"Boom!"

"She is too preoccupied with nonsense! She says that she is busy? Busy my foot! She even doesn't seem interested in solving anything, but keeps on giving excuses as to why we can't talk about this right now. I needed this to be solved kinda yesterday, but she is just so... Muh! It is like no one was wronged in the first place. I think she cares less about how I feel or the condition of this relationship..." fumed *Arm.

"What? Did he just say that? I don't like his approach on conflict resolution. He is too hasty. Can't I just have some "me time" to think about issues before tackling them? He is already drawing conclusions about me and how I feel about us without even getting my side of the story. Is that how he REALLY feels about me? Why is he treating me this way? What has become of him? Why is he so different from the man I met a few years ago?" ranted *Betty.

Boom! came the hulls. I was caught on the edge there, in the middle of crossfire (or bombfire?). I stared. I stared for a very long time. I stared into my own self before saying anything, that is, if I had to be saying anything at all. I mean, what was I to say? Huh? I am not that bombproof, or am I?
Listening to both sides of a story, and to ramp in some kind of stammered colloquium, a relationship story, gives you some kind of plastic chance of getting around it. However, no matter how volatile my evens were becoming after staring into myself, I think that it is always better that way (to listen to two "unsyncing" halves of a story) than dealing with "half the information." A half of anything, I have been told several times and in different contexts, is never enough...

What *Arm and *Betty have is typical of a modern love relationship... One with its own unique twists and turns, rights and wrongs, and strings and bows... One full of people throwing grenades and shooting from all sides... Throwing and shooting things you would never imagine they would... Just a typical love relationship... Just one normal, modern relationship.

But first, let me help you understand these two (Arm and Betty);

Arm is in his late twenties. A saved young man that loves the Lord, but one who just can't take any "douchy stuff" from anyone - not even from his lovely girlfriend.
You got me right, he is one guy who doesn't bow to weakness. That's his tale and his fate, and he is proud of it. After knowing him for a while, I should say that he is a gentleman in his own right. He met her (Betty) some few years ago and the two have a story I can't go into today. What is important is that they DID meet, and they now DO have a story - a biiiiig story.

*Betty on the other hand is one lady who leaves a mark wherever she goes. She has this countenance, well,
she carries this countenance that you don't find in every lady around. She rubs it on you when you meet her. You get it, right? When a LADY rubs her countenance on you? A great lady-like countenance? Yeah, that one.
I can say she undoubtedly fits in a group of ladies I call "proverbial", as in, worthy to be written and talked about... I only know very few ladies who belong there...
Betty just hit 24 the other month, and she is unashamedly saved and as charming as ever. Well, don't ask me how I know her age, because it is none of your business... It'll be like asking a hen why it lays eggs - it has no clue why...

Anyway, I've known her for a while, and not just knowing, as in "know", but I've known her long enough to tell Arm a thing or two about her: that she too doesn't feed on nonsense. She loves the Lord yeah, but she doesn't tolerate crap. So if Arm is to get glued to her, he really needs to know her game and how she plays it: it is either she owns the game or she doesn't play it at all. It's that simple.

Now that I was caught in their crossfire (or bombfire to suit this case), I had to know that I was dealing with a very delicate issue of reconciling two people I have been, and I am still very proud of. People I believe in. People I behold as changers of this generation as far as Christianity, love, relationships and marriage are concerned. People who are my role models and my friends too...
It came to me at that moment that the toughest part of friendship is trying to advice your mentor. O, there is nothing as tough as that! Guiding your teacher is like instructing God. I mean, where do you start? Where are you supposed to begin? How do you tell someone who's taught you about right and wrong that, "Man this is right, and er, that is wrong?" Tough. Really tough.
But here I was caught in telling them stuff like this;

1. Seriously guys, I was not expecting this from you. How did it come to all this? You tearing yourselves apart? Really? Is that all you can do?
2. So now I am supposed to teach you how to love one another? Me? Teaching you guys? Hah! This is a joke. Just get over it meeeeen!
3. You are my role models, guys! My role models when it comes to things to do with salvation, living upright and relationships. As in, what will I tell other guys about sticking to each other through thick and thin in relationships? Huh? Who will I point them to? Come on!

