What’s Love Got to Do With It? | Finding Real Love Through God, Healing Relationships & Identity in Christ

What’s Love Got to Do With It? | Finding Real Love Through God, Healing Relationships & Identity in Christ

What does love really mean—and why does it matter so much in our relationships, healing, and spiritual growth? 

In Chapter 4 of Journey to Loveland, Maronda explores the powerful question: What’s love got to do with it? The answer is simple—everything. 

In this faith-centered episode, Maronda shares how God’s love is the true foundation for every healthy relationship, whether it's with a spouse, family member, friend, or even yourself. Through scripture, personal reflection, and spiritual insight, she walks listeners through how understanding biblical love can transform the way we view marriage, dating, boundaries, forgiveness, and emotional healing. 

Using passages like 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 22, and other powerful scriptures, this episode invites you to examine the difference between real love and toxic patterns, how unresolved pain can affect our relationships, and why healing your heart through God is the key to building healthier connections. 

If you've experienced heartbreak, divorce, unhealthy relationships, or confusion about love, this conversation will encourage you to reconnect with God, rediscover your worth, and learn how to love yourself and others the way God intended. 

In this episode, you'll learn:
 • What the Bible really says about love and relationships
• Why healing from past pain is essential for healthy love
• How to set healthy boundaries rooted in faith
• Why God must be the foundation of every relationship
• How to stop chasing love and start becoming whole in Christ 

Journey to Loveland is a gentle, faith-centered podcast for women who are healing, growing, and learning to love themselves the way God intended. 

This podcast is part of the Chickology Podcast Collective, a community of women-led podcasts sharing real stories, real faith, and real transformation. 

If you're searching for peace, clarity, and a deeper connection with God, you're in the right place. 

Your journey to love and healing starts here. 🌿 

🌸 About Chickology™
Chickology™ is more than a podcast brand — it’s a collective of strong, real women telling real stories. Together, we’re reclaiming our narratives, breaking cycles, and lifting one another up through truth, laughter, and raw conversations. Every show under the Chickology™ umbrella is created by women, for women, with love.

