Let's face it, we are only human. When it comes to matters of the romantic heart, that old cliche comes into play, "The heart wants, what the heart wants." Unfortunately, if what the heart wants is not what God wants for us, then things will go badly.
Most of the time this happens for two reasons:
- We are unequally yoked.
- The person was only meant to stay with us for a short season.
Don't be fooled unequally yoked is deeper than a believer being with someone who does not believe in God. It can also occur when a believer is yoked to another believer who is backsliding or a lukewarm believer. When two people are not of the same ideology or faith, conflict always arises. Often times it leads to abusive behavior that can be emotional, mental, verbal, physical or all four combined. These are signs that this union is not meant to happen, and these signs show themselves long before vows are exchanged. When we are "in love" we ignore the signs and when things get progressively worse we pray things will change or think we can change the person. We may think our love is enough to make it happen. Sadly, as many have learned, this does not happen.
The second scenario occurs when we develop love or become infatuated with someone who only meant to help us get through or get to. When a person sticks by us when we are going through tough times we may develop love for them. This love mixed with gratitude can cause us to hold onto them resulting in them staying in our lives longer than God had planned. While this person stay is still within season, things feel great and run smoothly. Once the season is over, things begin to crumble. Secrets, new people, changes in attitude can take place. Feelings get hurt as insecurities, that were not there before, surface. The relationship becomes wrought with tension and people get hurt.
In either scenario, when the relationship end, we are left brokenhearted and often confused. While the heart may be hurting, there is no need to be confused. The relationship was never meant to happen. Had it lead to marriage, you would have vowed yourself to someone for life. Now in this day and age those vows don't mean much in society, but to God a vow is sacred and can be broken with very few or no exceptions. For marriage only one exception is given, adultery. Imagine being in a hurtful, painful marriage where the love eventually will die. Deep down we do not want a marriage like that and God does not want that for us. So when a relationship ends before it leads to the altar, cry through the pain, but also count your blessings that were spared future pain and heartache.
Loss is an inevitability of life. Mainly because as sure as we take our first breath there is guaranteed to be a last one. When we love others whether blood family, friends or spouses we are going to go through the pain of loss if we live long enough. It doesn't seem fair especially when we lose someone we love tragically or if they had to suffer a long battle with an illness that took them away from us. The thing that can make loss worse for some of us is trying to deal with it in a way that will make other people happy instead of going through the emotional process until we get to a place of healing for ourselves.