Do you ever spend your day thinking about “When this happens, or when they change, I’ll be happy?”
Have you spent years trying to change people, because you believe you’ll never be happy until they change?
Do you spend countless hours fantasizing about how your life will look, when they conform to the image you’ve created?
I can honestly answer yes to all those questions! I use to believe that if I had a husband was the perfect spiritual leader, perfect romantic and we had the perfect emotional connection I would be happy. I also believed if I had kids who were morally perfect and obedient, If I had a perfect body, a beautiful home etc. I would be happy, and until this happened I wouldn’t. So I lived in fear, because my happiness depended on other people. I had bought into the lie that unless these people changed, I would never be happy, I pressured, manipulated, whined, complained, cried, got angry you name it, whatever I could to try to change people, and guess what? It didn’t work! Instead it caused a tremendous amount of stress and tension in my relationships.
I had one last thing to resort to and that was God! While on my power walks every morning, I prayed and begged God to change the people in my life and my circumstances. One day he said to me “They are not the problem, your heart is the problem!”
In that moment I realized that I’m not called to change people, I’m called to love them. I also realized my happiness doesn’t depend on anyone! I needed to look to Jesus to complete me, to be my everything! So I repented and stopped pressuring everyone around me to change. I focused on loving them and the things they did, that I thought were so horrible, didn’t bother me any more. My whole perspective changed! I was able to love unconditionally, just like Jesus.
If you are waiting, pressuring, doing all you can to get someone to change so you can be happy, I would encourage you to release them, and focus instead on ways you can sacrificially love them. In return you set yourself free!
Rhonda Ferguson
Identity Theft Restorer, teaching people who they really are and their purpose in this life in order to free and empower them.