On this side of life, the side that wishes I'd known all the things I know now way back then, it's easier to see how misguided I was in my thinking concerning relationships. I thought that love was all that was needed to make a relationship work. But given the fact that I didn't know the true meaning of love, no wonder things eventually did not work in my relationships. What will make a relationship work is commitment. On this side of my relationships, I can see that there was no commitment involved; it was get in quick and get out quicker. There was no time taken to get to know each other before the flames of passion turned into the ashes of disappointment.
Over the years I've come to learn that love is a choice. Yes, a choice: me giving the other person the choice to remain (or leave) my life without me being totally devastated by the fact that they do or do not want to be a part of my life. How could someone staying in my life be devastating? The fact that they are only there because they fear my reaction to their wanting to leave. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a drama queen. I've only created ONE dramatic scene on the side of the highway when I was new to the dating scene and he "just wasn't making enough time to be with me" because he was doing everything he could to leave the relationship but I was too busy trying to hold on to him.
I remember telling God (twice in my life) that I would choose the Man over Him should the Man decide to come back into my life. The mere fact that the Man (both of them) were no longer in my life suggests that there were valid reasons that we were no longer together. Why would I choose someone who I already knew would not commit to me over God? Because I didn't understand God's priority concerning relationships. It's not that God didn't want me to love them enough to choose to allow either one of them back into my life should they have chosen to come back. What He did want was for me to Love them Less than Him. To always put Him first in everything I do, even my relationships.
Scripture reference: Luke 14:26
