Fred’s View On Dating A Woman With Trust Issues

So Mimi and I were texting each other a few days ago and she asked if I would consider posting to her site to explain what it is like to be a guy dating a woman who has trust issues. I agreed that it would be a great idea to guest post on each other’s sites, but, honestly, I think I am getting off easy here because, although our relationship is still fairly new, I am dating an absolutely wonderful woman.

That said, no one is perfect and BOTH Mimi and myself are no different. We both have baggage. You see, both Mimi and I are, well….old. After 40+ years of life, everyone is bound to have something in their life that has changed them. And since both Mimi and I have crossed that 40-year old mark, we are no strangers to the baggage that comes with it.

But you want to know something? Baggage is simply that. Baggage. We’ve both been married before and subsequently divorced. We both have kids. We’ve both been hurt. When a person is hurt, they change, hoping never to get hurt again. Sometimes those changes are good. Sometimes they are not. But something happens every time that a person relies on God in their life, God changes the bad experiences to good ones and the good experiences become that which we are used by God to bring glory to Him.

Let me explain while sharing a few of my favorite scriptures on baggage.

Hebrews 12:1 - Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us

So when I was going through my separation and subsequent divorce, I met with a couple of counselors at my church. Once divorce was pretty much a given, my counselors changed the way they worked with me. They started focusing on what it was going to take to allow Christ to completely transform my life. Almost immediately, they helped me to begin throwing everything off that hindered my walk with Him.

You see, I may not have known it at that time, but everything I had been going through was getting me ready for the future that God has given me. The same has happened to Mimi. Everything that she went through was to get her ready for the life she is living right now.

Deuteronomy 30 - When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations

One thing is certain. There will be good and bad things that happen in our lives. Both Mimi and I have been hurt. As you read toward the end of Deuteronomy 30, you will find two words that encompass a life direction that will stop a person’s heart from getting so hard that it simply dies. Those two little words are, “choose life” (30:19). CHOOSE LIFE! If you make the conscious choice to LIVE then your heart will never die.

Mimi and I both have not been able to tell another person (other than our families and friends) that we love them, in an overall Christian way (of agape, phileo, and eros). Our hearts died when we were hurt by our ex-spouses. But the awesome thing about God is that He is the God of resurrection. If we make the choice to let Christ back in to our lives, then He will resurrect our hearts. Because of Christ, Mimi and I have felt the love that we never thought could come back to us.

Romans 8:37 - in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

So Mimi and I are choosing to live intentional. To keep our intentions on Christ. And as we do, we are finding that God not only brings our love back to us, but, even in the tough times, the times where I become distant or silent, the times where she reverts back to her distrust of men, it is in those times that Christ reminds us that we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS! We are going to struggle. We are going to feel the pain of our past. But God has given us a model. He has told us to shed off our troubles, He has given us life to choose, and He has made us more than conquerors.

I know this is simply a guest post, but I’d love to be able to pray for those of you who are finding similar questions in your relationships. You can simply reply on Mimi’s blog or email me at frednoble11@comcast.net.