On your journey to becoming the one, you’ll go through a lot of self-discovery and healing. It can be tempting to rush this process when you’re ready to settle down and get married, but if you do, you could end up hurting someone. You have to be honest with yourself and ask, are you safe to love right now? Are you ready to share your life with someone, and is your heart prepared to give and receive love?
It might be hard to admit, but you have to be real about where you are. Sometimes when you don’t know how to get whole, you might think that a relationship is the answer, but it’s not. No one can complete you, and in fact, they might end up worse off for trying. So don’t do that, not to yourself or anyone else.
When we are prematurely joined to another person we can cause them emotional harm.
When you’re not safe to love, you will unintentionally dim the light of your boyfriend or girlfriend. At first, you’re attracted to their energy and enthusiasm for life, but soon your discontentment bleeds out. You’ll start to dump all of your emotional trauma’s onto them, and before long, it gets to be too much. Eventually, they begin to resent the relationship.
Now, this doesn’t make you a bad person! This just means that you need more time with God before you start dating. Your desire to be safe to love should be stronger than your desire to date. Attempting to fill a void with a relationship never works! Not to mention, it’s a complete waste of time.
Here are some self-inventory checkpoints:
- When you think about dating, what motivates your desire to be in a relationship? What do you hope or expect to get out of it?
- Are you prepared to give everything that you’re asking? What self-work or experiences have you gone through to prepare you for a healthy relationship?
- Do you have realistic expectations of other people? Will you be able to give grace and partner with them on their journey to fulfilling God’s will for their lives?
Love requires all of you!
Many of us have developed a form of counterfeit love where we determine how much we’re going to give of ourselves based on how much they give to us first. But true love requires all of you. You may not be safe to love if you’re piece-mealing yourself in relationships. You’re doing this because you have trust issues or are insecure within your identity.
The Bible says to love others as you love yourself. And loving yourself well means that you have taken the time to uncover any hidden trauma and worked on them through time with God, prayer, and maybe counseling. When you do, it’s easier to navigate relationships with discernment.
It’s going to take time and work.
Working on yourself will be such a blessing to your future marriage. You are worthy of love and all the good things that God has for you. But you have to hone in on who you are and what you bring to the table before you can be safe to love. It’s your responsibility! Commit today to refuse to be anybody else’s pain and do not awaken love before its time.
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