. Talk and pray and cry until the healing is done. I don’t know another way to thwart the bitterness. I share in From Lonely to Loved an experience in my late thirties in which my heart was truly broken because of a lack of returned interest. After 20 years of hoping to find love, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Like so many others in their late thirties that can’t seem to reach a major life goal, I was demoralized. I decided that every day after lunch I would spend 15 minutes pouring out my pain to God. I made myself worship him because I knew he was greater than my pain. After three weeks, I got off my knees one afternoon and realized that not only was the pain and sense of rejection gone, but also gone was an inferiority complex that I didn’t know I had. God completely healed something deeply off kilter in the bottom of my heart. So he did that thing he does when we bring our pain to him—he turned a negative experience into a much bigger victory.

A: There are 17 chapters in which I revisit “trials and triumphs” I shared in the book. I ask readers questions to help them process if they relate to a topic and to identify strategies and resources that can help them overcome their barriers to finding love. There’s a sample chapter on the FLTL workbook page of this website.

I met my husband when I was 28 years old, but we weren’t interested in each other. About the time I was growing attracted to him, some years later, there were a couple of other men pursuing me. And friends would ask which one I wanted to date when it came time to be exclusive. I would answer that I wanted to date a third guy-one who was an old friend. And repeatedly they would encourage me to tell him. And I would reply, “I can’t!” I didn’t want to lose the friendship. Also, there was a barrier between us. But circumstances developed in a way that somewhat forced me to start a conversation that led to our decision to date. I let my readers try to figure out the barrier between us.