I have to admit this; I absolutely love Mary J. Blige. Ever since she 1st came on the scene (for me) with the song “Real Love,” I was feeling her music. Now, at that time, I was a Christian. A “straddling-the-fence-Christian” but a Christian nonetheless. When it came to music, secular or non, if it sounded good to me and spoke to me, that was it. Mary J. was it. Now, allow me to explain. :-)
At one point in my life, I was “in love” with someone I hoped was “in love” with me. He said he was (in love) with me. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him because, again, I was “in love” with him. He said he wanted to marry me; “put a ring on it” as one song stated, but alas, it wasn’t true. Oh, he had given me the engagement ring but not the ring. Well, really, that was my choice, but how could I continue on? I’ll explain that part later. So, back in that day, when this song came out, I wasn’t engaged but I was “in love.” Yes! I thought “real love.” Listening to Mary J’s song, “...someone to set my heart free...real love…” I truly hoped I had it. I was never searching for love as her song spoke of but I wanted my heart free. I knew that song spoke to something deep within me, but I couldn’t really hear where it was going. IT was restless within me and I couldn’t understand why.
I was dating that guy. We said we loved each other. “Someone to set my heart free…”. I thought at one point he would love me enough to free my heart. Free my heart from the pain of the running around with other females that he was “socializing” with. Free my heart from the low self-esteem that I had developed, because I felt I wasn’t pretty enough or something to make him want to stay faithful to me. Free my heart from the shame I felt when others knew before me that “....he’s playing you for a fool girl…” as told to me by others. Free my heart to just be loved by him like I had loved him.
SMH...wow. I was a mess. :-)
I finally and totally freed myself from him though. I called off the wedding and freed us both. Later on through the years, I heard the song again. That time, I really listened to the words. “Real Love...someone to set my heart free…” and man, it hit me. My “Real Love” was/is in Jesus Christ. He sets my heart free. He loves me unconditionally. Jesus would never cheat on me. Jesus would never have me feel ashamed of loving Him. All that time I was craving the real feeling of that love, when I had it all along. If I hadn’t been living one foot with Jesus and one foot in the world it would have been apparent to me. Just like Lisa Stansfield’s song, “ All Around The World” (loved that song as well), she was looking for her “baby” and I guess, in a way, I was looking for mine. She said she had “...been around the world…” and she couldn’t find him. Now, I went through all kinds of mess thinking I had “my baby” and I would stick with him when “my baby” was with me all along! LOL I’m laughing because if you had seen what kind of a wreck I was going through all of that and the revelation of hearing that song and what it spoke to me, you’d laugh at me too. Yes, I can laugh at myself now; I couldn’t then though. It wasn’t funny. I was a mess. A wreck.
Know this:
GOD loves us with an everlasting love. He proved it when He came down from heaven in the form of a man, His Son, named Jesus Christ. Jesus proved it when He hung on that sinner’s cross, died a brutal death, experiencing the unimaginable pain of it all, then raising up from the dead, retrieving the keys of life and death all for us. He shows it every day by displaying His mercy and grace towards us when we don’t even deserve it. He proves it to me in countless ways. If you want to know GOD’s “real love” for you, pick up His Word in whatever manuscript you can understand: NKJV (New King James Version), AMP (Amplified), EV (English Version), The Message...etc. Then read the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Read Timothy, Psalm, Jude...it’s all there. Genesis. His “Real Love” will set your heart free too. I’m free!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment