As I sat in a reflective moment, I pondered my prior jealousies.

In my previous marriage, one day my husband showed me where he lost his virginity. While it did not create a particular stir in me that day because we often shared everything with each other, it did become an inner issue later on.

On another day on our way into Memphis, we were having a great time and I felt close to him. So as we passed the apartment complex off the side of the interstate, I felt a tug. There was a grief that hit me hard and threatened to suffocate the remainder of the day as I went along distracted. At that time, I still did not understand what I felt and my mind was not yet ready for that level of enlightenment. But now...

In a recent moment of conversation with God, a moment of quiet heart prayer, I found myself saying, "I don't want to miss another moment. I already missed enough moments." And for a second, I remembered that apartment complex. I remembered the grief. I discovered what I felt back then was the pain of a missed moments. 

When you fall in love, you desire to be all you can to and for that person. You become their biggest cheerleader. And as time passes, you hear more and more stories and you find yourself longing to be a part of those moments, to witness the look, hear the sound, capture the aroma of each memory. If you happen to feel things as deeply as I often do, you can feel cheated. Jealousy can then rear its ugly head.

Reasonably speaking, there is no way for two people to share every moment. In fact, even trying to do so will block many moments from happening. Personally speaking, my jealousy over this or that missed moment almost always turned into more missed moments.

Amazingly, when I began asking God to deal with my jealous streak, the work began on my thinking. My nature was possession and ownership. I thought in terms of mine and yours. But relationships are not about possession and ownership. It is about uniting, not acquiring. It is about an entity bigger than either called WE and the beauty of building a we state with your mate is seeing the prior coloring of each other's former life, hearing the words and watching the reactions to a memory of yesteryear that tells you what you need to know for today. In a little shift of perspective, I realized that the people we are today are product of yesterday and no moment from before is missed because they are housed in that being in front of me that I love so much.

Now, rather than grieving over the past moments, I celebrate the now moments. Living in the past always comes at an exorbitant cost, the cost of today. You cannot occupy them both at the same time. Any moment you did not witness was not yours. It did not belong to you. These moments, these activities, even these emotions are yours. NOW is yours. The life God has given you has been fully stocked and you're missing nothing. So now, when I hear the stories and see the joy of yesteryear, I can still celebrate without feeling cheated because in so many ways, as a unit, his experiences become my own. We can share our moments even when we are not in each other's presence.

I could never say it face to face. Pride grips my tongue. Foolishness fills my heart. Madness seizes my mind. And all I can ever manage to say is "I don't care" but God knows it is a lie.

I care for you. I care what you do, when you do it and how you do it. I care if you're in my life. I care. I don't know why when I care the most, I yell the loudest. I can't explain why when I want you closer I only end up pushing you away. I don't know what happened to us. And I don't know how to fix it. The fear is that it cannot be fixed.

I could never say it face to face, but I miss you so badly. No, not just how you made me feel. No, not just having someone here. I miss how you smell, the sound of your voice, the feel of your skin, the weird noises you make when you're sleeping, the way you leave your socks all over the house. It was a house when you were in it. All the complaining I did, I was ignorant. I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what I had, didn't know how petty it all really was. Now, we're done. There is no more us. All that is left is memories of mistakes I made and opportunities and love I missed. And the worst part is I cannot go and establish that with someone else because the words ended the relationship but they did not change the love in my heart.

Ladies, join me at Your Healing Partner to find relief from the things that ail us and plague us. You won't be sorry. Sisterhood is your way to freedom and joy and redemption. God still has a plan!

It is a miracle to find a healthy, blossoming love. We hear the word love so often, we've forgotten how beautiful and how rare it is for two people to find each other and hold each other for a lifetime.

We've all seen the romantic movies and read the novels or heard the tales of great love. Still, seems love in real life is never quite as simple as the two hour movie special on Lifetime or Hallmark. In real life, we have to deal with distrust and disloyalty. We have to sort through our feelings and decide if each infraction is worth terminating the relationship, or if it is only a kink in the chain that can be fixed. We have to battle our own changing desires and ideas as it relates to our partner. And we're supposed to do it without hurting them or ourselves, which sometimes it comes down to a choice of who will suffer. Sometimes,  you find yourself giving up your primary interests to alleviate your partner of concerns or for his/her better interests. Other times, you push forward in direct opposition to your mate, causing a great deal of friction. Daily living with this one person makes for many challenges if you want to last.

