Same Ex, Who Dis?

In honor of Halloween, I'd like to chat a little bit about the masks that some of us wear daily.

I previously spoke about an ex who was just about everything that I‘d asked for. This man checked…almost…all the boxes on my list, causing me to question - if we spend our time focused on checking off boxes for everything that we think we want, what do we do with the extras that we end up with?

We corrupt our own head space, skewing our views of healthy and successful relationships.  I had a conversation with a fellow women’s counselor once about the prevalence of re-dating, both literally and figuratively. We began the discussion because I, at the time, had a 35+ year old client, recently engaged, who had only dated two men in her lifetime. Since the 9^th grade, she’d bounced back and forth between the same two men - one in high school, the other in college, the high school love interest returned in her twenties and they had a child before breaking up and she became engaged to the college boyfriend in her 30s.  When we look at her story it looks like insanity, but only because it’s literal. We figuratively do the exact same thing without a second thought.

According to a 2017 study by SuperDrug, the average person will have sexual intercourse with 7 people in their lifetime. If we then consider how many people we date and never have sex with, consider the likelihood of them all being completely different and not sharing any of the same traits that caused a previous breakup. The concept is difficult to grasp because we can't always pinpoint the reason for our breakups; mostly because we seldom ever take the time to analyze the do's and don’ts of our wants.

I do want a:

God Loving, People Loving

Purpose-Driven
Family-Focused
Self-Aware
Passionate
Encouraging

Mechanically Inclined

Supportive

Black male, 6’1” or taller, aged 35-45

I don’t want:

Someone who doesn’t go to church AND have an active prayer life

Arrogant
Proud & Egotistical
Lazy or happily stagnant

Poor Communicator

Shorter than me

Who hasn’t figured out who he is

These points are the obvious things that can be checked off in boxes, but what can’t be checked off are the spirits we carry and the unhealthy aspects of our character that haunt our relationships.

I will never forget dating a guy who everyone around me thought was amazing until I visited him unexpectedly one afternoon.  I watched him get mad at his 3-year-old for crying, and then spanked his 11-year-old for standing in the driveway playing catch in “his good shoes”.   (It was the height of the summer, by the way.)  He also introduced us to what will forever be referred to as “the mad daddy voice”. 

My daughter was confused and riddled with questions when we left – why can’t babies cry? What are good shoes? How is a kid supposed to play if he only has “good shoes”? Why was he in such a bad mood? Are you going to call him again?

Because let me tell you what I’ve learned - anger is an emotion, true enough, but it is also a spirit, in the same way that poverty is both an economic status and mindset.  This man was making good money – had received a promotion and two raises in the summer that we hung out, but in his mind, his son couldn’t play catch in his “good shoes” because they couldn’t afford new ones.

When he was planning for our presence, he had time to put on the face that he wanted us to see, but when our visit was unexpected, his real face came out.

How many times have you gone from David to Daniel to Eric to Mike thinking they were different people until that one argument or unexpected visit when he forgot to put on face and you realized that you had spent the majority of your dating years re-dating the exact same guy? You hop from one person to the next checking off boxes until you realize it's always the same person...over and over...like

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

What Break Up?

Confession – I haven’t always been the best communicator in my past relationships. I’ve had arguments in which I focused more on winning the disagreement than seeing the other person’s point of view.  I’ve had exes tell me how they feel and had their feelings go virtually ignored because my not understanding their feelings prevented me from effectively processing their words.

Because I am now aware of this, a large part of my wholeness and growth journey has focused much on communication. Today it occurred to me that as adults, the majority of our day is spent deciphering language, yet we still fail to see the importance of sound communications in our relationships.

I am somewhat famous for my Shan-isms mostly because I most often use language literally. If I say to you, “I have no idea how to respond to that”, don’t expect a response.  If I say, “I am officially done with this conversation”, don’t be surprised if I leave you standing alone, arguing with yourself.

So, as I think about the way that I use language, it led to heightened curiosities about how others use language, today, most specifically, the term ‘break up’.