And so forth and so on...
But after shockwaving through my mind and all the pieces of "sound wisdom" I have acquired over time, I decided to do otherwise. I came to understand something: no one, yes, no one in a relationship anywhere on this earth is ever able to fully agree with their partner kinda 100 out of a 100 times they mingle. We are all going to disagree somewhere. We are all going to fail and betray our own values, the very ones we advocate for everyday. And after that has happened, things are gonna fall apart, so that we may learn the best way to pick up the pieces: to learn how to pick them up beforehand. Yes, it's gonna be "boom, here goes the blast!" at some point, but, but we need to work it around. Those friends closest to us should motivate us into bringing the pieces together...
They can do it in various ways, including understanding that;

1. Everyone is vulnerable to a fall (or a failure) no matter how strongly founded their lives are (both in Christianity and in other things in life.) Being dismissive of their failures without offering help is stupid. We need to help. We need to help because this is our Christian call. From whatever angle the "boom!" may come, we still need to help.
2. Everybody needs mentoring at some point, no matter how many people have been admonished by their instruction. Everyone is a child at some point and they at that moment, just need to be treated as kids for them to coil around and "get" the applicability of the truths they have been teaching to people for ages. The "strong" need guidance and direction too!
3. Everyone needs prayer, and as Hillsong sings, "Everyone needs compassion...", everyone, and mostly, these "strong and wise people" we see (including myself, your leader and your Pastor), need our direction in the very things they already know. They need our support. They are not know-it-alls. It is we who think that it is always alright with them, but you know what? We are mostly wrong. They need us so much at some point.
4. The tiniest of things are the ones that break the greatest of relationships. Nothing should be left pending as far as disagreement is concerned. I betcha, nothing. So, a friend should tell a friend, and tell a friend to tell a friend that nothing, yes, nothing should be left hanging as far as unity in relationships is concerned. If one is grieved, both should be concerned. If one is glad, both should be elevated.

So what did I tell Arm and Betty? My two friends? I told them all there is to be told that makes sense as far as their relationship was concerned... I told them... Oh well, let's talk about this some other day...

*The names used in this blog (*Arm and *Betty) do not belong to any specific or known person(s), but if they do, let's bless that animal called coincidence. :-)

Side note: This is an excerpt from my Christian fiction book you'll know about soon... and "soon", my dearest friends, can be ages... :-)

Bonface Morris.

Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 3: Relationships, Love and Unity

Relationships, love and unity

I overheard someone I respect say this on Twitter, (and I paraphrase): “Relationships and marriage are all about unity than they are about love [Period] Both only work under given principles and none of those principles are absolutely exclusive because love only works to make them efficient…”

Side note: Allow me to be absolutely sincere with you on this one…

The statement above made me (because I love being a-down-to-earth-kind-of-lad) sit down and look deeper into the words; while at the same time analyzing the causes of failed relationships. 

I remembered what my dad once taught me that: a man only gains sanity through using his mind to sail through his failures and picking out what went wrong together with what went right and [somehow] why it went wrong and how it went right… (well done , old man)...

I sat there thinking of all the possibilities there could ever that can make that statement true.  Things like “what really makes a relationship work?” and “Does love really matter, or is it just a catalyst to what already exists between two people!?” and “Do all relationships really fall apart due to lack of love, or is it caused by something else?”… ran through my mind.

As I sat there, I realized that what most people call “love” in relationships is never love at all. Okay, it may be love but I realized that it is normally but a mixture of so many things – many things that are in agreement in order to make sense to the other person and for that person to interpret them as “love”.

Side note: Last year’s blog post titled “Of Love and Falling in Love” may help you in understanding this.

Actions that show or constitute “love” (refer to the blog above) are what when denied of or when shown to someone tend to describe feelings of “not being loved”, “being loved”, "being loved a little" or "pretending to be in love"; and mostly when these actions intermarry/intermingle and are united by a person who is directing them consistently towards another, they can end up being interpreted as “love”. 

Okay, I will explain…

Affection, tenderness, respect, compliments, support, sex (to the married), gifts, romantic actions, financial support… bla bla bla… are some of the actions that a person will always think (and agree with me) that they deserve when in love, right? Okay. What if those actions are denied or transferred to another person in the conceived existence of the first party? Maybe the resulting notion will be that “I am not loved anymore!” or “I have been betrayed…!”, right?
Love, therefore, in such a scenario is not what is lacking but the actions thereof…the so-called consolidated actions that show love… But that is not my argument in total; and I’m neither being cynical nor impractical...

