A Soulful Relationship

by Rev. Ronald McFadden

If you're not married yet, share this with a friend. If you are married, share it with your spouse or other married couples and reflect on it.

An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye."

Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don't let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem, make you blind to warning signs.

Keep your eyes open, and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults aren't really important.

Once you decide to commit to someone, over time his or her flaws, vulnerabilities, pet peeves, and differences will become more obvious. If you love your mate and want the relationship togrow and evolve, you've got to learn to close one eye and not let every little thing bother you.

You and your mate have many different expectations, emotional needs, values,dreams, weaknesses, and strengths. You are two unique individual children of God who have decided to share a life together.

Neither of you are perfect, but are you perfect for each other? Do you bring out the best in each other?

Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare, and control? What do you bring to the relationship? Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain? You can't take someone to the altar to alter him or her. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay.

If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life", you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain.

Manipulation, control, jealousy, neediness, and selfishness are not the ingredients of a thriving, healthy, loving and lasting relationship! Seeking status, sex, wealth, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship. What keeps a relationship strong?

Communication, intimacy, trust, a sense of humor, sharing household tasks,some getaway time without business or children and daily exchanges (a meal,shared activity, a hug, a call, a touch, a note).

Leave a nice message on the voicemail or send a nice email.

Sharing common goals and interests. Growth is important. Grow together, not away from each other, giving each other space to grow without feeling insecure. Allow your mate to have outside interest. You can't always be together.

Give each other a sense of belonging and assurances of commitment. Don't try to control one another. Learn each other's family situation. Respect his or her parents regardless. Don't put pressure on each other for material goods. Remember for richer or for poorer. If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment,withdrawal, abuse, neglect,dishonesty, and pain replace the passion. The difference between 'United' and 'Untied' is where you put the i.

Is It Right To Judge?

A friend once quoted, "You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye." At first, I thought it was just out of fury that my friend had said it. But thinking about it now, my friend had spoken of the truth.

I used to think that we have no right to judge anyone. Taking the statement as it is makes is utterly incorrect. I realized that my idea of judgement is that of our feelings, our traditions, or our opinions. I wish to express my idea on this in my own words, but this link has given me more wisdom and clarity that I dare not give it another version. The lines the struck me the most were "(God) allows judging after you have first judged YOURSELF" and "don't judge when God's word is silent".

Basically, we ought to follow seven rules in judging others: (1) Judge Scripturally; (2) Don't Judge When God's Word Is Silent; (3) Pray for Good Judgement Ability; (4) Don't Respect Persons; (5) Judge in Truth; (6) Judge Mercifully; and (7) Don't Forget to Judge Yourself.

Being human alone makes me weak inside when it comes to giving judgement, or taking it in constructively. But I do believe that with faith and practice, our judgement ability would be strengthened eventually. May we learn to do it righteously, as God expects us to judge.

The Interview With God

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/ - This presentation has touched millions of hearts around the world. Most of you might have seen this already, but this is definitely worth the revisit. No matter how many times I've seen this, the simple yet powerful message never fails to move me every time. I wish to share the experience with you. May it touch your heart as it has touched mine. God bless you.

The Interview With God

I dreamed I had an interview with God.

“So you would like to interview me?” God asked.

“If you have the time” I said.

God smiled. “My time is eternity.”
“What questions do you have in mind for me?”

“What surprises you most about humankind?”

God answered...
“That they get bored with childhood,
they rush to grow up, and then
long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money...
and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future,
they forget the present,
such that they live in neither
the present nor the future.”

"That they live as if they will never die,
and die as though they had never lived.”

God’s hand took mine
and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked...
“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons
you want your children to learn?”

“To learn they cannot make anyone
love them. All they can do
is let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that it is not good
to compare themselves to others.”

“To learn to forgive
by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds
to open profound wounds in those they love,
and it can take many years to heal them.”

“To learn that a rich person
is not one who has the most,
but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that there are people
who love them dearly,
but simply have not yet learned
how to express or show their feelings.”

“To learn that two people can
look at the same thing
and see it differently.”

“To learn that it is not enough that they
forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.”

"Thank you for your time," I said humbly.

"Is there anything else
you would like your children to know?"

God smiled and said,
“Just know that I am here... always.”

-author unknown

Laughing Baby

This video made me roll with laughter. Hahah! Enjoy :D

Delayed Reaction

I'm not sure why this post never got published, but this was written several months back....

I have been dying to try to face one of my worst fears -- rejection. I always thought I could never bear the humiliation of being rejected by someone you bravely asked out. Because putting yourself up there, not knowing what would be the response, could be so mind-boggling that you lean more into the "no"-reply and start wishing you never existed. I thought only guys had this paranoia. Now I know this sort of thing also happens to women.

For years, I have struggled to show my flirty side, which I recently found out I have none. My closest friends, especially the men, commented after a series of potential-mate incidents, that my idea of flirting is not even close to the actual thing. Which means, all the men I thought I've shown interest in probably assumed I was just being friendly, or worse, they were just not interested.

Then it finally happened. A guy who I believe to have shown interest many months back reappeared. He was sending all these mixed signals, and I know I really wasn't (due to the lack of flirting ability) so I'm not sure if I gave him the wrong impression. But this time, I saw no trace of vagueness or weird humor, which used to confuse me, in a nice way. We got into talking again, and I was more eager this time. After a few minutes of sushi talk, I popped the question, "You wanna have Jap food some time?" Blood rushed to my face the moment I realized what I've just said. The old panic-sticken paranoia. But to hell with it, I thought, it's already out there. I finally calmed myself. Then he said it.... No.

Hmm... ok, back to present time. I have yet again allowed myself to be in another roller coaster situation. For the first time, I have dared myself to actually go a little bit beyond the borders of friendship, which eventually turned sour. After weeks of confusion, frustration and denial, I have fallen into my own trap. Lost and scorned, I still wondered why I just couldn't let go. Then, crazy as it is, I realized how much I liked the person, despite of all the hurtful things that could've been left unsaid. Sometimes we just need to admit it to ourselves first before we could actually get over it.

Ok, before the curses and screams, it made me realize another important thing. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I used to imagine myself running to the hills and hiding for a very long time. But nothing was lost. The world didn't stop turning. I'm still here, waiting, with unfailing hope, that someday my time would come. Sometimes I forget that He always tries to test our patience. Like wise men always say, "Trust in God and you will never go wrong". For now, I'm absolutely sure that He has made me capable of swallowing my pride.

Hungry

Sometimes, we feel as if we are deprived of the love we're trying to find in another person. We forget that even people, like other worldly things, are only temporary. Indeed, it is a great blessing if we ever find our own mates. But most of the time, we do not see that all the love we need is right here, waiting. We just have to look at it in a different angle. And with hope and faith, we might just get more than what we actually asked for.