What is this thing we are into? We are in relationships we haven’t prepped ourselves for. It’s like sitting behind a plane when all you have is a driver’s license. We’ve been selfish our whole lives and somehow we hope that the person we end up with will understand and love us anyways. We’ve been stingy and proud since we’ve had birth dates, and somehow we imagine we can hide it under some blanket in the hope that the person we claim to love will never notice the gaping holes in our personalities.
We’ve concocted our own ideas about what love is and how it should be, just so that we can qualify to be lovers. We’ve spent more time getting a degree than we have, understanding how a woman thinks or a man feels. We’ve built walls around our hearts so that under no condition does anyone get all of it. Because of one unfortunate heartbreak we’ve resolved that should we ever get in another relationship, we’ll be the one to love less.
We enter relationships with an end date in mind, and that informs how much we’re willing to sacrifice. When it’s too good to be true, we run off at lightening speed, not wanting to be around when the dream is over, not thinking ‘Maybe it’s not a dream, maybe this is for real, and I deserve it.’ We have so many cards under our sleeves we could start casinos with them. Nobody plays the fool, we all play to win. It’s a game, and the better player wins, playing human hearts like counters ball.
Time flies, and before you can recover from immaturity you’re walking down an aisle, to an alter with an unsuspecting soul waiting to pledge his soul, her very existence to you. You’re entering the most sacred of all institutions, with the mentality of a child and the attitude of an unambitious National Service personnel. I know couples our age who divorced after two months, less than the time it took me to learn ‘How’re you?’ in German.
Contemporary paparazzi with university education, amazing software and fancy cameras glorify weddings with pictures everybody likes on Facebook. Oh if only they could glorify marriages also! Because a wedding is an am/pm event but a marriage, now that’s a lifetime.
Guys target the daughters of rich men and girls weigh a man’s wallet before putting their weight behind a relationship. All so that we avoid financial hassle, as if it was a game of snake and ladders. But in running away from money problems that way, we embrace other problems that money is too puny to measure with.
We treat relationships like bank accounts, closing them when the ATMs malfunction or the banking experience gets too…stressful. We enter relationships with a to-do list that contain nothing about making ourselves better. Who are we fooling? What’s the catch?
We fail to appreciate the true cost of failed relationships and marriages. One wrong choice about who to marry can make you an eternal under performer. A wrong mentality about marriage can rob you of the peace that surpasses all understanding. It’s no joke, it’ not a dress rehearsal, it’s the real thing!
Marriage is the most sacred institution established by God, relationships lead to it, take them seriously. You work at relationships, you don’t whatsapp on them or try your luck. If it’s killing you, maybe its not meant to be. Don’t waste your or anyone else’s time. If he/she is certainly not the one you’re supposed to be with, the right person is stuck at a bus stop somewhere waiting, for you. But if it has any chance of working then by all means give it your best shot. But don’t, don’t mark time, lazying about in a make-shift love.
My friend Ruthie’s mantra is “May I be so lost in you Father that my man will have to come into you to find me.” Another told me what I’m about to tell you; You can’t ever truly love someone if you don’t truly love God. He’s not only good for the salvation ride you know, you need him to score that hot chick, after you marry her. You need him to control your anger issues, to know how to sacrifice, to know how to treat her right, to know how to be faithful, to be a super mom, to be the father you loved or wish you had. You need God for the now as much as for the later. He’s the vital ingredient, but definitely not Irish Cream.
Also pick your friends wisely, they become the dictionary from which you check the meaning of such things as love, patience, sacrifice and God. Your relationship is quarter-way dead if your friends are corrupt.
Finally, before you go on with today, I dare you to dare God with ten simple words (say it out); “Holy Spirit, please teach me how to love. Thank you”