Wednesday, 01 July 2009

• Currently Finally Karen By Karen Clark-Sheard see related

  Preparation + Opportunity = Success in Love

  The guy I'm seeing loves my writings and said he wanted me to write another note about us. The first one I wrote is called, "How Should Real Christians Date? I Say "Friends First!" This one is more about me, but he liked it. I hope you can learn something from it too.   :)

   

   

  If you were like me as a little girl, you dreamed of your wedding. You chose your bridesmaids, the location, and the dress. You had all the plans before you were even remotely prepared for marriage. Actually, little girls don’t want to be married; they just want to dress up and get pretty for their wedding!

   

  I was very wedding-minded. I didn’t put much of any thought into the marriage. I didn’t even think about the honeymoon because my thoughts were on that one great day. Several years later, I learned that a successful relationship was not the result of wanting it really, really bad. It’s not dreaming of all the romance and passion. A successful relationship is much the same as every other success in our lives. It’s simple math. PREPARATION + OPPORTUNITY = SUCCESS.

   

  I don’t agree with Oprah much, but when she said that P. + O. = S., it really stuck with me. I thought success was just something God placed in my lap for me to enjoy if I prayed hard enough and was a good person. I didn’t know I had to work for it! I think of doctors when it comes to this equation. Imagine a 30-year-old man applying for an open position as a heart surgeon. Imagine him wanting it real, real bad. He sees the opportunity, so he applies for it. It’ll be successful, right? He’ll get the job, right?

   

  What if I told you he was a high school dropout who never returned to school and never went to college? Dude has to be prepared with many years in school. This includes getting his GED, getting his Bachelor’s Degree, taking the MSAT, getting into a med school, finishing his residency successfully, and THEN applying for and getting the job as a heart surgeon after competing with other applicants and having a successful interview.

   

  God let me know that no matter how badly I want something, if I don’t get prepared, the opportunity won’t matter. We live in a world full of men and women, and yet many men and women are single. Why is this? Some are single by choice (for religious purposes), some are single because of other various other factors (health, age, location), but many are single because they are just not prepared.

   

  Another example of “p + o = s” is something that happened with me last week. My pastor asked me to be a speaker for our Youth Revival. Had pastor asked me a year or two ago, it would have been ABSOLUTELY “impossible” for me to do. I wouldn’t have done it for a million dollars because I was terrified of public speaking. But pastor asked me at a certain time (opportunity) and God had been preparing me for evangelism for a few years (preparation), so when I combined those two together, it was a success! Forty-two youth came to the altar; I’d say that was quite successful. Had pastor not asked me, this wouldn’t have happened the way it did, and had God not prepared me, this wouldn’t have happened the way it did.

   

  For the past few years, God has been preparing me for something lovely. I remember that perhaps the first prophetic message I heard regarding me was, “God is preparing you for your husband.” I heard it from my pastor back in college in early 2006, I believe. I thought, “Oh! God’s going to teach me how to cook, clean, and care for kids!” How foolish and how wrong. Cooking, cleaning, and kid caring does not a good wife make!

   

  I also realized that God must also be preparing my husband for me. Sure, the wife is made for the husband to be a help(meet for him), but I also believe that men have to be prepared for their wives. Some men wouldn’t even recognize a good wife if they never get their issues worked out.

   

  Let me list a few things that God has to work on us before we are ready for a serious relationship:

   

  1. Trust issues – if you have developed trust issues from childhood or after a bad relationship, you will carry these issues onto adulthood. If you don’t get God to heal you emotionally, you will be paranoid, suspicious, and distrustful of your partner and will annoy him or her so that they end the relationship. And this will only add to your distrust of people. Let God handle that.
  2. Bonding issues – Some people never got a secure attachment to their mother as babies and this issue is carried on into almost every relationship. If you don’t get God to heal you emotionally of this, you will not allow yourself to get close to people. You will be uncomfortable with emotional intimacy with others and this will have a negative impact on your relationship. Let God handle that.
  3. Good self-esteem – If you have low-self esteem, you will doubt all your good qualities that you can bring to a relationship. You will think that you are not good enough or worthy of love and happiness. You are created in the image of God, so of course you're pretty neat! How would you feel if someone told you that you remind them of your favorite celebrity or athlete? You'd think great things about yourself. Well, you're made in the image of the Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End, King of King and Lord of Lords. How awesome is that?! You deserve love and happiness. But if you see yourself as the scum of the earth, so will others. No one dates scum. Genesis 1:26 - "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."

   

  4. Maturity – When I was 8 years old, I was not ready for a marriage. Certain things can only happen in time. God has established not only natural seasons like winter, but He’s also established seasons for events concerning humans (ex. ministry, marriage).

   

  5. Self-sacrifice/empathy – Some people are too selfish and narcissistic for relationship. All they think of is their well-being. Relationships are not about YOU. They are about the relationship and the other person. And from the other partner’s point of view, it's about the relationship and you. You don’t worry about you too much; that’s the other person’s job. I noticed that when I take care of other people, they take care of me. If I buy them dinner when they’re low on cash, they return the favor when I’m broke. Reciprocity, baby! Sowing and reaping.

   

  6. Respect – What you do not respect, you will not attract. I know that a lot of black women tend to be negative towards men. They publicly confess that all men are dogs and yet expect a man/dog to walk up to and love them. And we wonder why they leave us for women of other races. I’ve noticed that women of other races tend to be more respectful of men. Everyone deserves respect. Everyone is God’s creation, and they need respect. Don’t talk crazy to or about people and expect them to be drawn to you. Draw bees with honey.