A fact of life and love is that pain happens even in the best relationships. Everyone who is happy together now has not always been that way. They have hurt one another, failed one another, went through disconnects. Furthermore, they remember those things even now while they are happy, but choose each other over the temptation of anger or anguish at the memories.

Not every woman who has been cheated on left her mate. Not every man who has been lied to and used turns away from the woman he loves. People endure lying, infidelity, violent rages, brutal arguments, babies outside of marriage, illnesses, financial strain, family disagreements and even drug abuse or imprisonment just to make their marriages work. Sure there are a ton of people out there telling you that you shouldn't have to go through these things, that it is dysfunctional, that it isn't God, that leaving certain kinds of people is the best option. But there are just as many old married couples who have been through all of it and stayed together. After 25, 30 and 50 years together, they believe they made the right choice.

My point: work out your own relationships. Don't buy the hype of a perfect man or woman, or perfect relationship conditions. All those glittering relationships aren't gold. They are just like yours. They are troubled sometimes. They are joyful sometimes. They feel like all other people, tired of each other sometimes. Sometimes they remember bad things against their will too and suffer from bouts of anger or pain. But they are together, and for that, we must thank every one of them. Each enduring marriage is a testimony of grace, love and mercy.

Whose life are you living and for what purpose? If you hadn't figured this out, you'll never have peace or joy because no matter where you go, you'll still be lost. Having said that, let's get to the meat of this note.

Over the years, I've been on the giving and receiving end of relationship advice. Sometimes I listened. Others I did not. I've given life advice, taken it, ignored it, pretty much the same as anyone else. The challenge for everyone is hearing God, not people. More directly, the challenge is hearing God through people. Thus, sometimes we listen to what we shouldn't and discard what we need. After so much of that, a person can become insensitive to all voices, including their own inner voice. It becomes confusion and it shows up in every area of life.

What's my point? I truly believe we offer too many opinions and too much advice. The wise men of the Bible, the judges and even the kings did not speak as much as we do. There are times when silence is golden and prayer is the only advice, opinion, action and answer. We don't need to wrestle with a thousand carnal opinions. We need to hear the still, small voice of God. We need solidarity in mind and spirit to feel the gentle tug of the Holy Spirit. We need to exercise our patience, our faith and our love. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, nothing stretches our love, faith or patience like genuine love for another person. God is easy to love. He's perfect! People, they present a challenge to us, but you'll never encounter a person who God hates so if He can love them, He can teach us to love them too.

When it comes to other people's marriages, we must be even slower to speak. Marriage was instituted right after creation and way before church. It is sacred, but yet we invite people to quit on their spouses way too often. Just because you would leave does not mean they should, or even that you should. Just because biblically you can get a divorce, mercy may be asking you to try again. I don't know who I'm speaking to tonight, but please hear this word in your heart.

I know you've always been told you can do better. This isn't how things should be. REAL men don't do that. REAL women don't do this. There's always another fish in the sea. What one person won't do another one will. But discard all of that for one moment and look at life through the eyes of time and outside of the scope of emotions. Crucify me if you must, but let me get tough with you. In 20 years, most of the stuff you deem dire won't be. The arguments and what they were about will fade. In time, life takes us all through cycles where money doesn't matter, friendships fade, our bodies weaken and seems the ONLY IMPORTANT THING IS WHO IS HOLDING OUR HANDS.

Good times and bad, companionship is important. People who once claimed to have an undying love for one another are now walking away from one another based on speculation, rumors, the court of popular opinion, because of boredom, because of unreleased and wayward passions, because of lies. This list is extensive. Where is our prayer life? Where is our fight? Where is the sacrifice? It isn't my place to say stay. It isn't my place to say go. Tonight, my place is to remind you that it isn't anyone else's place either. This is your life. You choose who you will fight with and for until the very end. But if you've walked down the aisle, and if you aren't being raped, beaten down and your children are not being molested, then you may want to stop long enough to remember yourself, what you feel and what you want before walking away. I vote for marriages. I vote for couples standing up and daring anything to separate them. I say the hand you held on the altar can still be the one you're holding at your last breath if you want it. What say you?