Hurt-Proof Your Heart
August 2012
I recently saw a tweet from a teenager saying that “feelings make relationships complicated”. I totally agree with this. If only we won’t get hurt in relationships, then everything will be fine. Sad to say, hurts will always be a part of any relationship, more so a guy-girl relationship. These hurts can either make or break you. These hurts can either teach you to learn to love or lead you to hate. These hurts will affect your future relationships.
Since hurts are inevitable in a relationship, how do you manage it? Is there a way to hurt-proof your heart or at least make the hurt more bearable?
The first thing I want you to understand is that the heart has its stages of growth too. The less mature and prepared it is to handle the challenges of a relationship, the more prone it is to getting severely hurt. The second thing I want you to bear in mind is that the closer you get to a person, the more hurt you will get.
Let’s focus on the first thing for now. Though some girls mature faster than the others, the stages of growth of their hearts generally fall in the same category or phase during the teenage years. A 14 year old girl getting into a serious relationship with a guy is surely setting herself up for trouble. It doesn’t matter whether she is more mature than her other 14 year old friends. Her heart is still too young to be seriously involved with anyone. I should know. I’ve been there.
I was 14 when I had a serious relationship with a guy four years older than me. I was always thinking about him even when I was at school. He became a distraction for me. I missed some of my classes just for him and let go of a lot of opportunities in school that would have made me a better student. Things got worse when I discovered that he was cheating on me. I got so hurt yet I was already so involved with him. My friends could not even relate to what I was going through. I felt alone. Of course! What did I expect? I was too young to be facing all those things. I should have been enjoying my friends and getting to know other guys better. But nope! I got trapped in a relationship that surely hurt me more than it made me happy.
So you may ask: What if it’s not a serious relationship? My answer is: Any relationship where you commit to be somebody else’s can lead to a serious relationship.
Another question you may ask is: What is the right age to be in a serious relationship? My answer is: When you’re ready to get married.
Now don’t get shocked. I will explain to you why. And this is not just my own conclusion but what God Himself says. But before I proceed, let me go back to the second thing I said earlier that I want you to bear in mind: the closer you get to a person, the more hurt you will get.
When you are in a serious relationship, regardless of what age you are in, you will be so carried away by your feelings. There is no way you can stop yourself from kissing, fondling, making out, and eventually having sex. One thing will surely lead to another. Even if you have the strongest self-control, your boyfriend is just a man who can easily be aroused. And because of your love for him, it is so easy to be carried away with him. If the two of you commit to each other that you won’t have sex, how long will you be able to sustain that?
Every girl and woman who has been physically intimate with a man has been attached to him. Everything changes when you have sex with your boyfriend, more so if he is the first one. You will feel so attached to him that you can’t even think of being separated from him. You know why? ... because God designed sex for the husband and wife in marriage, as a way of making them “one”. Sex was designed for that sole purpose. Anything outside of the way it was designed will never work.
This is the reason why a girl gets so attached to a guy who she has sex with. She establishes some soul-ties with him. He becomes a part of her. Imagine if she has sex with several other guys. All of them will become a part of her, which she will be carrying into her other relationships and eventually to her marriage.
Since sex was designed by God only for marriage, and since it is not easy resisting sex when you are seriously involved with someone, doesn’t it make sense to just wait to have a relationship when you are already considering marriage?
God Himself said in Song of Solomon 8:4: “Do not awaken love until it pleases“. He surely knows us more than we even know ourselves. He knows that once that love is awakened before its time, it can lead to the distortion of His design of sex, which can badly hurt us.
Had I not given in to sex at a very young age, and prior to marriage, I wouldn’t have gotten as hurt as I was. I would have easily left my then boyfriend who cheated on me since there would not have been any soul ties. Better yet, had I not given in to having a boyfriend at that time, I would have been spared of all those lies and betrayals.
Sex is God’s gift for the married couple … for them to enjoy together. A woman’s virginity is her gift to her husband, and vice-versa. This is why God warns against fornication or sex before marriage. He wants us to guard this gift so we can enjoy it to the fullest.
So again you may ask: You mean I have to wait till I’m ready to get married before I can even have a boyfriend? My answer is: If you can keep yourself pure and not engage in any sexual act prior to your marriage, then you can give it a try. However, it is still better that you wait for the right time, to help you avoid problems that will just be hindrances and distractions to the fulfillment of your God-given purpose.
And if you are not a virgin anymore, it is never too late to repent before God and this time around, guard your purity and preserve it for your future husband. It worked for me. It will surely work for you too.
Now going back to my first question and the very essence of this article … How do you hurt-proof your heart? My ultimate answer is: By following my advice, obeying the Word of God, and keeping your focus on Him.
