DECEIVED

Damn, if I don't tell you about this guy, you'd really be missing out. In one of my previous blog posts I spoke about ripping up your list, the one you have for you future husband or wife, after having watched the Relationship Goals series from Michael Todd. I had to learn this the hard way. Before knowing better, I watched these beautiful and inspiring YouTube videos about letting God write your love story. The one couple had actually made lists of what they wanted in their partner and so I was inspired to make mine. Where I went wrong is that instead of waiting for someone like this person, I started trying to find these traits in one guy... Your mind is so powerful that you can literally make yourself believe anything. This happened already after I had made my promise to God and myself that I was going to be single for a year and dedicate it to growing closer to God. It took a while for me to get there and I hit some bumps in the road because I fell into my old ways.

So I made my list and it was pretty long...I wanted my dream guy to have so many qualities... He has to be God-fearing, involved in church, kind, caring, generous, funny, doesn't judge me, easy to get along with, a people person, can dance, can sing, has a similar music taste, is independent, makes an effort, loves phone calls, prays with me, pushes me towards God, has great style, and someone I could be myself around. I started praying for this man and asked that God would send him to me when he deemed me ready. I just want to say that when you are chasing God fully, the devil tries to deceive you, and well he definitely deceived me. Not even a week later I made the mistake of downloading tinder again... I seemed to do this quite a lot. Ladies, please, you are not going to find your Godly man on tinder... it is one-in-a-million. Back to the story. I KNEW I wasn't ready, but did I listening to the Holy Spirit talking to me? No, no I did not. I listened to another voice in my head that was lying to me saying that I can totally just be friends with a guy I met on that horrid app. This app has brought me nothing but bad life decisions and therefore I will no longer be engaging on it

I met a guy and I made a few things clear. 1. I am not looking to get involved with anyone, I have made a vow to be single for a year so I am only looking to meet new people. 2. I am not a friends with benefits kind of girl. So after having made these boundaries clear we started speaking almost 24/7. We would have 5 to 6 hour phone calls every day which he initiated (it was holiday so I did have time). We got on so so so well, it was unbelievable. It did not take long at all to fall for this guy. Like, it took a week. I think this just proves that I wasn't ready... but he had also fallen for me. I seem to enjoy over-estimating myself. Is it just me, or does it make a guy 100 times more attractive when he agrees to respect your boundaries? We would call morning, noon and night. One thing I find so attractive is when a guy I like just calls me out of the blue to check up on me... It felt like I'd known this guy my whole life, meanwhile it was just a week.

He was an amazing guy, BUT he was going through a lot. When I say a lot, believe me, I mean it. He was damaged and so was I. Now what do you get when you put two damaged people together? A shipwreck similar to the Titanic. One thing I learnt from this experience is that timing is everything. There is a season for everything. We both neglected our season of healing. I knew that I wasn't ready for anything and so even though I was falling for him, I suggested that we just be friends. He made the decision that we didn't want to mess up an opportunity to be with me, because I was all he ever wanted. Agh. Why do we always fall for the words we want to hear?

The more we hung out, the more I started seeing traits in him that I had written on my list. In fact, I found every single trait on my list. I started to ignore the major red flags of course, because what is good without the bad? We met each others families and we went on dates. We were inseparable. It didn't take the relationship long to fall into sin. Even though he was very involved in church and God was 100% his number 1, the devil brought us together in his most vulnerable state. I was also in my most vulnerable state and nowhere near where I should be before getting involved with anyone. We were thinking selfishly, we knew that being together made us feel better and took our minds off the pain we didn't want to feel. This is why I say that I know what it's like to not feel like you can be single. To feel that you don't want to be alone. To feel like loneliness consumes you. This made it so easy for the devil to interfere.

After a month and a bit of being together things went south and got brutal. It was not a long relationship at all, but it did some of the most damage because I knew and saw the devils work at play. I thought that I deserved someone good, and maybe this was my moment to be happy, but it wasn't. It was still my season to grow closer to God. The guy turned around one day and told me that we were JUST FRIENDS, there were no strings attached. I was shook. I had no idea what had changed and I will never know because out of nowhere he blocked me. I found later that he got a new girlfriend and well that's the end of it. I, personally, don't understand how he got to this "just friends" thing after I had made it clear that I didn't want a relationship because I didn't want us getting hurt and him being the one who said he wanted to try being more than friends, which is what I then agreed to. After me saying that I am not a "friends with benefits" kind of girl, and well that did not make him the exception. And after meeting each other's families multiple times, kissing and being loving in front of them? Sir, do you always treat your friends like that in front of family? But I cannot blame him. Like I said, we were damaged. We weren't bad people, but hurt people hurt people. There is nothing stopping it.

This is why it is so important to focus on your healing. It is not just so that you don't get hurt, but so that you don't end up damaging the other person because you haven't dealt with your past hurt and trauma. Now that I have truly placed all my time into God's hands, I have seen and felt my healing. I learnt a lot from this fling. I saw that the boundaries I set for myself I need to stick to, no compromising. I learnt that there are certain situations I can no longer trust myself to be put in, and there is nothing wrong with that, I think it shows maturity when you are honest to yourself. I learnt that I cannot look for my list in a man, God knows what I need and sometimes we may not think that is what we will want. We are sometimes blinded by fleshly desires and so it is important to know how to listen to God. If the voice in your head does not align with God's word, then it is not from him.

"I have no idea who this is for, but I'm gonna say it anyway... God is not in a rush, you are. And that's why you feel stressed out, and anxious, and disappointed, because nothing is going your way. Today I pray that you surrender your timeline to his pace. And know that whatever is for you, will not pass you. If it's meant to be yours, it'll be yours. That's it. Stop stressing out. Stress less. Move on girl." - Steph Bellini