   

  7. Risk – Some people hate to risk rejection. While it is a scary thing to be rejected, it is life. If you never date because you are afraid of being turned down, then you've got it all wrong. You only need ONE person! So it makes sense that you get rejected by dozens.

   

  8. Submission – Many women say, “I don’t have to submit to a man! We’re all created equal!” To submit to a husband is GODLY. If you’re not willing to do that, then one can assume that you also have issues submitting to your boss, your parents (when/if you're younger), your city’s police force, and your pastor. Submission is not a bad thing; it’s the God thing. When you submit, you get taken care of! If you want to run stuff, then you’re on your own. The 14-year-old child who wants to be grown by not submitting to doing chores or to following his curfew will doubtless be taken less care of than his siblings who do submit. If that child gets kicked out the house, then who will take care of him? Obedient children get fed, clothed, and rewarded. Likewise, submissive wives get blessed because that is an authority that God established. Honestly, what’s so bad about submitting? It's really not as bad as we think.

   

  9. Acceptance of imperfections – If you are a perfectionist, you will not think that you are good enough yet for someone; and when you do meet a great guy or girl, you will find ways to say that they are not good enough for you. At the first sign of a flaw, you will flee the relationship. You have to understand that we are to love others just as they are - just as God does with us. He died for us while we were YET sinners. He loves us unconditionally. He doesn’t give up on us when we sin, but yet many men and women give up on their partner when they have the slightest flaw such as “she’s not the cutest, he’s overweight, she’s not too smart, he’s not rich enough, she doesn’t read the bible enough, he’s not as holy as me, etc.” No one is perfect, and until you learn to accept imperfections in yourself and others, you will never have a good relationship. People are to be their real selves in relationship. You can’t pretend to be the ideal because that’s not a real person, and you can’t date a fake person.

   

  I believe that God has effectively prepared me without the lessons of cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing. Of course, those three things will be part of a long-term relationship (for both the man and the woman), but there are other things much more important. If I was a distrustful, selfish, immature, perfectionist, disrespectful, super-feminist woman, sufficient cooking, cleaning, and childrearing wouldn’t be worth a hill of beans in a marriage. Those things can be learned in time, but the other things I listed have to be accomplished with God. Some of those issues are very deep, and God has to work them out. He might choose to do it with counseling and therapy. Of course, God can heal these issues instantaneously, but I find that God tends to do these things through time because you can appreciate it better and help others to understand it better.

   

  I like to think that I might have found success. Because I worked those issues out, I was prepared. The weird thing is that the guy never approached me when I had these issues even though he had seen me before and was attracted to me physically. And I’m so glad he did not approach me earlier, because the relationship would have been a disaster. But when I got my issues worked out (preparation), he was drawn to me for some reason (opportunity).

   

  Had he approached me when I first saw him, he would have found out that I was a big perfectionist, unwilling to submit to authority, not very empathic, had issues with trusting people, had issues with bonding with people, was immature, afraid to risk rejection, had low self-esteem, and was sometimes disrespectful. He wouldn’t have liked me very much back then! He probably would have ended up hating me. But since God had been preparing me HEAVILY for several months through emotional healing and reading many AMAZING Christian psychology books, I am now prepared. So when the opportunity presented itself about a month ago, it took NO time for there to be success because I was prepared. I’m sure God has prepared him in many ways too that I don’t exactly know of for sure right now, but I know that the fact that he and I are successful shows that God has been working on him too.

   

  Both of us had been wanting a serious relationship for a long time. That happens when you get serious about God and stop dating just for the sake of dating. You see your friends with their loves, and you want what they have. You say, “It’s not fair that all my friends who live any kind of way are happy in love, and yet I seek to please Him EVERY day and in EVERY way to no avail. I’ve been single for so long. When is God going to bless me with someone?”

   

  I learned that the best thing God could do for some of us IS keep us single until we work out some issues because those issues will have a detrimental effect on the relationship and the other person in it. It’s not fair to hurt people in relationships. You should stay single until you are ready because you screw up other people when you date unprepared! You break some poor man’s heart, and he goes and breaks two girls hearts, and then she goes and breaks three men’s hearts. If you had let God fix YOUR broken heart before you start dating seriously, then it would have prevented more broken hearts. I know waiting is hard. Who likes to wait? But waiting is a very beautiful thing. Waiting is perhaps one of the best things that could happen for your relationship. You’ll be glad you waited.

   

  Over half of marriages in America end in divorce because people were not PREPARED. Funny how arranged marriages are more successful than the marriages that many Americans have. It’s because those girls are kept from emotional baggage because they don’t date a bunch of men and get their heart crushed. They are raised to be good wives and mothers. They are taught to be pure. They are taught to submit and commit and respect and be faithful to their husbands. The man who is interested in them has to meet the girl’s parents and get their approval first. And of course, the mother and father won’t just let any manner of man into their family and into their daughter’s lives. And the men are taught to protect and provide for their wives. They are taught to work hard and respect their elders. They are taught to have class and self-respect. They have values. Another reason they don’t have all this emotional baggage that screws up their lives is because their parents commit to each other and the children long-term. The mothers are focused on the well-being of the children so the children don’t have all those issues kids get in America when their parents divorce, abuse them, neglect them, do drugs, party all night, bring ten different men in the house, etc. I’m not saying that foreign countries don’t have their family issues. I know they do! I’m not saying every arranged marriage is a very happy one either. But I am saying that the marriages are more successful than in America.

   

  So in closing, you will never have a successful marriage unless you let God prepare you by taking out the bad stuff in you and putting in the good. And when He sees fit to schedule a rendezvous or “chance” encounter, you will jump on this opportunity and have success!

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