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💫 Because when women rise together, we change the world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, welcome back to the Journey to Love Land Podcast. My name is Miranda, and I'm super excited that you all have joined me here again today. Today we're going to delve into chapter four of my journey. In today's uh chapter, we're going to be talking about love and what's love got to do with everything that we're going through, everything that we're experiencing. It has everything to do with it. And if you are a Christian on here today, you know that the foundation of a true love story is our love in Jesus Christ. His love for us, our love for him. And that is the foundation of every healthy relationship that we have in our lives, whether we're married or single, our children, our friends, our loved ones, our families, our colleagues, our coworkers, whoever we involve ourselves with, even loving strangers and loving our enemies, the foundation of love is found in Jesus Christ. And I want to encourage you to take some notes because I will be sharing some scriptures with you, because I want you to meditate on these scriptures. It's really important that as we are going in God, as we're healing on this journey to love and self-love and learning to love ourselves and others the way God intended. It's important to meditate on his word. And his word will bring transformation, his word will bring healing. So if you're not a Christian, still get out your pen and paper. I want you to know God. I want you to know that he loves you. I want you to know that he is here for you. He hears you and he wants to heal you. He wants to wrap his loving arms around you and he wants to be near you. His word says that he is near the brokenhearted. He hears your cries. So on here today, you know, when we are crying out, even through his scriptures, we're praying. You don't know what to pray. Sometimes you've maybe never may not have ever been taught how to pray. You can pray God's word. You can get a scripture and you can pray it over and over again. Make it your own. Add your name to the scripture because God's word never returns void. It always accomplishes that which it will send to accomplish. His word is alive and active. The same word that healed, restored, and made free 2,000 years ago is the same word that we can rely on today. You can lean on God, you can trust God. You can, you know, trust that his word is true and that it will come to pass in your life. So you have to believe and reconnect with God. If you've fallen away from God and your relationship with him is not where you want it to be, you know, get back in his presence. You know, I've been there before. I've been at a place where it was like, oh my goodness, you know, my relationship with God is not where it needs to be. I need to start back praying. I need to get back into my word. And you know what? He welcomed me with open arms. He loved on me, and I'm able to hear his voice clearly, understand what he's trying to show me. He's giving me wisdom. He's given me everything that I need to fall in love all over again with Jesus Christ, to reacquaint myself with him again, to fall to recognize and reconnect with my first love. And so I want you to be able to do the same today, um, every day. Journey to Love Land is proud to be a part of the Chicology Podcast Collective, a community of women sharing real stories, real faith, and real transformation. So now, ladies and gentlemen, let's get into chapter four of Journey to Love Land. Again, today's title is called What's Love Got to Do with It? So Love has Everything to Do with It. You know, God is the foundation of love. He shares what love needs to look like with us in his word and his love story. The Bible is a big book of love stories. It is his love letter to us. And, you know, um, I want you to get into it. So I want you to write down this scripture. It is one of the most foundational scriptures about love, is 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. And it says, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not assist on its own way, it's not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. So love is all-encompassing. Even when we are going through some hard times, you know, love is something that we need to always look back on. We know when we see that our relationships are off-kilter, they're kind of wobbling, they're not where they need to be, we need to ask ourselves a question: Am I being loving? Am I loving this person? Or am I being envious? Am I being jealous? You know, am I being patient? Am I trying to control the situation or manipulate the situation? Am I being defensive? Am I being kind to this person? Am I holding grudges? So when we notice that our relationships are not where they need to be, that is a time for you to self-reflect, not point the finger at the other person and say, oh, you did this, you did that. Maybe they did. But how did you handle that? You know, sometimes when our love is off balance or if things are happening, it's because we've we've not setting appropriate boundaries with that person. You know, maybe uh we are allowing them to mishandle us and mistreat us. We're ignoring red flags, we're ignoring um toxic behaviors because we want so badly to be in a relationship. We want so badly to be in this person's lives and we're allowing them to do things to us, say things to us, mishandle us, because we want to be in a relationship with them so bad. And that's not a good place to be. You know, we're not able to really display the love of God and to embrace their love if toxicity is there, if there's evil there, if there's negativity there, if there's belittling there, the person is being rude to you, right? You know, like I said, love is not rude. So if that person is rude to you, they're disrespecting you. That is not a place of love. That is not love. If