Dear God,
Thank You for giving me a platform to express my thoughts, creativity, and beliefs all in a way that can be used to honor You! I love being able to be so honest, and it’s not something everyone has been given the opportunity to do. So even though I’m talking about a silly topic like American reality TV, I’m thankful. There are a lot of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who can’t openly point to Jesus in their daily lives, but I’m privileged with this opportunity. I hope that I can share serious and lighthearted ways that You move in my life all the time.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen
Love Is Blind…?
If you don’t have Netflix (which is getting very expensive), I would like to give you a brief overview of the show Love is Blind (LIB).
The Wikipedia article summary: “The series follows fifteen men and fifteen women, all from the same metropolitan area, hoping to find love. For 10 days, the men and women date each other in purpose-built "pods" where they can talk to each other through a speaker but not see each other. They are initially paired in a speed-dating format, but later can choose to have longer dates. The daters may extend a marriage proposal whenever they feel ready. A couple meets face to face only after a marriage proposal is accepted. The engaged couples then head to a couples' retreat at a resort. During this trip, they spend time getting to know their partners and have their first opportunity to be physically intimate. They also meet the other couples participating in the experiment.
Following the couples' retreat, the engaged couples move to the same apartment complex in the city where they live. While at the apartments, they meet their partners' friends and families and learn more about their partners' lives, exploring issues such as finances, recreation, personal habits, and their ultimate primary residence. They also plan weddings to be held at the end of four weeks. During this wedding planning period the group of women go wedding dress shopping and the men go suit shopping together, bringing a few friends and/or family members along. They also make choices such as the design and flavor of their wedding cake. At the altar, each participant decides whether or not to say "I do."
Tldr; A bunch of people date each other without getting to see each other face to face and have to make an emotional connection through conversation. They have to propose to each other/accept the proposal before getting to meet and finally see the person they’ve been talking to. Then they have to live with each other, meet each other’s family and friends, plan their wedding that happens in a month and decide on the altar to say yes or no!
OKAY, now that we got that exposition out of the way, there have been 2 American seasons, 1 Brazilian season, and 1 Japanese season (all on Netflix because it’s a Netflix original). I’m going to be talking about LIB Season 2: After the Altar (post-everyone’s I do’s or I don’t’s).
Love is Being Willing to Face Brokenness
Fact: any relationship that includes a person is broken.
When we see broken glass on the floor, we know we need to wear shoes and be careful because it’s easy to get hurt. When we see broken people, we can also get hurt by their rough edges and they can get hurt by ours.
We don’t just get a fresh restart on our entire beings because we met someone. The term “baggage” isn’t a cute kitschy phrase. We all bring our dysfunctional attachment styles, difficult family dynamics, poor communication skills, and critical mindsets into the dating field. We carry past relationships into new ones. We carry the unhealed wounds and unforgiveness in our hearts with us to the next person. It’s part of the very real human condition.
I think something very common throughout the show is this fear of hurting someone and ourselves. “I’m afraid to hurt you,” is almost weaponized to excuse passivity, lack of honesty in love, and fear.
I think something I realized through LIB (After the Altar) is that there is no escape from hurting someone else. It’s something we shouldn’t happily embrace, but it’s not something to fearfully avoid. “I know I’m going to hurt you, and it’s not going to be okay. I know you’ll need to show forgiveness towards me, and I’ll need to do the same for you.”
That’s reality. That’s love. Knowing that there’s broken glass.
It’s not because you want to hurt someone, but we know it’ll happen hard as we might try.
In fact, I feel like admitting that is more likely to prevent hurt than saying “I’m afraid to hurt you.”
I know I’ll get hurt if I love someone. Love makes us vulnerable to pain. It’s not something you can pick out of the dish. It’s knowing that it’ll happen, and if I want to make the relationship work I’ll have to forgive them. I’ll have to let things go. I’ll have to choose Jesus over victimhood.
The example of forgiveness is first given to us by Jesus. We are sinful people, we do the wrong things, we think the wrong ways, and we aren’t that sorry. Jesus absorbed all that when he died on the cross. When someone forgives, that person dies. That person doesn’t just smile and say “It’s okay!” but they show that there was a painful consequence for the other person’s actions, but they’re willing to take it on in mercy and in love.
When someone breaks a promise to you, it’s not okay. It doesn’t mean the relationship will be
the same. It doesn’t mean you ignore it. It doesn’t mean you should just grin and bear the pain. There are consequences. There is going to be a lot of healing and hard work. But it’s possible to forgive them. It’s possible for them to forgive you. It’s possible to have a really good relationship.
It’s just going to take a whole lot of dying and breaking down and a lot of trusting God to be the only one faithful enough to get you guys through it.
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