I have realized something real recently. I have been writing all these letters and I still feel like I am missing something. I still feel like there is something I am failing to mention. I would Love to say I have the answer, or that I have figured out the cure-all, but that would be stealing it from Jesus. I have begun to realize how relationships can grow to the strongest potential. I feel as if I have just been coasting, and trying to believe what I am saying! I have been missing it.
When we care for someone, it must be sacrificial. If we say Love never fails, do we actually believe it? If we say together forever, do we really mean it? If we say that it is about Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love, do we truthfully follow it? Are you pickin up what I’m throwin down?
I wrote my last post about how God has this reckless Love for us, but it is really hard to understand because of our twisted view of Love. I meant that. I know God has this impossible to understand Love for me. God also wants us to have that same Love for each other.
Now I am going to ask you to be honest with yourself, look deep inside and see what is holding you back. What is it that makes you wait to fully and unconditionally Love someone?...
With Love,
Casey S. Hayden
OOOO Wait, let me explain!
Woman- I want to talk straight to you. Partially because you understand one aspect of this much better than most men ever could. You know how to recklessly feel love. You get that. However, sometimes you forget that Love is what binds everything together.
12Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col 3:12-14)
Trust me, you get that Love is powerful! Which is amazing, that is just wonderful! However, there are a few things I would like to just note-
1) Is the person you are with right now compassionate? Humble? Kind? Gentle? Patient? Does he forgive? I mean seriously, look into this. Right now, you may be smitten over the perfect man! He treats you very well, and cares so deeply about you. I get that. But how is he every day? Every moment? Does he bind everything with a Love that seeks unity? Heck, this seems weak doesn’t? I mean even writing it I almost feel as if this is for a sissy. But I am realizing something. Christ embodied all of these. Christ had this compassion that every sick, poor, crippled, diseased, whore, fatherless, broken and desolate person sought and received! Christ was humble and kind and patient and gentle. Christ also recklessly Loves everyone! Now, I am going to ask again, is the man you are after ANY of these things? I would ask you why you are with them, but to be honest, I could probably guess your answer- You Love him! In fact, I get that so much that I almost applaud you. Because I do believe you Love the person you are with, even if they treat you like garbage! Why would you not love them! They give you value enough to hurt you. So then you end up finding purpose in trying to make it work! I swear, nearly all woman who are in a relationship, that they are committed to, want to make it work! WHY WOULD THEY NOT!! I am not trying to sound sarcastic, because I do firmly believe you Love them, even if they treat you amazingly well or like complete garbage! That feeling of purpose is irrefutable!! SO this is what I want to talk to you about today, get out. You are SO deserving of someone who is striving to be Christ-like! But, I get it. I understand why you stay in that relationship. I mean after all we are a Christian culture that firmly believes in hope. We place our faith in it! We have taught you to keep up the hope. To keep up the hope that they will change! I get it! Why not stay in the relationship for so long if you are being taught HOPE! I get it.You will end up in more pain trying to make your relationship work by yourself. But look into finding a Christ-like man (Not a Christiany man, not a catholic or evangelical or Baptist).This is not simple, but just get out into this world and find the people who are desiring to be needed and give freely to them. Serve Christ in a new way everyday until you come across a guy who smiles at you because he knows you are worth smiling about. If you are tired of waiting for the “perfect one”, and are afraid to be alone, I say face the fear of being alone, instead of trading it in for a person you settled for, who gives you purpose by making himself the center. You are worth it, and deserve it. I beg you to wait through it all! But also start giving back to the community and to people around you. Follow God into the homes of the broken with a genuine heart!
2) The phrase- It will all be ok in the end, and if it’s not ok, then it’s not the end… Is true in nearly ALL situations, except relationships. You want to know why most women carry resentment or pain or shame and guilt… Because something ended, but never had any reconciliation. I know of women who have slept around, no longer talk to those guys who they swore they loved, but could never fully let them go. It was the end of their relationships with those men, but yet they were not ok. They used this phrase to try to get through. They just could not get it. They were not ok. They spent all their time trying to be ok, they never got a chance to deal with the fact that it was the end, but they were still in a deep amount of pain. Relationships have a way of working out like that, even if no intimacy was shared. Don’t let your past or current relationships depict your future. You want to know why it is impossible to fully let go of a relationship if you are intimate with your partner… Because you leave a part of you with them every time. You were not created to just have a piece of you given to every man you are intimate with. However, Christ died so we could all be whole again, so that we no longer have to feel the incompleteness of giving away a piece of us to people we never desired to. God did not create us for guilt through incompleteness, but freedom through His redeeming Love that makes us whole. What will be important is if a relationship ends, and there will be pain, your best bet is to not convince yourself through it, but to work through it. Otherwise if you plan to date again, you will have a large amount of baggage with you, weighing you down. I have seen a large amount of strong women leave the church because they let the baggage of their past build up to a point where it consumed them. My prayer is that you unpack your baggage! AND Not alone!
