I’ve been in a few relationships, where we had to reach the point where we couldn’t go on the same path anymore. She had to go her way and I had to go my way. Of course that dreaded word “goodbye “ was always uttered every time and usually it was as cold as ice. What happened? What went wrong? Each relationship had its own unique and different reasons for the breakup but it always had one common denominator and that was me. Sometimes we don’t want to admit it, but we play a role too in the demise of our broken relationships. I’ve been to divorce groups and I’ve talked to many going through a divorce and it’s always about their spouse. Their spouse did that and their spouse did this but very rarely did I ever hear what their faults were. I know it’s hard to admit or sometimes share because who wants to tell someone that their marriage ended because they were at fault. I know there are cases where the other spouse is more to blame but it still takes two to tango. If you are one who is going through the aftermath of a divorce, or a breakup in a dating relationship, my encouragement to you is to stop finding faults in your ex partner and begin to seek inwardly and take a serious look at what role you may have played in the breakup. Ask God to show you and confess it and then give to Him. The anger, the bitterness will eventually fade and that’s when the real healing takes place. It could be an addiction to alcohol, pornography, sex, whatever the area of sin, we must learn to first come to terms with ourselves, humble ourselves before a holy God and confess our sin. We must give up holding on to thinking we got this, there’s no problem with me and humbly admit to ourselves that we don’t have it altogether. When we do this, that’s when we will start to see the healing that God wants to do in our hearts. If we do reconcile with our ex partner or begin again with another person, we will then not be bringing the same baggage we carried before into the next relationship. Remember, scripture says you can’t love your neighbor unless you love yourself. Now I know there are two different interpretations of this. There’s the one that says, love others like yourself because we are really good at doing that. We think of ourselves all the time and so it’s easy for us to love ourselves. So love others in the same way. But there’s another view. Sometimes we self sabotage ourselves and make decisions that hurt us. Too many of us hurt others simply because we are hurting. If we can learn what it is to help ourselves we can get to a better place of empowerment and this will in turn help us to love others. Both views are right and I believe that both are applicable here. I believe that the reason we find ourselves checked into heartbreak hotel is that we failed to follow this golden rule. May God show us the areas of our lives to give up to Him so He can heal our hearts and we can love others the way God intends us to. Remember if we have put our trust in Jesus, then we have the Spirit of Love who can help us to love like Christ. Just let the God of love have your heart, stop holding onto the past hurts, give Him your baggage, he’ll know what to do with it and when someone you love says goodbye, don’t cry. Learn to let go or you’ll miss out on your next hello.

Mark 12:30-31 New International Version (NIV)
31 ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Galatians 5:22 New International Version (NIV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love