Sitting in traffic today I came across some notes from my bible study. We talked about relationships and how we bring God into those relationships. This was kind of an ironic topic to me because it is something that I struggle with daily. In the forty minutes that I heard this man talk I took a step back and analyzed the relationships I had been in.
I got into my first serious relationship my sophomore year of high school and said ‘I love you’ within two weeks of being exclusive. We had gone through a lot together; graduation, countless cheer camps, the day he signed on to play college football and quite possibly the biggest being my mom passing. We were together for three years, something that felt like an eternity. When we broke up I felt like the world was crumbling around me. I couldn’t pin point just what went wrong and automatically blamed myself when in reality we had just grown apart. We had nothing in common anymore and were on two different paths for the future, ones that didn’t involve each other. He wanted to stay in the small town lifestyle, I wanted to move away. But I think the hardest thing for me to accept was that I wasn’t just losing someone I loved, I was losing a best friend.
It’s been two years since I went through my breakup. I’ve moved six hundred miles away from friends and family and started a new school. For some reason I thought this may have made a difference, that I would finally be happy by myself. Although I have loved the experiences and having such a diverse group of friends, there was still something missing. I felt as if the only way I could move on was to date someone else, so I tried that. I met great guys along the way but nothing clicked, and I may have just had too high of standards, but it wasn’t right. I quickly started assuming I was the problem. Maybe I was too available? Am I even capable of love again?
The first thing I realized was that I was too available. I was so fixed on finding a companion that I threw all values out the window and approached the first guy that showed interest in me. I didn’t take the time to really see who this man was. As Godly women we need to approach dating in a particular way because our relationships are a reflection of God. In no way did my last relationship reflect God's love that and it's something that I have come to learn from.
The second thing I realized was that before I can learn to love again I need to learn to love God, something I have never really tried to do before. And as I love God I need, strike that, I want to find someone who shares the same love for Him as I do. Someone who can help me grow in His love every day and who will strive to spread that love to everyone he is around. But just as this man is going to lead me in Christ, I am called to be his helper. For a long time I saw “helper” as a sign of inferiority, but to my surprise that is not it at all. God created man and woman as one, man was never intended to be complete apart from the woman, the two share the workload. Am I ready for a responsibility like that? Not at all. And that is why I have chosen to find my place with Christ before I find my place in an intimate relationship.
When I realized this it was a wake up call for my future dating life. These relationships didn’t work because I didn’t start with my relationship with God first. I told myself many times that my high school relationship was going to work out, it was just “the wrong timing” but I am so wrong and I can’t dwell on that. Our speaker said this “the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing”. Such a simple saying with a deep meaning. We have to be patient to avoid mistakes and we have to be picky with who we give our time to.
Because of these few points I am on my way to a happier, better me. Do I want to go through another heartbreak like my last? If I could type no a million times I would, no one deserves to feel that low. Do I regret that relationship? Not in the slightest bit, I was shown what love could be and how amazing love feels. But now, writing this, I have a huge smile on face because if a love without God can be that special, I can’t imagine what it will be like when God is the center of that love.
