Pea,

Hi, thanks for the good work on this site. I’m 26, just recently out of a relationship, we broke up about a month ago. I am born again but basically convinced I’m incapable of loving. This was my first relationship, it lasted five years, and my boyfriend was a wonderful man. The problem was that I never did feel all those things girls talk about – butterflies and all. I just cared about him a great deal but there was never any excitement on getting to see him, he was just like a good friend. Eventually last month he asked me if I loved him, he said he felt like I was just going through the motions and doing things for the sake of it and I told him he was right, I didn’t think I was in love with him but he had done nothing to warrant me breaking up with him. He said we had to end the relationship and I was fine until about a week later when the guilt came in. I feel very bad because this is a man of God, he is a Christian and has had very many women around him who would have loved to be his wife. He never did anything wrong to me but here I was, wasting five years of his life instead of letting him move on with his life knowing we were not going anywhere. I feel so terrible, he did nothing to deserve this. I always find myself repenting over and over again. How can I overcome this? Is it possible for me to move on or is it possible that I am not able to love anyone in “that” kind of way? I’d be interested in hearing your take since you offer a godly perspective.

Thanks,

Nekesa

Hi Nekesa.

Thank you for writing. Reading through your email, I kept going, “Praise God,” firstly because He laid a verse in my heart for almost every statement you made, and secondly because I know exactly what you are talking about, having struggled with condemnation for a very long time. Yes, Nekesa – what you are dealing with right now is condemnation, which basically means declaring someone to be guilty and deserving of punishment because of their own sin (Matthew 12:37) and Adamic sin with which he or she was born (Romans 5). The Bible tells us, however, that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1). But I am getting ahead of myself here.

If you are born again, then it is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you, so the life that you live right now is lived by the faith of the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you (Galatians 2:20). I do not know what the Greek version of the Scripture says, but I am blessed by the fact that the KJV translates it as “the faith of the Son of God,” because sometimes our own faith is not enough to carry us through some situations. Where your faith failed, His kicked in and carries you through because He loves you.

Butterflies and all that are wonderful, but at the end of the day, they are not or should not be the basis for some decisions. From your name I can tell you are from a culture where in past centuries, marriages were arranged. If you were born at that time, you would have had no say in the choice of your husband. I am sure some people felt butterflies even during these days, but because I am a woman, I can speculate that many women probably could not stand the men they were paired up with. However, divorce was rare and even abominable in those days, and marriages were hardly miserable.

What better person to be married to than a good friend?

I think you might have played into the lies of Hollywood and Telenovellas, but I will not downplay the fact that very many women find it impossible to envision marriage with a person they are not attracted to. I will not judge you on that.

Nekesa, what is done is done. Think about it: how will things change if you worry about what happened? You have been beating yourself up for a month – has that changed anything or brought your boyfriend back? When you repented, if you did it genuinely, then God forgave you – the very first time! God is not like men – He forgets our transgressions. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus – nobody (not even you) can hold you guilty when God has declared you guiltless. Yes, you hung on to a relationship and delayed a break up possibly out of guilt and sympathy towards this man, but again, what is done has been done. You cannot go back five years ago and begin again because that time is not coming back. However, God is a restorer and just like He promised to restore to the Israelites the years that the locust and the cankerworm had eaten (Joel 2:25), He can restore all those years to you and to this man. Or do you think you care more about him than God does? The funny thing about your email is that I see a lot of love between the lines. I am convinced that you are capable of love.

Because you are a child of God, nothing, absolutely no single experience in your life is a waste. God does not waste experiences or people. Take some time to heal, and when you do, you will look back and see that the relationship was beneficial to you both, and that you have learnt crucial lessons that will probably go with you for years to come.

You can only overcome this with God’s help. He is willing to get you out of this situation and will walk you through it day by day. Try to live in the present. Try not to spend time overthinking a yesterday that is not coming back. Try not to spend time focusing too much on a tomorrow that is not here yet. One step at a time, one day at a time – your best is all God expects of you. Usually, the longer it takes to build something, the longer it takes to bring it down but allow yourself to grieve and allow God’s healing power to course through your entire system – your heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. Romans 8 and Psalm 32 encourage me when I am going through difficult times. God will comfort you and keep you. Look to Him in this difficult time. It is well with you.

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