I have seen lives completely turned around by ending ridiculous and unhealthy relationships.  I will never forget, a few years ago, a friends’ adult son left his relationship and when his mother asked about [who she thought was] his girlfriend, he replied, quite evenly, “she got hit by a bus”.  When the mother remarked that they’d broken up, he responded, “nope, I’m good”.  She was baffled. I was proud.

In that moment, he proved that he understood language affects the way that we respond to the events in our lives. The Bible says that the POWER of life and death is in the tongue, so why don’t we understand that we give things power by the way that we verbally refer to them? This young man was  saying, that relationship was broken, I’m NOT!

The more I study, the more I counsel, the more I explore my wholeness and the journey that is life, I realize that I will never have another break up. I will have friendships, partnerships and relationships that will inevitably end, but I will never break up again.

Webster’s dictionary defines break up as “the act or instance of breaking up”, which is to say, “to end a romance; ceasing to exist as a UNIFIED WHOLE”.  How many people have you witnessed functioning as a UNIFIED WHOLE, who ended their relationship? It doesn’t happen!  People end relationships because of a failure to co-exist as a solid, stable, healthy unit.

The bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven”.  To say that two people broke up would imply brokenness and thereby a need for repair, but most often, the end of the relationship isn’t the break, it’s actually the fix.

We have to stop allowing language to trick us into attempting to reconcile volatile and otherwise unhealthy relationships.  You cannot fix what was always inherently broken.  So, going back to or even mourning the end of unhealthy relationships will never serve your highest good.

No, your ex doesn’t have to be hit by a bus in order for you to heal, you just have to understand that God’s purpose for your life and the level of wholeness necessary for you to actualize that purpose is far greater and more important that that relationship.

Remember, ‘to everything there is a season’, so dig up those roots!  Glean whatever you are meant to reap from that season and go plant closer to your intended harvest!  Some lessons taste more like medicine than sweet nectar, but that doesn’t mean they can’t bear fruit. When it’s over, it’s over. Do what you need to do for you. Focus on moving forward, being whole, healthy and focused on your future, not your past!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Restored to Wholeness

If the Bible tells us that married people are one flesh, how do you divorce and remain whole?

When I was younger, I remember going to school with kids who had “uncles”.  I can’t recall how old I was when I finally found out what it meant for a woman to make her children regard her gentleman callers as “uncle”, but as I consider all of the divorcees that I know, I have to question if either way is truly better.

I can remember thinking about how weird and gross it seemed to call your mom’s boyfriend uncle, but what about marriage makes that any better?  Women who marry and divorce ... somewhat frequently, create a stream of men for their children to call dad or stepdad that is just as temporary as a boyfriend.  They’re both equally disturbing.

Two friends have weighed heavily on my mind as of late. The first has an elementary aged daughter and is on her 3^rd marriage. The second has a teenaged daughter, 2 ex-husbands and a baby daddy.  The current condition of the teenager makes me terrified for the young daughter of the other friend.

When we think about past relationships we often talk about the luggage that we take into our new relationships and how it influences our interactions with other adults, but when are we going to consider the way that it impacts our children?  Here is an otherwise healthy young lady who has never seen anything other than volatile relationships and, as such, is beginning to act out in her own relationships – mainly the non-romantic ones.  By watching her mother be devalued, she has learned to devalue others.

For the most part, I’ve refrained from dating for the majority of my daughter’s life.  Now, at ten years old, she is well-adjusted. She understands healthy relationships and how to recognize them. However, she has also gotten used to it being just the two of us.  So much so that I have been asked by a potential suitor how she might receive the prospect of having to share me.

My friend’s teenaged daughter is struggling with behavioral, social and mental health issues, having no firm example of what a healthy relationship looks like.  She has learned to be mistreated, mishandled, and to accept the scraps of half-hearted appreciation and ignorance of worth.  Conversely, the daughter of my thrice married friend will likely bear the weight of entitlement and a level of self-centeredness that will result in an utter lack of compromise.  She has been taught that people, like wedding rings, can be removed to fit your whimsy.