you maybe have experienced this type of love growing up and you're like, well, this is all that I know, I want you to take the time to reframe your definition of love. Reframe what love looks like. Look at Jesus Christ, look at how he died on the cross for us. So Jesus Christ died for us. And so that's that unconditional love that will die for a friend, that will die for someone that they love in order to make sure that we can have that redemptive life, that we can have a story to tell, that we can have a testimony to share of God's goodness, of God's love towards us. So we need to really understand if we're experiencing some things in a relationship, even with our family members, even with our children, you know, we have to stand back and set some boundaries. We have to step back and say, you know what, I'm not gonna tolerate this behavior. We need to have a conversation. You know, this is not healthy for us. This is not good for us. We're not gonna be able to go on too much longer like this with this toxicity, with the arguing, with the going back and forth. So, you know, when you find yourself repeating patterns of the same type of behaviors over and over again that are not healthy and, you know, relationships are falling apart in your life, you have to go back and really look at and reevaluate and figure out what is really going on. And a lot of times it's because we're not walking in love. We're not walking in forgiveness, we're not letting go of the past, we're not moving forward and extending grace to that or other person. You know, God extends grace to us every day, brand new mercies and graces, grace that we receive every day. So are we extending the same love and grace to other people that are around us? Are we holding on to grudges? Are we blaming them? Are we pointing the finger? And if that person continues to display negative behavior towards you, maybe it's time to reevaluate that relationship and say, you know, I'm gonna love them from a distance. I'm gonna walk away from this. This is not a healthy place for me to be. God does not want us to put ourselves in toxic situations where we where we're being mishandled or mistreated because you know what Jesus, again in his word, is teaching us how to love ourselves and how to love other people. So I want you to take on the challenge of walking this journey to love in love land, in a land filled with love. Like I said, it's not a perfect world because we live in a fallen world. If you envelop yourself with love and focus on loving yourself, healing, getting in God's presence and desiring to be whole and healed, it doesn't matter what is going on around you. You're able to still flourish, you're still to walk in peace, you're still able to show up with a smile on your face no matter what is going on around you. You're able to do that because you know who you are. Well, he wants us to love him first. And then he wants us to love ourselves and our neighbors. You know, so God really wants us to show up for, you know, those around us because he wants we're Christ-like. We're image bearers of Christ. So if we're image bearers of Christ, we should be more like him. And that uh scripture is found in Matthew 22, 37 through 39, where it says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbors as yourself. So you're loving your neighbors as yourself. So if you're doing that, you're loving yourself first, so you're able to overflow that love to your neighbors. So love God first, then love others in that order. If you don't allow Jesus to define the love that you are to display to others, you will be exhibiting pain. You're gonna be responding from a place of pain, a place of hurt, a place of brokenness. And you know, when I was going through my divorce, I was responding from a place of brokenness and pain because when I would speak to my children or speak to other people, it was I was bleeding all over them because I was hurting so much that I wasn't taking the time to heal. So when I would speak or respond or or be a part of a group, you know, you can see the sadness. You can, you know, the harshness in my tone, the blaming, the pity party. Oh, woe is me. Look at what he did to me. Oh, look at what happened to me. Woe is me. And that is how I lived for a season because the pain was comfortable. Made my um, I made my home in a place of pain. I lived there, I dwelled there because it was comfortable. It was easy to blame, it was easy to point the finger, it was easy to do these things instead of looking at the woman in the mirror and saying, hey, you need to straighten up. You need to get it together. Yes, these things happen to you, but God wants to redeem you. He wants to store you. Your pain is not wasted. You didn't go through those things for nothing. You didn't go through those things by happenstance. You went through those things so you can get closer to God. God allowed those things to happen. Now it's your time turn to get closer to Him. Give that pain over to Him, let Him heal you so you can have this redemptive story. So this chapter in your life of a failed marriage, broken relationships, or whatever you may be going through is part of your redemptive story. It is a chapter in your life. It is not who you are, but it is a part of your story. And let God redeem that story, let God redeem that chapter, and let your next chapter be one of love and joy and peace and happiness and victory. Let that next chapter that's waiting to be written be one of God being putting his hand on you and bringing you out better, wiser, more confident, knowing who you are in him, so you can show up and be better for your next relationship. If you're desiring to be married again, if you've ever been married and now you're divorced. If you've never been married, but you want to be married, but you find yourself going in these cycles of these same relationships, these same types of people, the same situation, you know, over