I had just finished the second part of a two part lecture on counseling couples in relationships. We examined some important principles and worked our way through some pretty hairy case studies. She had attended both my lectures and when the last one was over she asked very softly if she could talk to me.
"Sure" I said "I'd be happy to. What can I do for you?" The last of the attenders were drifting out.
"My situation is very much like one of your case studies" she said. I told her to have a seat.
"How so?"
The tale she went on to relate for the next 45 minutes (interrupted only briefly by my clarification questions) was one that is so typical of Chinese adolescence, and one that I had heard umpteen times before. She was in love. But her parents did not approve of her boyfriend and insisted on her breaking up with him. Her boyfriend was a college flunk out and so chose the only recourse left for him, the army. He is a demanding, immature, controlling, selfish and childish spoiled brat who, by all her friends' opinions, did not deserve her.
So why the reluctance to give him up? Why the tenacity to hold on to the "bad boy"?
These were the questions we had to explore. The answers I found were ones as old as sin itself. We desire the forbidden. There is something irresistibly attractive in what we cannot have. Eve knew this desire all too well. It was her and Adam's forbidden desires that plunged mankind into it's present state of depravity.
As we talked more I soon discovered that she did not even enjoy being in the relationship and believed she would be happier if she broke up with him.
There was something more. What else would make her want to hold on to something that she KNEW could not bring her happiness? That's when she said something that perked my attention. "I just feel really guilty.I don't want to be responsible for him becoming a failure." Jackpot. She felt her actions would cause him to fail at being a soldier (his last resort) even though he was clearly the only one responsible for his past failures in life. Aside from the fear of man issues waiting to be explored, I made my way right for the heart. Using Truth I had to show her how to deal with her guilt and help her to believe the truth.
As she got up to leave, those dark clouds had been replaced with sunshine. Armed with the truth in a renewed mind she bore the confidence to bear the fruit.