She hasn’t witnessed the beauty of self-reflection, redirection and dedication to the elements necessary to making relationships work.  These days, people treat spouses like boyfriends/girlfriends – someone that you can walk away from the moment it looks like the honeymoon has ended; the moment the slightest bit of unhappiness surfaces and things are no longer new enough to carry your infatuation.  We celebrate 5 years as though it were 50, with no regard for the way that our grandparents and great grandparents made it work for so long.  Instead of addressing the issues in their relationship - the roles that both they and their spouse played; they file for divorce and move on to the next one.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with divorce, but Matthew 19:6 (KJV) reads that two married people become “one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let no man tear asunder”.  The question therefore becomes how many times will you enter into a marriage that God never put together, before you start to question what’s driving you into the arms of men who you never intended to be your forever? So, you travel from one relationship to the next, one husband to another, carrying the baggage of your brokenness until you collapse beneath its weight. 

You are spiritually tearing yourself apart without regard for how you can be restored to wholeness.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

The Lessons We Allow

What has your past taught you - to fear, or to love?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the seasons of life and the positions we allow others to play in our lives.  In doing so, a connection to a friend has been heavy in my spirit.  Unknowingly, I spent years in this man’s presence, the two of us teetering along the edges of each other’s lives, until about a year ago.

For a moment, the two of us stepped outside of the norm and were able to see one another in a new light. A strong, beautiful, powerful light. A light that has inspired and empowered me, and for him, I can only pray the same.  However, our encounters cause me to ponder the nature of things.

Generally speaking, the most influential relationships of our lives are the ones that happen, not the ones that don’t.  So, how does a man with whom I have never even been on a date, so greatly affect me and my relationships? Plainly stated, because I allowed him to.  We spend so much of our lives focused on RELATIONSHIPS that we forget the importance of RELATIONSHIP.

'They' say that a man and a woman can't be friends. Though I beg to differ, such beliefs highlight the fact that we give relationships too much power. We allow the joy and pain of our romantic history to dictate elements of our lives that should have never been affected.  It dictates where we can and cannot live, work, spend our free time. It especially dictates how we treat the people who come into and out of our lives thereafter.  All of this, we allow.

I vividly recall, the gentleman in question once saying to me how his ex-wife would “cut up” if/when he got married again.  I remember thinking, “WHO CARES!??!”  Yet, even then, it didn’t occur to me the level of power that we give people from our past over our present lives and future.  The remnants of our romantic relationships clutter our minds and dictate how we treat others.  His remnants built a wall around his heart, making it extremely difficult to penetrate for fear of further hurt or disappointment.  My remnants built a mirrored glass wrecking ball, replacing my own walls. I have decided what I want and work constantly to destroy anything outside of that.

Lord’s grace, I have had the time to reflect on the effect that my previous romantic dealings have had on the way that I live my life.  I understand now that no one has power in your life that you’re not willing to give them.  When handled wisely, our past should guide us along the path of wisdom.

When I say that this man has a wall built around his heart, it could sound like I’m taking shots at him - being unfair or somewhat judgmental, but I truly am not.  There is a portion of wisdom that is closed off, strategic and methodical.  Proverbs 4:23-25 directs us to guard our hearts, while reminding us to remain focused (fix your gaze directly before you).  The question becomes how many of us do one without the other?

I have not been in a relationship since my 10-year old daughter was born.  I haven’t been on a real date in seven years.  The way in which I have navigated her exposure to the world, have also limited my own exposure. On the other hand, this man has been in one serious relationship since his divorce. A long distance relationship that allowed him engagement outside of his life as a parent, true enough, but I would argue that it was also the type of relationship that allowed for him to nurture his fear of commitment and limit potential exposure to future pain & disappointment.

I write in next week’s #WednesdayReveal “Say Uncle” about the issues plaguing the daughters of women I know to have…. unstable relationship histories.  Both of whom are currently married.  On the flip side, both myself and the gentleman in question are single, but have healthy, well-adjusted children.