and over and over again, you know, maybe you're part of the problem. Maybe you're selecting the wrong person because you have some things in you that makes you feel like, you know, this is all that I deserve. I don't deserve anything better. I deserve a man who doesn't treat me good because I was never treated good when I was growing up. I deserve a woman who takes advantage of me because, you know, I know what that feels like. So you're comfortable being taken advantage of and you think that's what love looks like. That's what love is supposed to be. But that is not love. That is manipulation, that is toxicity, that is somebody mishandling you, not respecting you, not honoring you, not loving you. That's not love. But when you've learned what love is, when you learn what it's all about, you won't accept any type of behavior. And you will be willing to wait on God, wait on Him, and you will live in the process. You will live your life. You will go on traveling, enjoying life, learning new hobbies, new skills, getting promoted on your job, going to school. You will continue to live in the process. You will continue to prosper in the process while God is preparing you for your next relationship, for your marriage, for a healthier relationship with your family or your children. This time of singleness, this time of you being alone, this time of healing is a time of preparation. It's not a time of punishment. God is not punishing you, but he is preparing you for what he has next for you, whether it's marriage, whether it's being single, whether it's just living your life and just being a blessing to those around the world. Whatever your next chapter looks like, God wants to prepare you so you can show up and be your best healthy self, so you can be a testimony to someone else, so you can walk out your ministry with boldness, with love, with courage, with kindness. You know, like it says in that scripture in First Corinthians, love is kind. You can't be kind if you're broken. Love is patient. You know, if you're not, if you're going through something and you haven't been healed, you can become impatient. And then that's where that rudeness comes in, right? So everything is overflowing into each other. When you're impatient, you can be rude. You know, when you're not kind, you know, you can be envious, you can boast, you know, thinking of yourself more highly than you need to be, trying to make others feel bad about themselves. You know, you're not gonna celebrate other people, and you're gonna be resentful. You're gonna, you're not gonna be someone that people want to be around. And you don't want to be that type of person. You want to be able to show God's love everywhere you go. You want to be able to show up and be your best self everywhere that you go. And when you're broken and hurting, that is your time to get in God's face. That is your time to separate yourself, have that intentional isolation. Sometimes that's necessary in order to let go of that pain, to allow God to prune you and to cut away all those things that have hindered you, that have hurt you, that have caused you to just feel broken and shattered, to put you back together again, to put you on the potter's wheel. And, you know, when he's doing those things, you know, things are going to come up in your life. You know, when you're in a relationship, when you are divorced, divorce exposes some things. You know, it exposes maybe some things that from your childhood, from your past that you brought into the marriage, the baggage that you brought into the marriage that could possibly cause the demise of the marriage, your insecurities. And so you maybe you had an affair because you felt insecure. So you felt like you wanted you needed to go out and find somebody else to validate you, right? So, or maybe you were rude and mean because you were angry from things that may have happened to you and you weren't healed from those things from your past. So, you know, when you're in a relationship, sometimes it it exposes some things. It exposes where your identity was misplaced. I know when I was married, I placed my identity in a title. I place my identity in a man instead of placing my identity in Christ Jesus and placing my identity in who he says I am, that I am loved, I am chosen, you know, I am preferred, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But because I wasn't, I didn't know these things or really held on to these things, I knew them, but I just really didn't held on to them because I was so focused on the marriage that I lost sight of who I was, lost sight. And so then now when the marriage was falling apart, you know, I was falling apart. So be but if you have your foundation in Christ, you have your foundation in the word. If your marriage is falling apart, you can still trust God, you can still lean on God no matter what the outcome is. You can still lean on him, you can still trust him. Yes, you're gonna be hurting, you're gonna be going through, you're gonna be in a lot of pain, but you're able to come out and still lean on God and trust him to heal that chapter in your life so you can continue to praise him, you continue to move on, you continue to follow him. You won't blame him and be like, well, God, you did this to me. No, you know, I understand that I live in a fallen world, Lord. I understand that I can't make anybody love me. I understand that I can't, you know, the choice that he made or she made is not on me. It's their decision. Yes, I may not have been perfect in this relationship, but guess what? There, it was ultimately their decision that they made. So I can't control that. I can't blame myself. I'm not gonna, you know, internalize that because I know who I am. If they didn't see my words and they just they made up their mind that I'm not worth fighting for, this marriage is not worth fighting for, this ministry is not worth fighting for, that's their