A viral Instagram baby made me rethink my dating life -- Here's why
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The author and her husband (Maria Harte Photography)
I was sitting on the floor of my sorority house with one of my best friends. We were both venting about our boy problems and how hopeless we both felt about finding someone. At that point, I felt prince charming was WAY too good to hope for.
Dating had become a foreign concept -- I couldn’t remember the last time a guy formally asked me on a date. Even “talking” had stooped to a new low. Forget getting a call from a guy, I’d be lucky if he bothered to text me. The norm had become disappearing Snapchat messages.
At the time I accepted that because, hey, it beat not getting ANY attention, right? I convinced myself I’d only be happy when I had a boyfriend because back then I didn’t grasp the fullness of God’s love.
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That day was just one of the many instances when I spent the majority of my girl-bonding time complaining about this dilemma. Amidst my rant, I was interrupted by my friend’s hysterical laughter.“Oh my gosh,” she said. “You HAVE to follow this baby on Instagram. The captions get me every time!”
I searched the username and was immediately obsessed. This baby had the funniest facial expressions accompanied by hilarious captions as if she herself was thinking these sassy thoughts.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Who is writing these posts?!” I asked my friend. “They’re too good.”
“It’s her mom, she’s the female host of that College GameDay show, ” she replied.
I thought identifying myself as a Christian would drive guys away. But my new role model ’s life revived my hope; I suddenly realized I DID want to end up with a Christian man, and that in order to do that, I’d have to start making some serious changes in my life.
Naturally, my next step was to social-media-stalk this woman.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Full disclosure: I’m not much of a sports gal (as in, I NEVER watch sports), so at the time I had no idea who Samantha Ponder was. But as I did a “deep dive’ on her Instagram account, I became fascinated by her life. I discovered that she and her husband, Christian Ponder, were both very open about their Christian faith, both individually and as a couple.
They looked so genuinely happy together and were managing to cart an adorable newborn baby across the country while they both juggled their high-profile jobs. “What in the world?” I thought, “This woman clearly did something RIGHT.”
I became inspired by her Instagram posts where she shared her recommendations for Christian books on marriage and her behind-the-scenes posts about the struggles in her life that weren’t so glamorous. I thought, “Wow -- she’s so cool AND she’s an open Christian! I could be like that!”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It wasn’t that I had never had Christian role models before -- I had many -- but I think it was her younger age and self-deprecating sense of humor that made me feel I could relate to her story. My admiration for her life made me realize I needed to reevaluate my priorities AND my standards. Up until that point, I had basically convinced myself that as long as I could find a guy to date, I could worry about the other stuff (like his values) after the fact.
I thought identifying myself as a Christian would drive guys away. But my new role model ’s life revived my hope; I suddenly realized I DID want to end up with a Christian man, and that in order to do that, I’d have to start making some serious changes in my life.
The next day I knocked on my friend’s door. “I am DONE dating!” I announced as she opened the door. “Come again?” she asked, baffled.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I wasn’t really done dating, but I WAS done accepting the idea that I couldn’t find a guy who would treat me the way God wanted a man to treat me. At first, my friends thought I was delusional. I couldn’t even define exactly what I was expecting from a relationship at that point, I just knew I now had a clear vision of my end-goal.
But as time went on, God led me to scriptures, books, and friends who helped encourage me in this area. He taught me that love and marriage is about so much more than my earthly idea of it at the time. I started praying that God would bring me someone who was after HIS heart, if that was His will for my life. And that’s exactly what He did.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On my first date with my husband, I actually brought up that baby I followed years ago on Instagram. I was a bit nervous about bringing up my faith, but that topic helped me segue the conversation in a natural way. It's so funny the way God works. After we got engaged, we read a few of the books on marriage I had found years earlier on Sam Ponder’s Instagram account.
Thank God for her adorable viral baby!