Men- This is simple. I will always be saying this. Your job now, and this is something I am working through, to begin to understand how to meet physical and spiritual needs! If you look at that verse in Colossians that I placed up yonder, you will see some of the most important virtues to ever have.
If you want a relationship, begin to obtain those virtues. Otherwise, you will fail.
Here are some challenges-
1) Be compassionate. I BEG YOU. If you are not compassionate, your relationship will fail. Begin to see her needs. Both physical and spiritual. If you can learn how to meet them, then you will grow together successfully. This is not easy. This requires hours of listening, and hours of deep empathy that you may not seem to have. This will also require sacrifice… I know. Rough. But when you are compassionate you can grow to be humble. When you are humble, you empower the person you are pursuing, every day! When you are humble, you learn to be kind to her, and understanding. When you are understanding, you learn to be gentle because they are digging through so much. Women have this ability to obtain baggage FAST, the last thing you need to do is to pile more baggage on. Be gentle with her. Be patient with her, her friends, her family and so on.. I have told you many times to forgive freely. If you don’t forgive freely, then you will be trapped by it. Forgiveness is a release from the pain and hurt. One of the best qualities you have control over more than most is forgiveness. When you forgive, it is a choice to choose Christ and Love over hurt and grudges. In all this you will find a deep Love that will bind everything together to create unity! That is how God moves, when you begin to become more like Him, you give God permission to teach you and lead you.
1.5) Also, side point- breaking up because you are not sure where the relationship is going and using God as a scapegoat is weak and shallow. If you are following God, you will give her a more truthful reason. If you are not in the relationship anymore, then just be done, don’t lead her on, because she believe that someday you two will get back together once you “grow closer to God.” In my personal opinion, taking a break is pointless. Never leave room for confusion. Also, to be honest, the best thing you could do if you still have any feelings for her is to stay in it and find new ways to stay committed, to stay true. Grow deeper, because if you dated her to just date her, your relationship will be odd. But if you dated her to grow together knowing she may be the potential person, then keep on treckin! You will always have your guys friends and God with you through it all. So don’t just end it UNLESS you are sure it is over. Grow together, and be honest through it all! That is my biggest challenge!! Just be honest, if you are not sure how you feel at the moment just work through it with her! If you are certain she is the one, then make sure you treat her that way! God has a crazy way of leading us to a point of peace… He never meant for us to be alone though. If you want freedom, freely give.
2) Physical and Spiritual- Helping someone is not giving them something you think they need, it is giving them the thing they need. Both Spiritual (Christ working through you and your actions towards them) and Physical (actual actions, serving them, giving them money… etc). The best way you can learn to be sacrificial in this, and start loving people the best is to start doing this with everyone around you. When you begin opening your eyes like this, you will start to be like this with the person you will fall in Love with! When you can do that with people you are not intimate with, it will become easier to meet the needs of someone you return home to if you are married. This is how Christ works in us! Start doing this! Start living this way! It opens your eyes!
3) I give girls a hard time a lot for dating jerks, and I give guys a hard time because we need to step up. However, this time, I want to talk to you. I am beginning VERY VERY slowly to see what it is like to see Christ-like. So I wanted to say one last thing in defense to men. If you are with a girl that treats you like crap, that could care less about what you are going through, who talks poorly and tries to embarrass you publicly and behind your back, is trying to get you to sleep with her, is trying to make you look like that bad guy, GET OUT. Guys, not even the manliest of men can survive that. Guys, I have told girls for SO LONG they deserve a good man… I mean that to be you. I mean to encourage you to realize that you can be that right man! I don’t think God has this perfect woman out there waiting, but I know God has a personality and spirituality that mesh with yours! I know you deserve to have a spouse who Loves you dearly, and cares about you! You deserve to have a wife who complements you, as you complement them! I know it is easy for me to rip on the guys, but listen, I know there are good men out there, not just a few, but many! I pray that you step forward because in a dying and evil world, we are in dire need of you!
