Category Archives: Dating

Revolutionize Your Dating Life With This One Word!

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Everyone wants to put their best foot forward when it comes to first dates and new relationships. Most people anticipate their first date by shopping for a new outfit, trying out a new cologne, and getting the car washed. Some call and ask for advice from friends on how to approach the date, or where to take their date for the evening. Some even picture all the romantic moments to come and hope that they will soon feel the first stirrings of love.

But as we enter the dating scene, we encounter a world of challenges and we’re stretched beyond our early thoughts of how we thought it would be.  And while these preparations are helpful, there’s one word that can ultimately revolutionize your dating life: humility.

On The Way To Love

It takes genuine humility to participate in the process of meeting, connecting and falling in love because it takes an admission of our hopes and of who we are at the very core. Humility is not a word normally equated with having a healthy social life, mainly because it is often improperly defined and misapplied to our lives.

Humility isn’t about being down on yourself. It’s really about freedom – freedom from pride and conceit, freedom from performance anxiety, and freedom from the fear of being known. It’s about being realistic and appropriately vulnerable in our social connections. Christ is our role model when it comes to seeing how humility is fleshed out. Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart…” (Matthew 11:29)

This freedom from arrogance can beautify your budding relationships. Dating with a humble attitude can actually revolutionize your dating life and bring you closer to the kind of healthy relationship that God can bless.

Here’s how:

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(Read the rest of my article at Believe –

“Dating. Marriage. Relationships the Christian Way.”

Recovering From Rejection After A Big Breakup

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Rejection is one of the hardest things to handle and the most insidious in the way it does damage to our self esteem. Things can appear to be going so well in a budding relationship, when all of a sudden you get a text or a phone call saying, “We need to talk.” When the phone call ends and so does the relationship, we can be left broken hearted and questioning our self worth. But it’s really not the Rejection itself that does the damage– it’s often what we believe about ourselves when we’ve been rejected.

Lost And Found

After a painful experience of rejection, we need a time of recuperation. Recuperation isn’t just about recovering from something; it’s also about regaining something. Often when we’ve been rejected, we lose our confidence, and our self esteem plummets.

In order to recuperate when you’ve been rejected, you’ve got to re-interpret that message of rejection and replace it with one that more accurately reflects the work of your ongoing personal growth and your hope of a lasting future relationship.

Here are 4 ways to replace the message of Rejection with the appropriate message of Hope:

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(Read the rest of my Article at BELIEVE– “Dating. Marriage. Relationships the Christian Way.”)

What Do You Have To Give Up For Love??

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Before I met my husband, I had an active dating life. Going out on dates was exciting and fun … until it wasn’t anymore! I found out there was an aspect of my personality that my dates couldn’t seem to deal with. Inevitably, as the guy would be driving me home at the end of the first or second date, he would turn to me and say, “You know, you think too much!”

When that would happen, I knew the relationship was over before it had begun. How my mind worked, my creative, overly analytical self, wasn’t something I could change. But I often wondered if I should in order to make that relationship work.

We all know we have to make compromises in a healthy relationship. There’s no such thing as instant and complete compatibility. But there’s a difference between healthy compromises that are necessary, and having to change fundamental aspects of your personality just to make a relationship work! So, what exactly do you have to give up for love??

Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Compromise is about reaching an agreement by each person making a type of concession or adjustment. In other words, we don’t get to have our own way all the time – and that’s actually good for us and for our growth as Christians. Ephesians 4:2 reminds us: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” That’s good relationship advice.

The areas where we generally should compromise on are usually in the area of our need for always being in control or always being right. In learning to compromise in our dating relationships, we learn how to get out of our comfort zone and grow up. As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”

When It Doesn’t Work

But sometimes, compromise is not the right approach to take. There may come a point in your relationship where you both hit a wall of differences too great to overcome. Beyond differences even, it may have to do with who you are, at your very core.

Here are some important areas you should not compromise on:…

(…Read the rest of my article at Believe !!)

Falling Like Rain: BREAK UPS

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I love old maxims and proverbs, things like “Into every life a little rain must fall.” But I have a new saying of my own for all my single, dating friends out there, experiencing hope and heart ache–

Into every life, a little Relationship must fall.

Little Relationships are Relationships that are puny in perspective,  and powerless to go the distance. They’re short-legged because they run out of steam from rushing ahead with emotion only to find there’s no substance after just one week of dating or after just one major disagreement. The first major fight you have, he’s all shaken up. She thinks the sky is falling.

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How to Know You’ve Found The One- Part 2

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HOW WILL I KNOW?

The night that I sat on my bed journaling, I got this rushing sense of ‘knowing.” It was like Truth had been direct deposited into me; a sudden download of perspective on the matter of my life and how it would intertwine with someone else’s and make sense. I felt quite calm sitting there, my journal sprawled open on the bed and the pen in my hand. I remember suddenly smiling in amazement.

I went back to my college at the end of Christmas break and broke up with my boyfriend Rob.

Then, just 3 weeks later, Bill asked me to marry him.

When it comes to knowing if you’ve found The One, most people think you should first answer the question, “But do I love him? Or Do I love her enough to marry her?”

We think Love will lead the way to us knowing whether we should spend the rest of our life with someone. And obviously we want Love to be the primary motivator of our lasting relationship.

But there’s something just as important as Love, when it comes to KNOWING if you have the right person.

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How to Know You’ve Found “The One”-Part 1

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 One of the most pressing questions you’ll ever have to answer is the question “How will I know if this person is the One for me?”

For a few of us married folk, (mainly the men from what I hear) this question was answered easily and quickly. Others of us wrestled the deep question to the ground and grappled with it for weeks or months of soul searching. It’s too big of a question to just tap on the shoulder of Decision-making and get a direct answer within seconds. You’re talking about marrying someone here. You’re talking about the rest of your life!

For some of you, it has yet to be answered because you’re still single. Whether you’re dating someone right now or not dating at all, you’ve probably thought of this question in the back of your mind. Maybe you’ve had a friend come to you for advice because she is getting serious with someone but not sure she should be. Or maybe you’ve already had a broken engagement and you don’t want to go through that again. But you still have no idea of how you’ll know when you’ve met the Right One.

We don’t usually wind up having to answer the question of “Is this the One?” until we are in a relationship that is getting serious. It might need to be answered within a couple weeks, if the relationship is fast and furious, while other relationships take a couple years before the two people are discussing the possibility of marriage.

But you can get a head start on answering this question of whether you’ve found “the One” way before you even get into a relationship.

How is that possible, you ask? Step into my story to see what I mean.

TWO MEN AND A PACKAGE DELIVERY

My husband, Bill, and I grew up in the same town, went to the same high school, but had only had a handful of conversations before he came out to go to seminary which was located just down the street from my college….

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