I woke up today to a discussion on Twitter
by one Tera Carissa Hodges (Twitter handle - @teracarissa) on marriage and why marriages today don’t work
at all; or why there are less and less marriages happening today… In that discussion, she had wanted to VET 12
single men and 12 single women so that they may not have any catfish “false
identity” issues and therefore do matchmaking... That was rather out of place,
considering that I was just passing
through my tweets before attending church…
After reading through, and while I was
dressing up, I had to be pondering about such statements that I list below as
responses from various people who responded to her question and/or request;
-
Kenneth
Townsend (a guy) said, “Because mature people keep fishing in the WRONG pond.
KNOW YOUR WORTH. Know yourself. Know God FIRST!”
-
Ni’sa
Coleman (a lady) asked, “What if you have absolutely no one to choose from or the
ones to choose from have the mindset of a teenage boy, or are feminine?”
-
Melanie
Williams (a lady) said, “Relationships should be based on Biblical principles.
HE who finds the wife finds a good thing, but often are looking for a trophy...”
-
Veronica T (a lady) said, “Being the shoulder
he cries on, just so he can give his smiles to the next... we can’t be about
that life. Men need God to heal...”
-
Donnie
Trump (a guy) said, “A pebble and a diamond are equal only to a blind man. Not
seeing someone’s worth can cause us to lose that someone...”
-
Jessica
Smith (a lady) said, “I am Ruth [of the Bible], just waiting for my Boaz... in
due season...”
-
Heart
on a Page (a guy) said, “The spirits of Jezebel, Mammon and Beelzebub cause us
to focus on money, status and bodies instead of the person’s inner beauty...”
And this went on and on...addressing the underlying issues to the given problem...
The above is what inspired me to write this
post even though I had earlier decided that I won’t be posting on this blog “till
January smiles at us...”
The reality of failing relationships is too
hard for us young people to keep in track with. There is always a possibility all
around us of us (or our friends) running through several relationships before
any of us gets himself/herself into a stable relationship. Failing
relationships or the lack of any has become a way we all pass through before deciding
to get married. Relationships have even lost meaning to some young people.
The pain, the destruction(s) involved, the reality of losing people you thought
were life partners, the shame of not being ‘hooked’ or attached to someone at a
given age, the loneliness, the problems that those “ex” bring with them… have
made most of us not to even give relationships a try... We fail even before we have tried...
A review of an average person from childhood
to teen age, trailing down to adulthood has slots of experiences that make some
methods of dealing with relationships quite efficacious – or so we are made to
think. Efficacious because we all are known to want ‘to make things work out’.
We hate being tagged failures as young people – especially when it comes to relationships,
because nothing matters to us young people more than having good ad healthy relationships,
ama?
Some young people have ‘gained’ experience
in matters of relationships (as they seem to show us), some have blamed God
along the way whenever their relationships fail to work out, some still blame
others for the failure of a relationship or the lack of one thereof, some think
that “they can’t be played anymore” thus
the vigor to engage in meaningful relationships fades with time. It is a graph
that draws deeper with increase in time.
But again another closer look at relationships
that have failed and why they DID fail is a better place to start from when
trying to understand the mystery of relationships. You can start with finding
out parts of yourself that made (or have made) mistakes in the previous
relationship, ask yourself if you have known your strengths and weaknesses, if
you have forgiven the wrongs in your previous relationship(s) and so on…Find
out if you really need a new relationship or if you need time to heal (with
assistance of God and good advice of course) before committing yourself to another
relationship. Find out if you have gotten over your past [bad/unhealthy]
relationship(s). Then after considering the above factors, you may accept
yourself to be ready for a new relationship
in the coming year…
Blaming God for a failed relationship is
not reason enough, nor is blaming fellow men or the one you broke up with. I don’t
always think that getting the ‘right’ person is the problem, but the kind of preparations
and readiness a person gets through while aspiring to engage in a relationship.
And for those who are starters, I prefer
that you know your priorities for now. Relationships call for quite a lot
(which I am going to discuss below) and hunting
for a person to get hooked to may not be the best thing for you to do. Hunting means that you are becoming
desperate. Desperation means that you are likely to bend the rules along the
way in order to get yourself what you think you want. And bending the rules
means that you are growing stupid. It may
seem cruel on my side to tell you so, but it is the truth.
If you are undergoing pressure (from family
or friends), be frank to tell them that you will get into a relationship when
you are READY – and ‘ready’ in this case means a lot more than ‘ready’.
What I call a healthy relationship is that which
should help to define you and seek to make you better; but not one which changes
you (or seeks to change you) and to make you a weird slave to someone… Remember
that true love does not enslave, but sets free…
If you aspire, as one of your many resolutions
for the coming year (2013), to get into a healthy and meaningful relationship, look
deeper through the following facts which may help you gauge your readiness for
a relationship;
- Are you really ready for a relationship? Any relationship?Are you spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and socially ready to become part and parcel of another person’s life? If not, stop right there and build yourself up into a person that can be depended upon – one who is reliable when tied to another.
- Are you mature enough to adequately handle the conflicts and meet the many needs and demands in a relationship? If not, stop right there and grow up. Yeah, grow up my friend.
- Are you ready to openly communicate both your fears and strengths to another person without giving it too much thought? If not, go and build yourself up in the area of honesty and faithfulness. Relationships are neither for people who play so-called mind games, nor for those who want others to guess everything about everything concerning them…
- Are you ready to love someone unconditionally and care for another person without showing or living in selfishness? If not, Christ can teach you a better lesson in that. Go to Him and allow Him to show you what selflessness is all about…
- Are you ready to support and help another person without complaining or being pestered to do so? If not, go out there and learn more on how to please, compliment, help and support your significant other without feeling disgusted about it. You don’t want to suffocate your relationship, do you? Side note: Do these things knowing that you are still not married to the other person, but that you want them to feel secure and appreciated around you…Don’t act as if you guys are married – that boundary is too steep to cross, so don’t cross it!
- Are you ready to respect and honor someone of the opposite sex without showing arrogance? If not, go to Jesus. He is the best teacher when it comes to lessons concerning humility and honor…
- What new thing are you going to add to this person’s life that was not there but that is beneficial to them? Are you going to bring in more garbage from your past relationship, or from your mom’s advice log, or your dad’s diary, or from your friends’ ‘to-do-list’? Watch out on what good thing you will bring into your new relationship!
- Are you ready to encourage someone selflessly and sacrifice to meet someone’s emotional and social needs? If not, go learn, Google, do woreva it may take to know how to sacrifice your time, your prayers, your mind, your words… and give out one or two things (not sex, pliiiiiz!) Side note: I swear that relationships sometimes need the cruelest of sacrifices! You should be ready for them…
- Have you gotten over your past relationship(s)? Have you healed from them? If not, understand that whoever you are going to meet next will be an altogether different person from the one you were with previously… so tread your steps slowly, wisely…
- Are you getting into a relati9onship with the right motives? Are you acting out of peer pressure? Or a surge of hormones? Or insecurity? If your motives ain’t right, go rectify yourself first. You don’t want to break someone’s heart and shutter their life, do you?
As for me, um chilled out…
Plan well for your coming year…
Bonface
Morris.
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