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How do you tell if it's a toxic love relationship
you are involved in? If it makes you sick - emotionally, mentally, and then
physically, you are involved in toxic love with a person whom you are allowing
to harm you.
The love of God sustains, supports, gives, puts
the other person first, puts the other person's interests above its own and is
offered and given out of fullness, out of that life of God on the inside.
Toxic love says, "Please, please love me.
Please be to me what I need. Please fill this empty place in me." And
that can never happen because nothing can ever fill that empty place except
the love of God. No human being has what it takes to satisfy your hunger for
love. God created that hunger for Himself.
God's love says, "I have so much, I am so
full I want to share it with you. God is moving me to pour out some of His
fullness out of myself into you."
One of the easiest ways in which people become
involved in a toxic love relationship is with an addict or an alcoholic or
with someone else who cannot have a healthy relationship because they are
consumed by a need for what they are addicted to. To these people, while they
can be deceitfully charming, other human beings are of little worth. They are
to be used and when they lose their usefulness, they are expendable.
If you get into a relationship with one of
these people, you are setting yourself up for heartache and hurt because they
are totally consumed with themselves and what they want and need. And they
will draw you into their illness through toxic love.
In contrast, the love of God says to these
people, " I will pray for you and I will give you the same choice God
gives you - to make your own decisions and your own choices about your life
and to suffer the consequences. But I will not sacrifice to you my life, my
mind, my emotions, or my body. These belong to God. I will use them as He
tells me to. I will fulfill His plan in my life and I will keep my mind and my
emotions clear and calm so that I can hear Him when he speaks to me.
"God has something for me to do. I have
decided I will follow Him. I will not be torn apart by my emotions. I will
have His peace and His joy. And if I don't have His peace and His joy, but
turmoil and tumult on the inside, then I know I have missed it. I know I have
fallen into idolatry, a sin that seeks fulfillment in another person rather
than in God."
Pray for people, correct people if you can,
steer them in the right path, sow the seed of God's Word, and let them make
their own decisions. Don't tie yourself up emotionally to people who will only
destroy you. If they will not do right, let them go. Allow them to make their
own choices about how they will live their lives.
A healthy love relationship will always affirm
you and build you up. It will move you in a positive direction toward God's
plan and purpose for your life. You'll be blessed because of this
relationship, not cursed. You'll be warm and safe, not fearful and constantly
on an emotional roller coaster.
If you have a problem with an addicted person,
go to an Al-Anon meeting or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in your area.
These groups teach you how to let go of the problem person in your life and
get your own life straightened out.
c 1997 Sandra S. Turner
Reprinted from Singles
Scene/Spirit & Life, a nationwide meeting place for Christian Singles
since 1981.
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