a little [Mo] tea, part 1

Hey Family! I’m starting this series in an attempt to be more transparent and more vulnerable. I’ll try to be a little more honest, a little more open and a little more vulnerable with each part of this series. So, feel free to comment and ask further questions via this post, or any of our social media platforms. NOW, buckle your seat belt and get ready for “a little tea” about Mo !

So, my last relationship was a HOT MESS. It started off a mess and it ended a mess. Don’t get me wrong, I love him and I will always have love for him…..but I knew better than to ask God to bless a relationship that started without him. I KNEW BETTER, but I still prayed for God to bless it. So, I hung in there for a while, hoping we would get our act together. We didn’t. So God used him to show me how TRIFLING* I WAS.

*Trifling (adj.): someone who is one or all of the following : dishonest, shady, secretive, a player, ‘all talk’ without following thru, not worthy of trust….in general, a lack of ethics or general morale  ie: worthless  | “shes trifling, she says one thing-does another” –via urban dictionary 

Now, I can’t speak for him, but I know that I allowed myself to step into a relationship before I was spiritually ready. See, I had some REAL temptations and sins that I was struggling with. I SHOULD have allowed God to deliver me before I placed that responsibility on the relationship. Instead, I made it “our problem”; holding on to him and the illusion of a Christ-led relationship. We pretended that the foundation of our relationship was “friendship” and “God”. Nah, we were lying to ourselves. I pretended that it would change, but I know that GOD DOES NOT BLESS MESS. I knew it needed to end the moment that it started; but I didn’t obey that nudge from GOD, and I paid for it with my pain. I paid for it with a broken heart.

Honestly, the real pain wasn’t when we broke up. After we broke up, we transitioned back into “friendship” (as foggy as those boundaries were), and when that failed, my heart broke. See, I got really tired of begging for the attention of someone who claimed that they valued me but stopped showing me that. I got tired of hearing i’m sorry without seeing any real changes. I got tired of getting my hopes up that something would be different, only to end up have the same conversation 2 weeks later. I got tired of this endless cycle of behaving like we were still together, pretending that we were together, and the constant conversations of how we needed to stop pushing the boundaries…only to fail the next day. I was emotionally exhausted in this state of “friendship”.

With that state of mind, I CRIED out to God, telling him how tired I was, how hurt I was, how let down I was, how disappointed I was, how exhausted I was, and how broken I felt. God’s response to me was: “Monique, don’t you realize this is exactly how YOU treat me, how do you think I feel?” ……..YIKES! It was me; I was the one who was TRIFLING. How dare I treat God like that. How dare I make promises that I know I’m going to break. How dare I tell God (and others) that he is the head of my life when he’s not a true priority for me. How dare I only talk to him when something is wrong. How dare I habitually beg God for deliverance that I don’t actually want. Yeah, it was me. I was TRIFLING and I was STUBBORN. So, God decided to get my attention by allowing my heart to get broken, by giving me a taste of my own medicine.

The following is a few excerpts from my prayer journal around that time:

“Father, I thank you for blessing me with another day that I don’t deserve. I thank you for drawing my heart back to you…God, please forgive me for my disobedience and for my sin. Forgive me for prioritizing my wishes and desires over you. Tonight, I am running back to you, hungry for your word and thirsty for your presence.”

“God, today I want to thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving me enough to send your son to die on the cross for my sins. Thank you for loving me when I was lukewarm….You loved me even when I pretended to be without sin…I certainly do NOT deserve your love. But you love me anyway. You continue to lead me back to you, every time that I stray.”

“God, I LOVE YOU. It is evident to me that the intimate relationship that I hunger for begins in you. I will never be satisfied with a man until I am COMPLETELY satisfied in you. Thank you for increasing my hunger and thirst for your presence in my life. God I want you in my heart always. There is no one who knows me and loves me better than you do…Thank you for your unconditional love. Thank you for never leaving my side, even when I would have deserved it”

Now that you’ve made it to the end of this post …a nugget of wisdom: 

Today, I encourage you always listen to God. Even in the midst of temptation, struggles, trials; in the midst of your pettiness, your anger, your pain. Maybe, just maybe, God is trying to reveal something to you, about YOU. Maybe the REAL battle is between you and GOD, in which case, you will lose if you don’t surrender. We can save ourselves some headaches and heartbreaks and painful lessons, if we would just listen to God’s nudges.

Love, your sister in christ, Mo