Stop Kissing Toads

3/13/2011

Stop Kissing Toads

I once heard that romantic comedies and soap operas are like emotional porn setting up unrealistic expectations of the ‘perfect’ relationship.

I could not agree more.

Everybody is perfect, says the perfect thing at the perfect time, in the perfect setting, with the perfect backdrop, wearing the perfect clothes, giving the perfect gift, with the perfect audience cheering on the perfect loving couple. When or if, on the rare occasion a mistake is made and the perfect thing is not said or done, a team of writers direct the most spectacular romantic apology and public affirmation of love. Fireworks light up the sky and perfect little red hearts encircle their heads and replace their pupils.

Nobody has to work at anything. Everybody is beautiful and the stars just align and bring the magical love cascading onto the screen and blanketing the characters into a trance of happily ever after.

BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

I believe this kind of brainwashing is partially to blame for the high number of divorces.

In reality nobody is perfect. And nobody has a team of writers puppeteering our messes into kisses.

At the first sign of distress in a marriage we are on the watch for the witty comeback, the perfect apology, the bells and whistles, the fairy tale happily ever after with our fireworks. A sincere plain apology just will not do.

When we do not get these things, we run to the courthouse for a divorce convinced that we can do better. Holding onto the hope that our prince from the screens is out there, somewhere, searching for us to whisk us away into the sunset on a white horse.

We set our expectations to an unrealistic level based upon a fairy tale and then we bail at the first sign of distress. We are unwilling to put forth any effort, any of the work necessary to build and maintain a strong, healthy relationship and marriage.

Sadly, we condition our daughters for this garbage at a very young age, too. We are setting them up for a lifetime of failed relationships and feelings of unworthiness.

We need to be stop filling their impressionable heads with this junk. We need to be honest.

Truth is nobody is going to hurl their motorcycle in front of our cab during rush hour traffic on a bridge, carrying our love fern, to profess their undying love for us just moments before we arrive at the airport where we are running away from our heartache.

We need to stop setting ourselves up for that failure and misery and stop setting our future mate up for it, too. We may just find ourselves on a plane we never intended on boarding bogged down with feelings of inadequacy and disappointment thinking we just weren’t worthy enough.

Truth is relationships take work and LOTS OF IT.

One of the worst quotes I have ever heard is, “You have to kiss a lot of toads before you find your handsome prince”.

No we don’t!

The ONLY thing we are going to get from kissing a bunch of toads is a mouth full of warts. Or perhaps worse. Some of those ‘warts’ are incurable.

Besides, a true prince does not want to marry a girl who has been running around kissing a bunch of toads.

So STOP KISSING TOADS!

“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.” -Erich Segal

“Love means never having to say you're sorry.” –Erich Segal

"Dance with God, He'll let the perfect man cut in." –Unknown

"A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her." -Max Lucado (and vice versa)

A true relationship HAS to have God at the head of it.

We need to stop aspiring for the romantic comedy, the soap opera, the fairy tale. True love takes a long time to bloom.

Instead of running around kissing toads, our goal should be developing ourselves into the spouse our Father has called us to be.

{A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones. Proverbs 12:4

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:21-33

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Colossians 3:18-19

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. Titus 2:1-8

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing 1 Peter 3:1-9}

1 Corinthians 10:31 (KJV) …whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God!

Be blessed and know that Jesus ADORES you! And so do I!