Mon ami, will you listen?

I know you’ve been hurt.
You’ve been let down.
I know you see other people finding love- or even just things that look like a semblance of love- and you want that for yourself as well.
I get that. I understand. I spent years standing in that place.
But taking matters into your own hands time after time and getting into a relationship simply because you CAN has proven to do nothing for you.
Remember how you’ve been hurt? Remember how you’ve been let down? Remember how it never seems to work out quite how you’d hoped it would, and you end up either pretending it never mattered or angry that it did?
Don’t do that again.
Don’t keep doing that over and over again.

You won’t find any real joy in a relationship until you stop trying to force God’s hand by jumping into things and hoping He’ll work it out.
Yes, God can do incredible make-overs on a persons soul.
But wait until after He does to date them, please.

See, I say all of this because I love you so much that it hurts to watch you toss your heart around time after time. It hurts me to watch you get hurt, and it hurts me even more so because you are doing it to yourself.
You are allowing yourself to be disappointed.
And then you give yourself sometimes a few months, sometimes a year or more to heal. And then you do it again.
And I watch it again, reminding you again why this isn’t safe, why this only damages your heart.
But you don’t seem to listen. Or if you do, you don’t hear me.
And that hurts too, my friend.

I love you. Please don’t keep doing this.
Please stop this cycle of disappointment and hurt and let your heart really heal, mended ONLY by your Father’s love. Please deal with the real hurts and real longing for love and acceptance that are rooted much deeper than these shallow relationships.
Please take a long, hard look at what is truly important in a man and whether or not it will be worth it to never settle for less. I can promise you that it will hurt, and it will be hard, but that it is worth it- but you have to decide that for yourself.

I love you.
I want the best man in the world for you. I want a strong, healthy, God-honoring relationship for you.
And I want you to want all of that for yourself as well.