Sharing from BGR Talk by Lionel

Becoming the Hero, waiting for the Princess (Part 1)

Being in an all boys school since primary school, the only girls I knew then other than my cousins were 2 of my father’s friend’s daughters who are both much older than me. And strangely I have never been interested in girls even in secondary school. I remember that in the gang of 8 of us that hang out often my other friends would be talking about girls all the time, tea parties, who is chio and always seems to be changing girlfriends like changing clothes.

It was always this cycle: a new girl is introduced to the group, we go out a few times and then it would be drinking session to nurse a broken heart. A funny thing was that a friend of mine had girlfriends named April, May and June one after the other! Haha! We always made fun of him that if a girl could be named July then it would be his girlfriend!

It was then that I decided that I only want to have one girlfriend that would become my wife and I was determined that for that to happen, I must get ready to be in a relationship …. Get ready for what? I was also discovering that as I went along.

I had my first girlfriend when I was in Uni year 2. I thought I would be ready then. She was from the same cell and I guess the love blossomed when we would plan for worship together; she led worship while I played the guitar. Then I would walk her back from Hall 6 my room to Hall 7 where she stayed. Mind you thou it seems that it’s just the next block, Hall 7 is on the other side of campus. Then it was thru other opportunities of dinner and studying together for the exams that I plucked up enough courage to tell her that I like her and asked her to be my girlfriend. Even thou she wasn’t everything that I wanted in a girlfriend I thought that maybe she will change or I will grow to accept that part of her because I loved her. And that’s how my first relationship started.

We lasted for 2 and half years. A year into her working life we realized that what she wanted in a relationship had changed and I realized that I wasn’t as ready to be in a relationship as I thought I would be. It wasn’t a very clean break and things were pretty chaotic for 8 months before it was truly through, and then began the 3 years of picking up the pieces.

Some of the lesson I learnt from that relationship was:
1. Don’t change who you are to fit into the relationship. It will not last and you will feel stifled and even lose yourself. You start to do things that you know you have to do but grudgingly and that will poison the relationship. Find someone that you can be yourself with, good or bad. That would help you two love each other more.

2. Open communication helps to eliminate any misunderstandings that would cause bitterness with each other. Sometimes we think that maybe it would be better that the other party not know about certain things. But having to keep a secret just makes you appear shifty and breeds distrust. Even if being truthful will result in arguments, working thru it will help to grow the relationship deeper. Honesty is the best policy in a relationship.

3. I was not as ready as I thought. I was not sure about what kind of a man I needed to be so that I can be depended upon as a husband. Though I started on the right foot, of wanting just one girlfriend, I still made a mess of things coz I did not learn how to include someone else into my life. I remember very clearly what my supervisor then said: It takes one complete person and one complete person to make a complete relationship. It requires you to be first secure of your position in Christ, healed of past hurts and aware of your own weaknesses and strength, and ready to put someone else’s needs as more important than yourself, then you are QUITE ready to start. Why only quite? Coz if you go ahead without the blessing of God, no matter how humanly ready you are, things will still fail. 100% man, 100% God.

I spent almost a year sorting out my emotions and trying to set my heart right so as not to carry any baggage into my next relationship, which would doom it right away, before I started to socialize again.

Stay tuned for Part 2..........


Lionel