Don’t grab what God hasnt granted. Our biggest messes occur when we help God bring about some thing that we want, especially in the area of relationships. I have done it so many times where I had an interest in somebody and cultivated expectation in my mind of his ability to be for me what I want him to be. I have also had the experience of working with many single women whose pursuit of a partner becomes idolatry because they’re perfecting, persuading & even arguing with him to obtain characteristics that they believe are godly or worthy of walking down the aisle. I’ve mentioned many times that the Judas’ in my life, the two most influential people who betrayed me, my parents, I held much bitterness toward. And if you go through life looking for surrogate parents in your romantic relationships subconsciously, you will quickly find, as I have, that nobody can ever replace that original void. Bitterroot judgments evolved in my childhood because my parents could not attach to me, love me, or offer me safety and security in the ways that I needed most. So the bitterness of never having that grew as I got older and created an expectancy for any man that I date to give me what I lacked when I was a child. This is a common theme where many like myself have been disappointed in relationships that are conditional, because earning love really started foundationally in our homes.

As I was journaling some of my thoughts and frustrations about men in general and the fear that I have cultivated in my thoughts and mind, I discovered that I had some ungodly beliefs directed toward them as a whole. I had to surrender my beliefs about men because it was making me bitter, resistant, judgemental and perpetuated an expectancy of being let down by them. To begin my healing process I utilized a two step approach to forgiving the people group that I believed hurt me. On one hand I had to forgive all men because I lumped them together and could no longer see distinguishable differences because I was expecting them all to be the same. So I had to forgive those that responded similarly to men I previously disliked. On the other hand, I had to forgive myself for judging and hating them. It began with stating, I renounce the ungodly belief and bitterroot judgments that all men are sexual deviants. I forgive myself for judging them as a weak species because they always think with their dumbsticks. I forgive those whom I have been with who have lusted after me for sex without seeking anything more. I forgive myself for being so easily misled. I forgive them for being selfish and predatory and expending my energy to satisfy their desires. I forgive myself for expecting them to always be selfish and predatory. I forgive them for their emotional ineptness and whittling down relationships to usury and getting their needs met. I forgive me for dismissing males as all being the same and expecting them to fail me, society, and family because they lack integrity and leadership. I forgive them for having one word answers and withholding expression in comparison to my thousands if inflections. I forgive me for seeing them as kids who need to be mothered and therefore exhaust me because I have to explain things for the both of us. Because I am also tired from having to parent my parents and siblings, I codependently lost my voice because their demands were louder. Losing my innocence and childhood to make sure my parent’s were calm so that I did not suffer, I have to forgive myself for abandoning me just as they did. I forgive them for teaching a man should “take care of me” because they resented that responsibility. I forgive me for becoming disappointed when those men I met, lacked the gumption to do so.

I forgive the men who are in denial over their own childhood pain and claim that it’s made them the adults that they are today. I forgive me for my harsh attack against their inability to go deep and embrace inner healing. I forgive those men who I have been with who had secret lifestyles and shame which provoked hatred and disrespect towards women. I forgive myself for codependently trying to pull out of them the truth because I was afraid of their lumping me in a pile of other said women. In all of this I recognize that I was grabbing onto men that God had not granted to me for a relationship. In my desperation and immaturity, I trusted in someone’s word over trusting the check in my spirit when a man did not feel equally yoked. I bitterly worked and strived to bring out his best features and help him become the man of God he claimed to be. Instead of trusting the still small voice inside of me I stopped listening and deferred guidance to the man that stood before me. I can see now that I lost my way every time I thought I could adapt, morph, or accept a man’s beliefs for the sake of my getting what I wanted.

In reality, I walked into relationships that could not sustain godly attributes that my soul longed for, because my belief was, all men lived deviantly behind closed doors, so I would be let down eventually and prove myself right. I had never taken the time to listen to what a man says when he does speak because my mind was already made up to find flaws that needed to be fixed in him. The worst was the unspoken truth, the patterns of behavior that contradicted what he wanted me to believe that had me question myself, just like I had to do with my parents. So much about the destructive unions I had allowed romantically, was intertwined with redeeming my childhood. I was raised earning the right to express myself or state my needs, and then being dismissed for doing so. Fear of punishment often had me comply with others needs at the risk of my own. This cultivated that needy part within my soul that could never be satisfied with intimacy because I hadn’t filled it for myself. It was easier to get love from another until it wasn’t anymore, and then I had no reserves from me or for me. And so, the quest for knowing who I am began and led me into a search for significance. When The Lord gently led me to women who could be trusted, they mothered me to unveil my protective parts who sabotaged connection to men who walked by faith. I still find harsh beliefs inside of me, sometimes even when I’m driving down the road. When I hear my thoughts harp on men I realize I have a bitter root that not only hurts me but also them. This judgment and expectancy loop is harsh on the inside and it does the opposite of what I want on the outside: bringing around the men whom I can’t trust and have to work hard at connecting with. As my adult relationship with my father has been redeemed through reconciliation, my old ungodly beliefs have become hard to maintain. The Lord has had to awaken my spirit to His idea of love through the forgiveness I found for myself and my parents. I still have a long way to go but I have already seen the difference in my perception toward men because I stopped using judgment for protection. God has defined “equally yoked” as a gift that became apparent once I got sick of grabbing onto men who were playing a faith game. Instead of hating them for being dishonest, untrustworthy or charismatic, I could see the issue was mine because I denied their true colors. Maybe that is the bottom line, I put my faith in man instead of God and every time I was let down. Now, all these broken relationships later, I understand that mending them starts with acknowledging I was looking to the wrong people all along. It isn’t who on this earth will fulfill me, but He who fills me with His love to forgive those I wrongfully grabbed onto for it.