decision. Because remember, if you are a Christian, your marriage is your ministry. Marriage is a ministry. Your marriage should reflect God's love to this world. So that means, again, here we go again. It's not rude, it's not arrogant. Love is patient, love is kind. Love under, you know, is um it's not arrogant, it's not resentful, it does not rejoice when something bad happens to the other person, like, yeah, they deserve it. That's not love. Love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, and hopes all things and endures all things, even when you're going through something. I'm not saying to endure an abusive relationship. That's not what I'm saying. If you don't feel safe in your relationship, if if there's abuse going on, you should immediately get out of that situation and find a safe space to go. But I'm saying, you know, you might be going through a tough season, a low season. That person might be going through some health challenges. That doesn't mean you just get up and leave. You may not like that person that day. Well, I don't like him anymore. So I'm, I deserve better. I'm gonna go find me something else. Somebody else will want me. You know, you're seeing this trend nowadays, you know, with these celebrities and different people that, and even people on social media, you're hearing a lot of this where people are divorcing and getting divorced because they feel like they can find better out in the world. Like, well, I know I'm still good. You know, people want me. So I'm gonna divorce my husband. I'm not happy today. He's not making enough money today. He's not doing what he used to. So, you know, I know there's somebody out there better for me. So let me divorce him. And then they realize, oops, it's not the grass is not greener always on the other side. I need to water what I have. I need to go talk to my husband about what I'm feeling. I need to talk to my wife about what I'm feeling instead of going out there cheating or immediately filing for divorce or throwing my hands up and surrendering the white flag. No, you need to be like, I'm gonna fight for my marriage. I am going to get through this period, no matter what it is. It's up to you and your partner to work through it. It's up to you to decide what are non-negotiables, what I'm gonna deal with, what I'm not gonna deal with, what I'm not gonna tolerate. And you all need to have that discussion before you even get married. I want to also encourage you, because you know, I was married for over 13 years, to not have unrealistic expectations for that other person. You can't expect for somebody to heal you. You have to go to God for your healing. You can't expect for that other person to make you happy. You need to already be happy in who you are and happy in the Lord and in your own life with who you are before you get married. Two halves don't make a whole. Well, he's gonna make complete me. She's gonna complete me, they're gonna make me whole. You need to be whole before you come into the marriage. Two whole people is what it needs to be to complete the marriage. And then when God comes in as the third man, three core uh three-strand cord cannot easily be broken. You have a strong foundation for marriage, successful marriage, a godly marriage, a marriage that is a ministry that can help other people. So you can't expect for somebody to fill the void. Allow God during this time of seasonal, during this time of preparation to fill the void, to heal those places that were broken, your your childhood traumas, those things that you've experienced when you were a child growing up. Allow God to fill that space, surrender that hurt to him, surrender that pain to him, that that character flaw, whatever you have going on. Allow God to heal that during your time of preparation while he's preparing you for your next relationship. If you desire marriage again, there's nothing wrong with desiring marriage again, but make sure you desire it from the right place, that you're desiring marriage because you want to uh step into a ministry that pleases God because it is a ministry. You're ministering to unto one another, and your ministry is going to flow out to others. A marriage is not meant to fulfill a void in your life. It's not meant to have a, you know, I want to get married so I can have a sex partner, a legitimate sex partner. I want to get married so he can pay my bills or she can pay my bills, or, you know, you can add to my lifestyle. You want somebody that, you know, you can come alongside and support as a, you know, a helpmate, a partner. You want to be able to love that person, honor that person, help support them in their purpose and their ministry that God has given them individually. And then you can come together as a ministry together as a couple, but you can't expect that person to complete you, to repair you, because they can't carry that weight. Only God is strong enough to carry that weight of your past hurts and pains, of things that you've gone through and experienced that no one else can understand. Then to put that pressure on man is unfair. To put that pressure on another, that pressure on another person, whether it's your children, your family, your siblings, whoever, is unfair because, you know, we all have gone through something. We've all experienced heartbreaking pain of some sort. Then we take that to God, for him to heal us, to restore us, and to make us whole again. And that's the real love story. That is, so what love, what does love have to do with it? It has everything to do with it because it is the foundation of our lives to make us the people that we need to be to show up to be our best selves for this world and for for as Christ-like people, as Christ representatives, as Christ with skin on, we need to walk in love. And if we can't do that, we have nothing. That's what the word says. If you don't have love, you don't have anything. So we have to remember that