There are so many things that God has taught me and is continuing
to teach me through our relationship. As I look back I see so many things that
I failed at, so many things I wish I would have done better. But I am so
thankful for the grace that God showed me and the grace Maddie showed me and
the grace they both continue to show me.
While its hard to boil it down to just a couple of things, I’ve
chosen a couple of things that God really taught me through the ups and our
downs of my relationship with Maddie. He taught me how to love and he taught me
how to forgive. Simple things I know, but I’m a simple guy.
The first thing that God really started to teach me was how to
love the way that he defines love. God wants us to understand that love is
based on a choice and an undying commitment regardless of surrounding
circumstances. Now this is not easy to do. We all have times where we screw
this up, I know I did many times. But what is so cool about God’s love is that
it is perfect, he never stops loving no matter what. This was something God
started to teach me through our ups and downs, but especially in the downs.
There were many very difficult situations in my relationship with Maddie over
the years. If you remember from her posts she talked about her past and what
went into her decision to break up with me a few times. The difficult thing for
me was I didn’t know all those things. From my perspective I saw a beautiful
girl who I loved hanging out with. One who I could talk to for hours and it
felt like minutes. I saw a girl which an incredible love in her heart for other
people, the kind of girl I could see myself marrying. This is what I saw when
we dated, and she told me how much she liked me too. But being broken up with
is difficult, even heartbreaking (for both people), and being broken up with
multiple times by the same person was even harder. It was very difficult for me
to understand how one day Maddie would love hanging out with me, and the next
day she didn’t want to be around me.
This is where God really started to teach me how to love. I had
to learn how to love her when we weren’t together. I had to make a decision to
stay committed to Maddie even when she did not want to commit to me. Was it
easy in those times to want to love her when she was with other guys and there
was no love coming back? No. Was I perfect at loving her in those times?
Absolutely not. But God taught me so much about learning to love her when
everyone told me I shouldn’t. He gave me a glimpse of the love it takes for him
to love us when we say how much we love him, and then contradict that with our
actions.
Going hand in hand with learning how to love was learning how to
forgive. We went through some pretty hurtful situations over the years and said
some pretty hurtful things to each other. It was very hard for me to watch her
date different guys in between me. It wasn’t easy for me as Maddie slowly
opened up to hear about some of the things she had been through. I’ll be
honest, writing this blog brings up a lot of painful memories for both us.
Learning forgiveness is something God definitely needed to teach both of us.
For me the thing that God continued to tell me over and over
again as we went through difficult situations was to keep things in
perspective. He constantly reminded me that he died for me so that I could have
a relationship with him. When I remembered that, and knowing I didn’t deserve
that kind of love and that kind of forgiveness, no matter how bad my heart was
breaking, it was impossible not to forgive her because I knew the forgiveness
shown to me by God was SO much greater.
But in spite of all of the pain and all the heartbreak in our
past I wouldn’t change it if I had a second chance. Yes of course I would
change the things that I did to hurt Maddie, but in terms of the things we went
through I wouldn’t ask God for anything different. Through those difficult
years I learned so much about God’s love and God’s forgiveness, and getting
just the tiniest glimpse of the depth of the love it takes for him to love me,
in all my failure and imperfection was incredible. It brought me so close to
God and gave me a whole new level of love for God and for what he has done for
me.
I also wouldn’t change things, because through all of the ups and
downs, I got want I wanted...I am getting married to the only girl that I’ve
ever been able to see myself marrying and for that I thank God every day.
I also want to thank each of you so much for following us on this
journey through our blog. We hope that through our story you were encouraged
and or challenged and hopefully saw that God was in the centre of all of this.
He is reason we live and as much as we love each other, we love him more! And
if you haven’t already, we hope that you would accept his love, he wants to
love you so badly, but you have to let him.
Mark
Your ability to forgive is amazing Mark, the world would be a better place with more men like you.
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