If you have more concerns other than the ones I’ve mentioned here, or if you need further explanation, feel free to email me at godzgurlz@live.com.
~Lisa Maki~
Since hurts are inevitable in a relationship, how do you manage it? Is there a way to hurt-proof your heart or at least make the hurt more bearable?
The first thing I want you to understand is that the heart has its stages of growth too. The less mature and prepared it is to handle the challenges of a relationship, the more prone it is to getting severely hurt. The second thing I want you to bear in mind is that the closer you get to a person, the more hurt you will get.
Let’s focus on the first thing for now. Though some girls mature faster than the others, the stages of growth of their hearts generally fall in the same category or phase during the teenage years. A 14 year old girl getting into a serious relationship with a guy is surely setting herself up for trouble. It doesn’t matter whether she is more mature than her other 14 year old friends. Her heart is still too young to be seriously involved with anyone. I should know. I’ve been there.
I was 14 when I had a serious relationship with a guy four years older than me. I was always thinking about him even when I was at school. He became a distraction for me. I missed some of my classes just for him and let go of a lot of opportunities in school that would have made me a better student. Things got worse when I discovered that he was cheating on me. I got so hurt yet I was already so involved with him. My friends could not even relate to what I was going through. I felt alone. Of course! What did I expect? I was too young to be facing all those things. I should have been enjoying my friends and getting to know other guys better. But nope! I got trapped in a relationship that surely hurt me more than it made me happy.
So you may ask: What if it’s not a serious relationship? My answer is: Any relationship where you commit to be somebody else’s can lead to a serious relationship.
Another question you may ask is: What is the right age to be in a serious relationship? My answer is: When you’re ready to get married.
Now don’t get shocked. I will explain to you why. And this is not just my own conclusion but what God Himself says. But before I proceed, let me go back to the second thing I said earlier that I want you to bear in mind: the closer you get to a person, the more hurt you will get.
When you are in a serious relationship, regardless of what age you are in, you will be so carried away by your feelings. There is no way you can stop yourself from kissing, fondling, making out, and eventually having sex. One thing will surely lead to another. Even if you have the strongest self-control, your boyfriend is just a man who can easily be aroused. And because of your love for him, it is so easy to be carried away with him. If the two of you commit to each other that you won’t have sex, how long will you be able to sustain that?
Every girl and woman who has been physically intimate with a man has been attached to him. Everything changes when you have sex with your boyfriend, more so if he is the first one. You will feel so attached to him that you can’t even think of being separated from him. You know why? ... because God designed sex for the husband and wife in marriage, as a way of making them “one”. Sex was designed for that sole purpose. Anything outside of the way it was designed will never work.
This is the reason why a girl gets so attached to a guy who she has sex with. She establishes some soul-ties with him. He becomes a part of her. Imagine if she has sex with several other guys. All of them will become a part of her, which she will be carrying into her other relationships and eventually to her marriage.
Since sex was designed by God only for marriage, and since it is not easy resisting sex when you are seriously involved with someone, doesn’t it make sense to just wait to have a relationship when you are already considering marriage?
God Himself said in Song of Solomon 8:4: “Do not awaken love until it pleases“. He surely knows us more than we even know ourselves. He knows that once that love is awakened before its time, it can lead to the distortion of His design of sex, which can badly hurt us.
Had I not given in to sex at a very young age, and prior to marriage, I wouldn’t have gotten as hurt as I was. I would have easily left my then boyfriend who cheated on me since there would not have been any soul ties. Better yet, had I not given in to having a boyfriend at that time, I would have been spared of all those lies and betrayals.
Sex is God’s gift for the married couple … for them to enjoy together. A woman’s virginity is her gift to her husband, and vice-versa. This is why God warns against fornication or sex before marriage. He wants us to guard this gift so we can enjoy it to the fullest.
So again you may ask: You mean I have to wait till I’m ready to get married before I can even have a boyfriend? My answer is: If you can keep yourself pure and not engage in any sexual act prior to your marriage, then you can give it a try. However, it is still better that you wait for the right time, to help you avoid problems that will just be hindrances and distractions to the fulfillment of your God-given purpose.
And if you are not a virgin anymore, it is never too late to repent before God and this time around, guard your purity and preserve it for your future husband. It worked for me. It will surely work for you too.
Now going back to my first question and the very essence of this article … How do you hurt-proof your heart? My ultimate answer is: By following my advice, obeying the Word of God, and keeping your focus on Him.
If you have more concerns other than the ones I’ve mentioned here, or if you need further explanation, feel free to email me at godzgurlz@live.com.
~Lisa Maki~