and understand what we need to do. So it's a time for you to reflect. What do I need to do to be better? Am I just waiting? I'm waiting to be married, I'm waiting for the promotion, I'm waiting for them to apologize to me, I'm waiting for them to treat me like this. Or am I preparing to be the best that I can be? This is not a season of punishment. Look at it as a great time to get closer to him, to hear his voice, to be undistracted, to be in, you know, not have to be. Having a relationship in your life that's gonna distract you, that's gonna pull you away from your relationship with God. Because when your relationship with God is strong, your relate other relationships are gonna flourish, they're gonna grow. That when you are intimate with God and you are connected with him in a way that no one else can interfere with, that love that he pours into you on a daily basis, you're able, you're you're being filled and overflowed. And now that overflow can pass on to your children, your family, your colleagues, your spouse, all of those things. Everything flows from your relationship and the love that you have with your Heavenly Father Jesus Christ. So it's not about being married. It's not about being in a relationship, but it's about knowing who you are and reconnecting with God and trusting Him. So stop chasing love. Stop chasing people, stop chasing what you thought it was supposed to be. Stop if you're in a marriage right now, stop chasing what you think the marriage is supposed to be. But go to God and ask him, what are you trying to show me right now? What do I need to do? What do I need to let go? What limiting beliefs, what lies that I've been holding on to from my past do I need to let go of in order for me to have a better marriage, for me to show up to be my best self for my spouse, for myself to be happier and be honest with God. God wants us to be honest with him. He doesn't want us to curate our emotions, he doesn't want us to reshape our emotions so we can look perfect in front of him because he already knows. Bring your broken heart to God, bring your brokenness, bring your questions, bring your uncertainty, bring your irritation, bring your heartbreak to God because he wants to heal you. He wants you to be the best that you can be. I want to share several scriptures with you all. So, how Jesus prepares us. So, you know, the more we deepen our relationship, these are some scriptures that you can write down, the more everything shifts in our lives, the more that we're prepared and we're we're rooted, we're grounded, we're anchored, and we have a solid foundation. We're able to really be able to go through some things in our lives and not be crushed. Yes, we might have some go through the ebbs and flows, but we will not be destroyed, right? We will not be knocked off of our square. We will be able to continue to still look forward and to still move forward. So look at James 1.19. It says, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger with family and how do you respond to them? How do you react to them, react to them? Remember this scripture. I had to remember this scripture because I was so quick to just pop off and say whatever I wanted to say and to, you know, make sure my voice was heard. But I had to remember and have to learn that I don't always have to say what's on my mind. I don't always have to argue back with them. I can be a few words and still be powerful. I don't always have to respond to the negativity. I can let it go. Yes, it may bother me, it may hurt me, but sometimes responding to it is not gonna make a difference. It's not gonna matter. And if you are angry at that time when they say something, before you say something that you can't take back, stop and say, you know what? Let's uh address this in a few minutes. I want to really, I need to take a beat. I need to walk away for a minute because I don't want to say anything that I'm gonna regret. So let's just come back to this in about 10 minutes. Put a time limit on it. Don't wait until next week. No, we're gonna come back to this in a couple of hours so we can address this. Don't let it linger in the air because the more it lingers, the worse it gets. And it's not necessary. It doesn't have to get that way. Let's look at Proverbs 4 and 23. It says, keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the flow, the springs of life. Learn healthy boundaries with your friends, guard your heart, keep it with all diligence. Don't let people just trample all over you, say what they want to say, dump all over you, treat you any kind of way. No, set some boundaries. I'm not gonna tolerate this, I'm not gonna do this with you. I'm not gonna continue to allow you to talk to me this way or handle me this way. Set some healthy boundaries. You're not gonna call me at this time if you're dating someone. You're not going to address me like this, you're not gonna cuss at me, whatever the case may be, whether it's your children, a date, a partner, and healthy boundaries in your life with your call, your colleague, whoever it is, set healthy boundaries. Philippians 1, 9 through 10 says that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. When you're dating, I had to learn this. Make sure you have discernment because I'm currently, you know, in a relationship right now, but when I was out there dating, you know, you have to be very discerning because, you know, if you're on these dating apps and stuff like this, or you're dating people or you're meeting people out and about, you have to be very discerning. You can't give everybody your phone number. You can't let everybody know where you live. You have to be discerned, like, should I even entertain this person? After the first two or three conversations, you just need to know, should I even continue with this person? Where is their heart? Do they just want me for sex? Do they just want me to pay for a meal? Do they just want me for