Featured Photo Credit: The Rivers
How do you know when you’re ready to get married? Guest blogger Victoria Piraino opens up about being engaged:
Have you ever reached the point when reality sets in and you don’t know how to respond to your raging emotions and thoughts?
Well for me, one of those moments was when I got engaged.
Change for most people can be scary because you step into the unknown. Crazy enough, what I have come to realize is that with each different season there are opportunities of growth, even when it goes above my level of understanding.
So how do people know when they are ready to leap into a different season? How did I know I was ready for marriage?
My heart began to change.
Every experience from my past that defined my view on strength as a woman started to crumble. Every sin that I got comfortable with not addressing, I saw as even more critical to let go of.
God was beginning to redefine my opinions of myself, of what marriage should look like and what strength really is, to line up with His thoughts on the matter.
It wasn’t an overnight process for me. It took time to renew my thinking and, if I’m honest, it’s something that I need to continually change. I had literally twenty years of crappy thinking.
This verse became cutting but even more comforting to me:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”’ – Isaiah 55:8-9
We don’t know everything and even when our past experiences tell us otherwise, we have an intimate God who does know all things.
Here are the two thought processes I needed to address within myself:
1) I had to be okay with being interdependent with a future spouse.
That meant giving someone the position to actively have a say in my every day life. I wouldn’t be able to think of the possibility of marriage if that meant I wasn’t open to prefer someone else over myself and let go of control.
Interdependency does bring a level of vulnerability but without being vulnerable there can’t be depth and there can’t be growth in any relationship.
2) I really needed to be honest about where I was at.
Don’t get me wrong. That isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do. I got so used to pretending for awhile that I was okay, that I could ignore what was going on inside of my head. Until I was able to address those things, I wasn’t ready to move forward in a relationship. It froze me. Because the condition of my heart matters.
See, no matter what season you are in, whether single, wanting to date, or thinking about engagement, it really comes down to the heart.
Our past doesn’t have to be what we look through to protect ourselves from getting hurt. Our examples growing up don’t have to be the bar for our lives.
We have an intimate God who cares about us and who wants to change how we think to make us more like Christ. It came down to letting that truth change me.
So I will leave you with this thought: what’s the condition of your heart and what season are you really in?
-Victoria
Victoria Piraino comes from a family of four and her parents are from Sicily. She is a lover of poetry, friendships, and all things funny. She currently leads a small group in the Orlando area for college-age women exploring and wanting to grow deeper in their faith and make some awesome friendships. (If you are in the area, check it out!) Also, one of the most exciting things that is coming up is her wedding! She is getting married in September 2017 to her best friend, James ❤ . Follow her on Instagram at vpiraino and Twitter @VictoriaPiraino
Savvy & Rachel 