Why "Relationship" is such a complicated thing?

Excerpt from Happy Birthday to Me
My husband and I were born on the same day. I pampered him. Why didn't he do the same? By Joyce K. Ellis

Accepting each other "as is"
First, I realized I had to accept Steve—his thoughts, feelings, and failures. He may not measure up to "ideal spouse" criteria (and neither would I, I know!), but God gave us to each other "as is." Extending grace in our areas of imperfection develops character and Christlikeness in both of us.....
....I often wonder how many other irritations in our marriage have been gifts in disguise. What other joys am I missing? That's when I pray God will help me be the best birthday present my husband could have ever received


My Thoughts:

Many would agree that often time, even when they thought they have found the 'best partner' and even marry him/her, they would begin to discover imperfections in the other person that would disappoint them. Sometimes it might not be that he/she is 'imperfect', but rather themselves feeling 'unworthy' or 'inferior' to him/her... that's equally bad!

Have you ever wondered why "Relationship" is such a complicated thing?

I have been pondering about this question lately. Then when I was doing my morning devotion, it dawned upon me that it was never God's intention for relationship to be so complicated when He first created Adam and Eve. God's original plan was to have a close relationship with humans first, then in returns all humans to have close relationship with each other. That's why only after God had made humans in His creation that He declared, "it was very good" (Genesis 1:3).

Sadly, sin not only caused Adam and Eve to have a broken relationship with God, but also a broken love relationship with each other. They started to shift blame for the sins they had committed.

God is the Author of the love relationship. Therefore, before we can have good love relationship with another person, we need to have a good love relationship with the Author first. However, it's a sad fact that we often ignore God while we try to pursue a love relationship with someone. At the end of the day, we became more selfish, more dissatisfied with the other person; which might end up in a broken relationship instead.

An imperfect human trying to love another imperfect human would definitely result in lots of frictions. It's so easy to love someone who is 'perfect' isn't it? But in God's perfect plan, not only He allows two persons to 'fall in love' first, but He also wants them to 'grow in love' through learning to accept one another "as is"... just like God loved us while we were still sinners, not when we are good. But to do this, we need to have a good relationship with God first.

The easiest way for most people after having repeated broken relationship is to 'run' away from future relationship. However, the above article reminds us that running away from relationship is as good as running away from the 'polishing' work that God wants to do in us to make us beautiful.

Yes, I also want to "pray God will help me be the best birthday present my 'bf/husband' could have ever received".