I don’t put away the necessity of love in a relationship. I don’t do that because love puts together too many things between two people that grew up in totally different contexts. I just argue that love can lack in a relationship and that relationship will still be good enough… it will still make sense…


I used to be of a view that Love, yeah that thing called love, is the main constituent in a working relationship and a later abounding marriage. I used to think so because I THOUGHT SO… but not justifiably so… 

I used to side with most ladies (and I am not saying that I now don’t) when it came to the fact that men are not emotional enough and that they don’t care enough… or that they don’t fall in love…This changed when I realized that men DO fall in love… but in a rather guttish way. Theirs is more of a mind and gut issue than it is a heart issue. I realized that I was wrong all along to expect men (not all men actually) to take love as the peg upon which ALL their relationships hang upon (this, I think, is the mistake most ladies make - thinking that relationships hang on love). 

So after realizing all this, it made me to say, "It is one thing to fall in love, while it is altogether another thing to keep on loving someone…” 

Think about that, just for a moment.

What is foundational is this: love will neither give you the respect you crave for in a relationship, nor all those things that add up to make a relationship work; but love, at any given time, will hold two different opinions together if those two opinions would wish for unity.

90% of people who have had genuine relationships will tell you that love was not what pulled them to each other, but rather a package of actions from the other person that made them appealing to their like. I don’t believe there is something like “love at first sight” but rather “attraction at first sight” (and attraction doesn’t have to be sexual... because sexual attraction is lust).

As a relationship grows, moving from one phase to another, (and this happens to every relationship that has a sense of direction) matters arise that call for action - real action and not “love action”… Disagreements, disrespect, violence and so on are some of the things that overwhelm the power of love… (so to say) and Love just somehow refuses to conquer over such! Love may help in tolerating a behavior in someone, but it never solves disagreement(s) or disrespect or financial issues or disease/sickness… It only helps to deal with these issues at hand in a more conscious and understanding way, but never solves any of them… 

Quote: People can love each other but fail to agree – and it can be as always as the sun rises from the East and sets in the West…

Love can be present in a relationship, but minus unity, it becomes weak and useless… And whenever this happens, a separation or a divorce or a breakup lingers in that partnership.

You may ask, “What really breaks (or brings down) relationships or marriages that were once figured as 'unshakeable'? And I will answer back, “There is nothing that is unshakable except for the things that concern the Heaven of God. Putting that in mind, the lack of better and workable conflict management or resolution mechanisms mixed with pride from both or either of the concerned parties will make any 'stong' relationship to come to its knees…”

That is to tell you that unless people in a relationship (or a marriage) work on their differences and lack of unity, love will NEVER be enough to make them stand the test of time. If people can learn on how to amicably solve all their differences, love may not be needed for any relationship(s) or marriage(s) to survive. No wonder we have always heard most elderly people around us say, “I didn’t love them (referring to their spouse) by the time I was getting married to them, but along the way, I learnt to live with them and they learnt to live with me… and it has worked… to the point that I now have come to love them…”

It is weird, but it is true.

Quote: Love grows to maturity. Love grows to bring in unity in a relationship. Mature love unifies.

Quote: Lack of unity (or agreement) in a relationship(s) (and not majorly the lack of love) is the god of most separations, divorces and breakups…

And I am not saying that two separate people can always agree, no; but that they have to agree in order to make a relationship or a marriage work. That is why the Bible says that men should love and honor (or respect) their wives as Christ loves the Church (which means men should love their wives in a manner that makes the Head - who is Christ and in this case, the man - to be in unison or in unity or in agreement with the body - who is the Church and in this case, the wife); while the woman is to respect and submit to her husband…and respect together with submission have an accent and order of unity in them…

Issues that bring disagreements and conflict like finances/money (its availability, management and use), lack of support (commitment and responsiveness on the side of the man/husband; and encouragement and affirmation on the part of the woman/lady/wife), a solemnness to faithfulness and honesty (from both sides), children, education and career choice… can only be solved when that so-called love is proved through agreement…

Final quote: Minus unity, love is empty…

I hope you now get my point.

Bonface Morris.