Both- I have been waiting the longest to write this! I have SO MUCH I want to say, ESP to expand from what I started with! Do we believe Love never fails? And if so, why are we allowing it to? You see, I do believe Love NEVER fails. Our problem is that we can only see in a context of a self-serving love that never fails. I mean think about it. We can love ourselves because for most of us, we can’t abandon us. Even if we have the largest amount of guilt built up in us, we still have this ability to serve ourselves… trust me when I say this, it is SO important we love ourselves! SOO important, however, we are not called to love others the way we love ourselves. Infact, we are called to be sacrificial with our Love! Think about it. There is no greater love than to what… Lay your life down for your friend… Are we doing that? Are we loving people sacrificially? I am not talking just spouse, but I am also saying, siblings, parents, kids, your own kids… Are we laying down our life? If not, why not? Why can’t we… Is it because we are fearful of what will happen? Is it because we have to save some for us? Have we learned nothing from a world that saves for itself… We have a poverty rate on the rise, infant mortality is off the charts, clean water is hard to come by, homes are foreclosed and families can’t afford surgery… I could go on. We are not sacrificial, that is exactly why the Rich Young Ruler is inside ALL of us. Can we give up everything? Love fails because we save it for ourselves. If you want a relationship to work, you need to start sacrificing. Start giving up yourself. We experience the truth of the Cross of Christ when we give our two copper coins. Then and only then can we find Christ. We want a marriage to work, we must learn to be sacrificial. You need to give up everything to follow God, and learn to Love your girl/boyfriend, husband or wife the way they need to be loved, because if you don’t… your relationship will fail. Both of you need to start serving each other. You need to start sacrificing for each other. So I beg you to serve each other, when you change your ways from self-serving Love to sacrificial Love, you will begin to see a God who is RECKLESSLY in Love with you, and the person you are learning to Love! (TRUST THIS IS NOT EASY, I am learning with you on this, but we MUST move towards it)
NOW, This part may cause a ruckus, but I have been honest a lot recently, and I figured, I better continue. I do not like the phrase everything happens for a reason. I don’t. In fact I have a hard time saying it. Because, to be honest, I do not think it is true. In the least bit. I firmly believe that there is evil in this world. This evil desires to destroy anything it comes across. I firmly believe that a child dying from cancer is not the will of God. I firmly believe that if you are dating a girl that makes you feel guilty is not God’s will. I believe that a person dying from drug overdose is not the will of God. I just don’t see it. ESPECIALLY with non-believers. I do believe God has the potential to discipline His believers, we see that in scripture (Hebrews, Acts). But to automatically assume that this is from God, is not wholesome or truthful. Even what happened to Job was not from God, but from the king of Evil! I am saying this because recently a lot of things have happened around me that I KNOW can’t be the will of God. It is all the consequence of sin. It is that our world is mastered by the will of evil that we buy into. Suicide, not the will of God. Teen Drug addiction, not the will of God. Teen pregnancy, not the will of God. I promise you, not everything happens for a reason. There are things that happen for a reason, Christ is divine and spiritual in that way, because Christ moves with purpose. But to say everything happens for a reason, is just downright wrong. God is more loving than to force teenagers into a drug addiction. God is way more loving than to force someone to commit suicide. BUT I will say this, behind EVERYTHING there can come good. Behind everything that happens, we can learn and grow together. None of the things that cause us pain [suicide, gossip, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, abortion, cancer…etc] can ever destroy us. Love is more powerful than that. Think about it. God is greater than that! I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, but I do believe we can Love God and all of creation because of everything that does happen. Don’t explain that a child died from an abusive situation and that it happened for a reason, but Love every single person that enters our life, because we have no clue the baggage they carry.
God has a reckless Love for you! I pray you know that! I can write all of these letters, and I pray you take something away from my journey to life, my walk to God. However, know I write this because I KNOW God has a RECKLESS UNSEPAREABLE LOVE for you. God has no plan to hurt you or destroy you. God is all about LOVE!
Please feel free to write to me, or message me or call me or whatever! I would love to talk more about anything!
Much Love,
Casey
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