JUST BEFORE YOU GO INTO THAT RELATIONSHIP

"The greatest emotional tragedy in life is to fall in love with someone who is not capable of helping you up when you are down." ~ Adegoke Olalekan Adebumiti (A.O.A)

Know this: God did not create marriage for two half partners. Marriage is created for whole beings. A man shall live his parents and cling to his wife and they shall become one, not half man. I normally say that in marriage, partners are meant to drop their individual half parts and adding the remaining parts to becoming one. Logically, that is the truth.

LET ME HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE MORE, WITH THIS STORY
It was in the afternoon of April 22nd, precisely a Saturday, in the year 2006. I had just finished writing Jamb and I was sitting inside my sister's shop, close to the road. Suddenly we heard a sound of smashing and, looking up, a bike with two people on it had fallen on the road.

It happened that a car wanted to enter the road and somehow it hit the moving bike which was close to the side of the road. People, including me, went there to at least help them up and I saw the shock of my life: The two people on the bike were actually lame. When I say lame, I mean they were crawling. Funny enough, they had just a pair of canvas.

The one in front, who was applying the brake, put on the right leg of the canvas and nothing on the left leg. The one at the back was the one changing the gear so on his left leg was the other leg of the canvas and nothing on the right.
As we moved near, the one at the back managed to crawl away from the road, as the one in front was lying flat there.

On lifting him up, we discovered the right leg which was a bit functional had been fractured. Seeing his friend in pains from the broken leg, the other one crawled and jumped on top of the car that hit them, saying he would not allow him to go. Can you imagine a lame man trying to stop a vehicle from moving! Strange you'll say but true. It was nothing but an admixture of tragedy and comedy.
We later learnt they were coming from a competition, the vest on them was even testifying of that.

They've been riding the bike for long right?
The fact that you've been managing a relationship all along does not make it last or end in marriage. It's required of you both to work on yourselves.

People engage in relationships these days as if it's Software they buy on trial: they test for some time to know if it's worth having. I hear people say, even in Christendom, that he's just my boyfriend, she's just my girlfriend, because I don't know if we are going to get married or not. Who taught you that? When did marriage even become barbecue that you taste from a mallam before buying?

One reason God might not punish a guy you call your boyfriend, who eventually ended the relationship with you, is the definition of boyfriend. A boyfriend is a man or a boy that somebody has a romantic or sexual relationship with.

I expect New generational Christians to have nothing to do with boyfriend and girlfriend kinda relationships but fiance and fiancee.
Sometimes you say he's my boyfriend or she's my girlfriend because you don't want people to start checking on you. Now, it is almost generally accepted that you'll first start a "boyfriend and girlfriend" relationship before you graduate into "fiance and fiancee" kinda courtship. You are way too wrong!
Or how many of such relationships ended well? When a guy takes all the juicy parts of you through romance and sex you are left with nothing but shaft; then you start looking like one old woman from the bush. Learn now!

One major setback in contemporary relationships is COMPATIBILITY CHECK.
It's only a small baby that does not know it hurts until he tries to dip his finger in the fire. When the deed is done, forever he learns "jojo." ('Jojo' is a word used by some parents to tell their babies that fire hurts)So at this your Methuselahic age, I expect you to have learnt the "jojo" of relationship.

The other day I asked a lady whose relationship just ended the reason and she said "We are not compatible." This statement bothers me much anytime I hear it and I still don't know who is teaching them to start a relationship without compatibility check.
For those who do not know, compatibility check is to be done even before you start any relationship.

GUIDES TO COMPATIBILITY CHECK
1. Self- definition: Who are you?
Many don't even know who they are. Neither do they know their functionalities nor their worth as it were.
If you are a lady of vision or Purpose, it's easy to locate a partner of same. And if you're a lady of easy virtue, you're close to the doomed Choice. Birds of a feather love to flock together, remember.
It is nothing but share defeat for “The day” having the plan of marrying “The night,” an “Owl” planning to marry a “hawk” or a “goat” with the ambition of having a "lion" as husband. Those would be parallel lines that can never meet.

2. Purpose: What do you really want in a relationship?
If all you want is sex and money, you sure can get that, even along the street. If you want destiny fulfilment, it takes digging deep and searching character encyclopaedia for that. It requires more than just a bunch of wilful thinking.

3. Limit: How much do you want?
This is another major problem especially for our guys. They are used to chicken and chips kind of choice in marriage. Most guys don't even know the quality of wives they need to marry. They just carry one “parboiled love-being” and expect to have a "Queen everything" in marriage. Even your shadow is warning you, just that you wouldn't listen.

For the ladies, if you want cheap thrills or gold digging, you could go for just any guy but, if you want a relationship whose termination point is "You may Kiss the bride" that is, marriage, then you'll have to wait.

The reason you jump around relationships like a Nigerian Politician jumps from one party to another is not far fetched:
You believe that experience is the best teacher. The right saying is "Experience is the best teacher for a fool, and not for the wise." If you doubt me ask Samson and Delilah or jump down from a skyscraper.
Can you drink five litres of a concentrated acid? You said no because you "know" it will destroy your body right? The question is: did you learn that through knowledge or by experience? Your shadow knows the answer!
It is knowledge that is power, not experience.
My people perish (even in relationship) for lack of knowledge, so the Bible says. (Hos. 4:6)

I have said my own... Don't cry when it happens...
Life loves a cheerful “SMILER.”
Let those who have relationships they are proud of Smile. And those who are believing God for such a relationship that everyone will be proud of, Smile the more.