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HEALING BEFORE DATING

Before you enter a relationship, you must be honest about the condition of your heart. Many singles desire love while carrying wounds they have never confronted. Childhood rejection, abandonment, betrayal, harsh words, broken family experiences, unhealthy relationships and repeated disappointments can shape the way you see yourself and interpret the actions of others. Sometimes what you call love is actually a desire to escape loneliness, insecurity or emotional pain. Yet Scripture reminds you that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). Healing must become part of your preparation for healthy love.

Unresolved wounds can affect how you communicate, trust, receive affection and respond to conflict. You may become overly suspicious because someone betrayed you before, excessively controlling because you fear abandonment, emotionally distant because vulnerability once hurt you, or desperate for constant reassurance because rejection damaged your confidence. This is why entering a relationship does not automatically heal you. A relationship can expose wounds, but only Christ can transform the heart. You must learn to guard your heart without building walls around it, because Proverbs 4:23 teaches you to keep your heart with diligence, for the issues of life flow from it.

Healing begins when you allow God to confront what you have been avoiding. You may need to forgive people who hurt you, acknowledge patterns you developed for survival, repent where your own choices have contributed to brokenness, seek wise counsel and learn healthier ways of communicating and relating. This does not mean that you must become completely perfect before dating. It means you should be willing to take responsibility for your healing rather than making another person responsible for repairing your emotional life. Psalm 147:3 declares that God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Your future relationship should not become a hospital where another wounded person is expected to become your physician.

If you are already dating, do not be ashamed to pause and examine what your relationship is revealing about you. Pay attention when old fears repeatedly control your reactions, when previous relationships become the standard by which you judge your present partner, or when you expect your boyfriend or girlfriend to constantly prove that you are worthy of love. If you are single, use this season to allow the Holy Spirit to restore your identity before you give your heart to someone else. In Christ, you are not permanently defined by what happened to you. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), and your relationship with Jesus must remain deeper than your desire for romantic companionship.

The goal is not simply to find someone who loves you, but to become someone who can receive, give and steward love in a healthy and Christ centered way. Let Jesus heal what rejection damaged, restore what betrayal fractured and establish your identity where past experiences tried to define you. You should never demand from another person what only Christ can provide. Before you ask someone to hold your heart, allow the Holy Spirit to teach you how to surrender it to God. Are you truly ready to love, or are you searching for someone to rescue you from pain? Are you choosing a partner from wholeness, or from fear of being alone? Is your heart being led by Christ, or is your wounded past choosing for you?

Hope Expression Values You 
Apostle Prince Victor Matthew 

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