So here I was talking to one of my favorite friends about relationships and marriage.

It has become apparent to me recently that I have not ever had a good model for relationships simply because there havent been any successful relationships of people close to me in my life that I could reflect on. My parents are divorced and the same is true with most of my friends. And for the friends that have married parents still…. Well their parents are typically in a position where they dont love each other anymore or have some sort of serious marital problem that does not allow them anymore to be a functional team. 

So talking to my friend, who is one of the only people I know who has had a good set of parents to model after. I was talking to him about how he solves his relationship and soon to be marital problems. 

He said that talking about things and putting yourself in the other persons shoes works rather well.  Something more that caught my attention, I asked him how he felt about being married so early, hes not even twenty one years old yet.  He mentioned that with how long their relationship has been. There are many situations and times where the maturity of their relationship has outgrown the typical maturity of their age. Given that and their dedication to each other it has become harder for them to not be married because they have already committed so much of their lives together. Mentioning also that the way they have been able to grow as themselves as well as grow together in a relationship has made him understand that relationships are not about just finding a perfect person who matches you, but instead about finding someone you work well enough with to be able to take the time and decide that its worth it to grow together.

Through the conversation I ended up being incredibly impressed by the amount of maturity this twenty year old kid had been able to articulate. Honestly, I have hope for this relationship and I believe that they will truly be able to work.  Its reassuring, thought I might share that with you all.

Also, happy new year, lest make “the last year” count. haha

As you all can tell this blog has been guided in a direction regarding relationships. At some point in every relationship you need a process of healing. This post is directly related to forgiveness, as forgiveness is simply the first step in the process of healing. So what does it mean to actually heal in a relationship? We have all been physically harmed in our lives, we all have scars. What we know from a scar is often that even though something was an affliction at one time, it has healed and no longer a bother. However whenever you see these scars we are often reminded of what happened to cause them.

I feel that in our relationships we are often left with wounds that will leave scars on our hearts. This I believe to be a good thing. Hear me out, it sounds bad, but I do believe it to be good. Scars on our heats will often give us a reminding of that which once hurt us so deeply. However, after we have healed and no longer feel this pain. (yes I am aware that this is a process) We can carry with us the knowledge of our pain, while no longer being afflicted.

The process of healing is different for everyone, but again it comes with forgiveness and communication, even if that communication is an agreement to no longer communicate.
A rather short post here, comparatively, but I wanted to give an idea of scars on the heart and how they can help shape what we know and who we are, but we should not let scars of the heart make us scared.

We have all been in a position we either want to be forgiven or are wanted to forgive.

Forgiveness is something that I believe is very important in every ones life. For those who believe in the Christian God, forgiveness is the pinnacle of their belief system, such that their avoidance of eternal damnation is because of Gods forgiveness.

Being that we are all humans, (assumed that only humans are reading this) we all make mistakes. Being that we all make mistakes then at some point someone will make a decision that hurts you or you hurt them. However its what we decide to do with this and our lasting feelings that determine how we can move forward.

First, what is forgiveness? A web definition of Forgiveness;

1 To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon

2 To renounce anger or resentment against.

3 To absolve from payment. (regarding debts)

So now that we can properly define Forgive, how does it apply to our relationships?

As mentioned before we all either have done or have had something done to us that would require forgiveness from one party or another.

First lets talk about receiving forgiveness, you at some point must forgive yourself for your transgressions (forgiving yourself can often be a very hard thing to do.), and apologize for what you have done. After that, your in a good position to move forward in your life, relationship or other situation.

Offering forgiveness is something completely different. We as people are often deeply offended when someone does something to harm us. We often then present to ourselves feelings of anger, resentment or even vengeance towards the person who hurt us.

At this point its safe to say the best way to start with forgiveness (which can be a long road indeed) is again, communication, start by talking to the person. Try to understand why it is that they did what they did. Once an understanding has been established and you have decided whether or not they even intended harm to you or not, you can begin the process of healing and forgiveness.

Now forgiveness is a choice the same as trust, though forgiveness is also a mindset, you must be willing to condition your mind to no longer hold harsh feelings towards the other person.
this conditioning of your mind is hard if there are lots of questions left unanswered.  Thats why I truly believe that forgiveness comes first with communication.

You may also find that it is very comforting to know that you have been forgiven of what you had done to wrong someone. But for those on the other side, though often it can still feel in some ways uncertain depending on situations. It also can feel just as good to let go of the things that you bear against someone and to forgive what was done and move forward. Forgiveness giving or receiving can release a huge weight on the soul and allow you to be at peace with yourself.

Remember, without forgiveness we cannot redevelop kindness compassion or begin to lower the stress of the situation in our own lives.  So I encourage you, if you have a situation in your life where forgiveness could help, try to approach the situation and make amends and solve your differences.

“When all is said and done, you are part of me. That’s the way it was meant to be. People are brought together for a reason, everything happens for a reason. I believe the reason that you and me were brought together was because we complete one another. We fill in each other’s missing spots with love. And if someday God decides to tear us apart, I trust that there is a reason. Cause if there is a reason for love, there is a reason for life beyond it.”

Relationships, these are my passion.  I pride myself on building relationships, friendships and bonding with people. I spend as much of my time as I can connecting with my friends.

Therefore some of the things I will be discussing will be the major things that help build strong relationships. Such as trust, forgiveness, patience, honesty, faith, caring and maturity.

To start, each of the aforementioned subjects will have separate posts. some of them may even have multiple posts or polls and questions or revisions.There will be wordings in many of these posts that may be unclear, or not specific of what type of relationship they pertain to. If you have any questions or want me to articulate something more, just ask, I would be more than happy to explain. As for topics on relationships, assume they are not specific to the type of relationship, unless specified to something specific.

When it comes to relationships and building them I follow under the idea that we need to first determine why we act how we do, and what makes us able to separate ourselves from animals.

It is understood that animals are determined by their instincts, and that these drive them towards their interactions with other animals.

Humans have instincts also, and there are some typical things that we seem to attribute to what attracts the opposite sex. However we are not driven completely by our instincts anymore.

Some examples of things that people instinctively seek out. A sense of independence, wealth, security, intelligence, strength and beauty.

But as we know in today’s age and society (speaking specifically of first world countries and America, which is where I live and can comment on culture) we don’t all have all of these attributes and not to mention people are also in a social position to pick who they want to be with, who they want to be around, and what they find attractive about other people.

Thus the point being, we have evolved socially in a way that does not leave our animalistic instincts in charge of who we are with.

So then, the point is that we clearly do not need to act like animals, but the question is why?

In my opinion, the largest thing that separates us and the way we can interact with each other, is something we use every day and often take for granted. Language.

Language is a powerful thing, without it we would be in a world of shit.

Recall the tower of babel. As everyone was able to speak the same language and properly communicate with each other. Human kind was building a tower so grand that it would reach the heavens. This was apparently not acceptable and humans were cast back down and their language confounded. There is more to the story and I encourage you to look it up and read it. You will find it in the Bible, Genesis actually.

But after you have read that story you will know that God saw that people were able to accomplish impossible feats when united. Also according to this story we come to understand that man kind was united with a single universal language.

Hmmmm, Clearly then language is powerful, so powerful in fact that God would not allow us to keep a single language for the simple fact that humans could accomplish things that were to great for Him to allow.

So here is my question. and I encourage anyone who reads this to think about it and reply by dropping stuff into my ask or what not. I will be putting up another post that will be more specific on language and what it means to our relationships. but here is the question.

Can language be equally as powerful, good or bad, in our relationships?