The comparison paints a picture as though we as parents either fail our children – passing in and out of relationships, or we fail ourselves – refusing to allow anyone but our children close enough to love us.

Neither of these positions is a healthy place to reside.  Our relationships should be teaching us to exercise wisdom, not to be afraid.  If 2 Timothy 1:7 teaches us that God has not given us the spirit of fear, then we should start to question where we learned it, and from there, start to be more mindful of the lessons we allow.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Take Up Your Mat

If someone else’s walk depended on the healing of your lameness, would you take up your mat?

In my last post, “Out of the Valley”, I wrote that our purpose is not for us alone. I would like to reiterate that in this week’s post. As Christians, especially those desiring to be or remain married, we often forget that the cornerstone of every romantic relationship is an overall healthy understanding of how relationship works. Not relationships as in husband and wife, but relationship, as in the state of being connected as people.

In order to know how to treat your (future) spouse, you need an accurate understanding of how to treat your fellow man. All of our relationships are connected, beginning with our relationship with God. The way that we respond to and interact with others is a direct result of our relationship with and closeness to Him.

In my upcoming book, I write about the way that communication affects our relationships once we have learned to focus as much on what is not said, as we focus on what is said. We have to understand this same concept with the bible. If prayer is us speaking to God, and He speaks back to us when we read the bible, then in order for us to fully grasp what He wants to say to us, we have to consider what is not said. I’m not saying to make things up and I’m not even referencing interpretation; I’m talking about inference – information that can be reasonably deduced from what we read.

In Mark 2 we are told the story of a paralyzed man whose four friends carry him through the village of Capernaum to encounter Jesus, that he might be healed of his paralysis.  The bible says that ‘some men came, bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man…since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof…and then lowered the man before Jesus’. It goes on to say that when Jesus saw their faith, He declared the mans’ sins forgiven and bid him to rise, take up his mat and go home - which he did!

Here's the problem, when we read the bible, we focus on the takeaways that a pastor or teacher told us were important, or we focus on the words that we read instead of processing context. If you truly want to get the meat of the word, I challenge you to focus on the relationships that you’re reading about, because here’s the fix – the true miracle at work in Mark 2 isn’t in this man’s healing by God’s word. Jesus performed miracles all the time, causing a lame man to walk wasn’t necessarily all that special. The miracle is in the relationship between those five men and their faith.

Consider for a moment, the ‘law of gathering’ is reliant on a five-fold investment. If you want 3 people to show up somewhere, you will generally need to invite about 15 people, ESPECIALLY if you’re looking to do something as “outrageous” as see a lame man walk. But this man was paralyzed, feasibly for his entire life, he didn’t have the wherewithal to gather 15 people. He had only that good, strong four; four men who knew God to be the omnipotent Jehovah Rapha that he needed.

Here’s the catch, we make a lot of assumptions when communicating with God. We assume that God is too busy with the “big stuff” to bother with our “little problems”, or that our prayers are going unanswered because we don’t see God show up in major ways, without realizing that God most often shows up in other people. I remember a Bishop telling me once that I needed to learn to accept help when it’s offered, not just because I need it, but because the blessing, faith and even the deliverance of the PERSON OFFERING might be reliant upon it. That’s what we learn from the parable of Mark 2, because in all the things that we take from this story and all that this chapter says, what it does not say is that the trip to Capernaum was taken at the request of the paralyzed man! 

WE DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT THIS MAN DESIRED TO BE HEALED!

He’d been paralyzed his entire life. He may have been perfectly content in his infirmity. This entire trip could’ve been planned by any of those four men. Any one of them could’ve heard of the healing power of Jesus and thought to himself that the greatest test of his faith would be seeing his friend walk, knowing that surely if Jesus could heal the brokenness of a man who has never taken a single step, He could heal the brokenness of the man who brought him there.

Never neglect the importance of your relationship with other believers. You may be the only bible that someone sees today and their salvation or wholeness might rely solely on your willingness to take up your mat and walk!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth