Lists - Part 2

There’s two sides to every story.  Turns out, not everyone was a fan of Donald Miller’s blog about creating a spouse-list.  A friend of mine sent me a blog post that was written as a rebuttal to Don’s.  And, as much as I love Donald Miller, the rebuttal makes some good points about anti-list-making; notably, about how we may not even know what we want or need in the first place, so shouldn’t we be leaving that up to God?

But as I was reading this rebuttal, I was actually more interested in the author’s point about people and changing.  Basically, the author talks about people expecting their spouse to change (or not to change), and how that can be a dangerous situation.  And I have to say, I agree.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes in other people’s relationships, and I’ve even been guilty of doing it myself. 

I don’t know when this blog turned into a relationship column, but I guess I’m at the age where I think about them a lot.  Sadly.  I wish I didn’t.  I ache for the days when I hula-hooped in my driveway for hours and never thought about boys.  Nevertheless, I hope to get married one day, and singleness is God’s greatest boot camp.  

Back to people and changing.  One lesson I’ve learned: don’t expect anyone to change.  If you’re not 100% in love with the way someone is RIGHT NOW, then you can do two things: 1) accept it and work on your response, or 2) walk away from it.  That’s about it.  It’s never going to be a win-win situation.  It’s going to be an all or nothing situation.

Honestly, I could create an entirely separate blog about the things God has taught me from relationships (side note: I read once that just because a relationship doesn’t end in marriage, doesn’t mean it’s unsuccessful.  Instead, doing what God wants you to do with those relationships makes them successful.  This makes me feel less bad about my failed attempts with boys).   But I’ll leave this post simple for today.  Don’t expect people to change the way you want them to.  Because really, who are you in the first place?  The all-knowing-expert-in-human-behavior-and-perfect-relationships? Probably not.