For part three of our Identity Crisis series, we’re going to be talking about relationship status. This topic hits very close to home for me, and it’s also one of the most important things I could write about (in my opinion). Dating opens up a whole new world of temptations for teenagers. And since girls are typically more sensitive and expressive with their emotions than boys, it seems as if girls take relationship status more serious. For us, if someone breaks up with us, we feel like we did something wrong in the relationship or something is wrong with us as a person. We often find that we become extremely insecure because we put our identity in our relationship status. Therefore, when we go from taken to single, our identity crumbles because it was in the wrong thing.
I’ve seen this situation unfold firsthand. When I first got put into foster care almost two years ago, I went into a public high school for the first time. I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t super eager to make new friends. I should also note that I had never had a boyfriend before. So when I went to the Friday night high school football game and this guy from my BCA class asked if I wanted to come sit next to him and share his candy, of course I said yes. We didn’t even watch the game; we talked all night. The next Monday at school, he asked me to homecoming. I was ecstatic. On Wednesday, he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. Except, there was a huge problem. I didn’t know anything about him. I knew he liked to draw and I knew he was into MMA. That was really all I knew about him. I knew nothing about his religious beliefs or anything of importance. I found out soon enough. He was a satanist. He also didn’t respect my desire to stay pure until marriage. He tried to pressure me into doing things I didn’t want to do. At first, I was very open about my belief in Jesus. Then slowly, I began to talk about Him less and less. I began to think “Maybe it’s okay that he isn’t a Christian. He’s really nice. He buys me food and anything else I want when we go to the mall. He’s a gentleman to me, my brothers, and their foster parents.” By the time we were two months into our relationship, I had completely justified his satanic beliefs and decided that it wasn’t a valid reason to end the relationship. I can honestly say that that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I moved to a new foster home a few days after our one month anniversary. He became controlling and untrusting, even though I had never given him a reason not to trust me. It took eight months of his evil, manipulative, controlling behavior for me to realize that I needed to get out of this relationship, and quick. The lightbulb flicked on when I went to a Christian youth event at my high school, the Lord convicted me hard that night. I repented and texted my boyfriend right away. I told him that I was done compromising on my faith to make him happy and that I was going to start talking about God again whether he liked it or not. He exploded and told me to never say the name “Jesus” or “God” ever again. I ignored him for the next several days, until he saw my snapchat story where I posted about going to my boy best friend’s birthday party. My boyfriend told me that I was not allowed to go to the party since it was for a boy. So I did what any mature person would do. I took my happy self to that party, took a picture with my boy best friend, sent the picture to my boyfriend, then broke up with him. After we broke up, I wasn’t sad in the least. I wasn’t heartbroken. I was happy. The purpose of that whole long story is to prove this verse to be true: 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? If only I had listened to that verse, I wouldn’t have had to deal with eight months of compromising and emotional abuse. I had ignored so many of the warning signs and red flags because I was so desperate to be in a relationship. I shoved my beliefs and values to the back burner so that my relationship identity wouldn’t crumble. After that moment of revelation, I realized that while I wasn’t upset about the relationship being ended, I was a little crushed at the thought of being single again. I had begun to identify myself as being someone’s girlfriend. I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. Finally, I decided to stop. I prayed and asked God to help me. And you know what? He did. I finally felt free and secure because I realized that my identity had nothing to do with whether or not I was single. I apologize that this post was a lot more of my story and not much scripture, but I hope it helped you realize that you can find that freedom and security too; from one place only. Jesus. Place your identity in Him, and you won’t find yourself compromising so easily to stay in a relationship.
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MissionIn short, I started this blog because I want to give girls all over the world hope. All of the topics I write about on this blog are things that I have struggled with or am still struggling with. I want to help young women everywhere achieve freedom through Christ. Archives
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