um their own selfish gains? What do they want me for? Why am I in their life? You know, what is really going on here? And discern that. Be mindful. When you are healed, when you go into the dating field, you're not desperate for anybody. You don't settle for anyone. You don't just accept any type of behavior or responses from anybody because you're healed. You know what? It's like, you know, I'm God's girl, I'm God's guy. You know what? Whenever God is time for God to bless me, he will. And it's going to be a great blessing. I don't have to settle for this. I'm not on the timeline. You know, the world may think you're on a timeline, but you're not on a timeline. So God's timing is not our timing. He's not even a God of time. So he's not even thinking about that. You might have been like, Lord, it's been five years. He's like, girl, young man, whatever, son, you know, so we can't be base our lives on time like that when in regard to dating, like, oh, it's been a two years, I'm 30 years old, oh, I'm this. No, God knows when everything is needs to happen for you. So don't base your life and your dating life on those things because those types of restrictions and guidelines will cause you to settle because you feel like you have to beat the clock. So don't do that. Allow God to heal you from your past hurts and your pains, the rejection that you've experienced in your past so you can move forward. Allow him to reveal himself through his word. Allow him to show up for you through your story so you can share your story with someone else who may want to be married again or who may want to, you know, just have better relationships. I still desire marriage. So I am looking forward to the day when God blesses me to be married again because I still believe that God has a blessing for me, that God will restore marriage unto me. I believe that. God put the desire on my heart and I'm holding on to it. And I know one day it will come to pass. You know, but marriage was never meant to be a placeholder for God or to replace my relationship with God. And I had to learn learn that that I don't put my husband on a pedestal. He's not God, that my relationship with God is first, and then my husband, then my children, then my friends. So I had to remember in that order that I need to prioritize my relationship with God. But me wanting to be married, there's definitely nothing wrong with that. I just have to have the right perspective about marriage and what it means to God. And once I have that foundation and hold on to that, then I can move forward. So I want you to know that, you know, love has everything to do with it. And that even if you've had divorced or failed relationships, you know, let it be a part, a chapter of your story. It's not your entire story. You have another chapter, you have more chapters to go, you have more life to live, you have more to give this world. So don't just stop there because you've had a failed relationship. But when your relationship with God becomes the ultimate relationship goal, everything else falls into place. So stop chasing love, but become rooted in God, become rooted in him and know that he wants the best for you and he will give it to you. So just continue to enjoy your life and enjoy who God is in your life, and then he will bring everything to you. Let's end this episode in prayer. God, thank you for loving us first. Teach us how to release expectations placed on people and to root our hearts fully in who you are. Help us to lean into your love, walk in obedience without fear, embrace truth with humility, and endure every season with hope. Let our relationship with you be our ultimate relationship goal and the foundation of every other relationship. Father God, we trust you with our hearts on this journey in Jesus' name. Amen. So thank you all. Thank you, friends, for being with me today in chapter four, what's love got to do with it? It has everything to do with it. Because when you have God's love first, everything else will flow. There will be no pressure in love. I'm not going to say heartbreak because, you know, you can't guarantee that, you know, if you say, I want to share this before we end, if you say that, oh, I don't want to get in a relationship because I don't want to be hurt again, that's not a good place to be because you can't guarantee you'll never be hurt. But how you deal with that hurt, how you deal with that disappointment, how you deal with that situation or that momentary uh downtime in your relationship is that's all that matters. How you deal with it. It doesn't mean the death of your relationship, it doesn't mean the end, but how you handle it makes all the difference. And when you're rooted in God's love, you can handle it in a healthy place, in a place where restoration and reconciliation can come about. So I want you to know that you are in a place of learning, you are in a place of growing. And here on Journey to Love Land, we are here to grow and to learn together. As you hear my stories, as you hear each chapter of my life, as I continue to grow in love and to love myself and others. You know, God is the foundation of that. And I want to share God's love with you through this podcast. Thank you all again for uh being here. If you found that this episode was encouraging, please share it with someone, share it with your friends, follow this podcast so you don't miss anything. Also follow me on Facebook and YouTube, Journey to Love Land. I have some videos on there as well. Journey to Love Land is part of the Chicology Podcast Collective, where women come together to heal in the open, grow in truth, and walk forward with courage and compassion. So, everyone, keep allowing God to redefine the love of your life and be the love of your life. Love him all over again. Get to know him all over again. So until next time, you all stay encouraged, and I will see you at the next episode. Have a great day, friends.