I think was in love once. For awhile. It was completely one-sided, and I was naive. The whole thing lasted way longer than it should’ve, because even though I knew he didn’t feel the way I felt about him, I thought I was special and I let that be enough.
He was my great love, my first romantic heartbreak and I haven’t tried it again since.
I’ve had varying situationships over the years, but the precedent had been set: I was always good enough for emotional support and physical satisfaction, but never love.
In hindsight, I wasn’t open or ready for love, nor was I good at picking partners that wanted love from me, so it does follow that I made a bad decision worst by choosing to believe that I wasn’t worth more.
With such a romantic history I don't think it surprising that I become a bit melancholy around Valentine's Day. I try not to think too hard about it, but this year in the spirit of emotional growth and personal development I've decided to reflect so that I can do better moving forward.
First things first, I had to remember what I wrote a few blogs ago in The Woman with the Issue of Heart post. I had to remind myself that daily I will find things to surrender to Christ. The goal is that once I discover something that I need to give to God...to actually surrender it to Him. It doesn't benefit us to only acknowledge that something needs to change if we don't take steps to actually change.
It's like seeing a piece of trash on the floor in your room and being annoyed that it's still there. It's not going to move until you move it. I'm not going to make better heart choices if I don't take the time to learn how to make better decisions.
Proverbs 18:22 says,
"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord."
I can not tell a lie, this scripture annoyed me for most of my young adulthood. I wasn't the teenager that was so dedicated to and in the Lord that I was content hearing that it wasn't my job to look for a husband. Also, I was 16. I wanted a boyfriend.
A husband was a very cool thing to aspire to have as an adult, and if the adults in my life asked me at the time I knew how to give the "right" answer, but boys were cute. Their attention felt different and these new feelings were something to obsess over.
As an adult you realize that all of your behaviors are practiced and started somewhere. Loathe as I am to admit it, a lot of my dating behaviors as an adult are modifications of things I learned as a result of my first big heartbreak. A heartbreak hard won by trying to be somebody's girlfriend.
You see how that happens?
Honestly, sometimes we date people and we learn that they aren't our happily ever after. That's ok, but as Christians our romantic relationship goal is to marry. So the behaviors we should be practicing should be that of a husband or a wife. That is to say that the first thing I had to relearn, was how to think of myself in terms of something more permanent in someone else's life. I had to surrender to God my perception of myself as a girlfriend, so that God could teach me how to be a wife.
That way when my husband finds me, I am already a good thing.
What about you? Is there anything you need to surrender to God as it concerns your romantic relationships? Let me know in the comments below!