Counterfeit or God Sent?

When I moved to Little Rock in August of 2020 I told myself that this was my opportunity to prepare myself for all the things that I’d asked God for like a suitable life, a child, a nice home and most importantly a marriage. I had a deadline that I needed to meet and time was ticking so, from the beginning I started preparing myself for just that. At the time I had a boyfriend and I was trying to make him fit in my life against my better judgment. I held on for the sake of what I wanted because to me we were so close. He was toxic and didn't want anything greater for himself aside from the things I could provide and I didnt want that.(I provided the home, the meals, and the care.). However, at the time I thought if I wanted to be a wife. Sacrificing was what I was going to have to do. I wanted to be a wife so bad that I was going to settle for something not worth a damn just to say I’d reached a milestone at the right time. It wasn't until I came home one day to my front door being left wide open and all dudes stuff being gone and some of my stuffed being trashed that I realized I could do bad all by myself and that this man really wasn't for me. I’d wasted 6 years of my life chasing a man who wouldn't even walk to save my life. I’d uprooted my life to create a better environment for “my man”. I was content with staying in an unfulfilling job to accommodate a life that I didn't even want and I was working overtime to keep a person who didn't want to be kept. At the time I didn't realize how much that relationship changed me and how I didn't recognize the woman I had become trying to love a counterfeit man. I think what really hurt the most was the fact that my spirit of discernment was way off and I’d labeled someone a God send in my life when they were not even half that. It took me to get to Atlanta to realize that God had more for me and that me wasting those 6 years of my life was only on the account of me cause God for sure didn't say anything about that being my soulmate, helpmate, counterpart, or God send.

Fast forward to now!

Since the breakup I’ve taken myself on and off the dating scene all while keeping my ear to the Lord's mouth and boy has God been speaking. God has taken me from believing I was a number 8 to studying the wives of the Bible and asking more questions like God what is it that you’re trying to tell me. Ultimately it was clear. In order to be chosen I needed to put myself in position to be chosen and two I had a lot of growing and learning to do before I became someone’s good thing or wife. So the quest to find myself and my purpose in this life began (check out my later blog post for the vibes) and I told God straight up. “If it’s not like you I don't want it. I don't even want to like it. Immediately make it taste bad to me because I only want what you want for me.” and that one prayer changed the way I felt about everything and everybody moving forward. What I thought was my season of singleness was really my season to be quiet and so I was. Being a person who always had something to say and was the life of the party I really became mute and only spoke when it was necessary. Blaming it on things like I talk too much or that last relationship was so bad that I just didn't have anything to share when in actuality God was telling me to be quiet so that I could see and hear what it was that people were really saying to me and not what i wanted to hear when i allowed them the opportunity to talk. The less I talked the more I realized that most men around me were counterfeit and were only saying the things I wanted to hear to conquer me. That made my prayer life change tremendously because at that moment I felt hoodwinked. I was so naive to that I believed everything people told me instead of what they showed me because of that I took a deeper look into myself and realized that it was never them that was the problem but me. I had an identity and an identification problem that needed to be addressed immediately if I ever had any hopes of becoming someone's wife. Then God led me to a sermon that changed my trauma bonding ways forever. That sermon is called “The five steps to identifying your soulmate” By Pastor Toure Roberts (link will be below for your reference)

First things first

Pastor Roberts said “in order to attract what you want you have to become what you want.”

• All the time I spent dating counterfeits and wasting time was only due to me being a counterfeit. All the time people have said “you are who you attract” was true and I now knew it too. The men that I chose for myself had been the exact same as me in some ways (all the bad ways) and I thought I wanted someone like me until I got someone like me and realized that I wasn't that great after all.

• Secondly, I was already in the business of reinventing myself for the better. Why would I try to take someone along the journey who wasn't even trying to change for the better? I said I wanted to be a mother but I said nothing about raising a man so it should've been identified as a no anyway.

• Lastly, if you dont know yourself, how can someone else know who you are?

After his message he left us with five points that I’m going to share with you guys that I hope will help you guys in your decision making and maybe you’ll be able to discern counterfeits from God sends.

5 Keys to Identifying Your “Soulmate”

Soulmate- A person God has chosen for you before the makeup of the world to complete his purpose for you and ensure the fullness of potential being realized (Nothing to do with Love)

1. Yall will have “chemistry”! What's chemistry? Chemistry is a connection with someone.

• Doesn't mean that they’re your boo. However you do realize that there is something there. Some sort of magic. It’s NOT exhausting!

• God will never give you chemistry with someone else’s person. Meaning if they belong to someone else they're not your soul mate. May not be the person they are with soulmate either but you aint God and that aint your business. If they are exclusively seeing someone else they do not need to be seeing you. This is not For The Love of Flavor of Love ain’t nobody competing.

• Dont be a slave to chemistry as you can have chemistry with ANYBODY well before you meet your soulmate.

2. There’s a draw (Need)

• The feeling will be mutual (At the right time). You never have to chase something that’s from God. The entire time you’re feeling a way, they’ll be feeling the same way whether you all speak on it or not. God won’t just speak to you concerning your feelings but he’ll speak to that person as well. Y’all will know. Maybe not at the same time but both will no and be on the same accord when the time is right.

• My main prayer is that when God sends me my person that he will know me by name. I am a wife before he finds me, not when he finds me. I become his wife after he finds me! A girlfriend I am not. Sneaky link. Not that either.

3. Both parties must be WHOLE

• Everybody involved has to have a sense of wholeness. Why? Wholeness qualifies the connection. God doesn't put broken people together (trauma bonding) and expect purpose to be fulfilled.

• Wholeness is not codependency. You must HEAL before being with someone if you dont, you’ll be blaming them for the things someone else has done and that ain't fair.

• Soulmates don’t feel voids. I am good for someone's soul. I don't have time to feel a void I didn’t create. Soulmates compliment the destiny of each person. If you feel empty after a person something is wrong.

• Come to the table full, leave full. Sometimes God has to grow you up for the soul mate you’re not ready for.

Sidenote: God gave Adam Purpose, Identity, Calling and Destiny well before he made Eve.( Do you have the 4?) Adam was working on his purpose, tending to his business before God said “Umm it’s not good for man to be alone. I'll make him a suitable helpmate.” When God created Eve he did two magical things. 1. He put Adam to sleep and 2. He took Adam’s rib in order to create the woman (Man with Womb) why did he do those things? 1. Because God wanted to show us that Man has nothing to do with this. All of this is God’s doing and 2. He took a woman from the man's rib so that man could identify and call her by her correct name when he found her. It’s easier said than done but when you know, you know. Because they’re spirit will feel familiar. When Adam woke up and saw Eve (because God only paraded her he didn’t force their connection.) he said “this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.” Adam didn't choose Eve, God did. God didn’t tell Adam where Eve was from either; he already knew that because something on the inside of him recognized her.

*** Know what it is that you want from a person and then be that person. God already has the picking under control. And his process does not take A LONG TIME either. God created the heavens and the earth in chapter 1. In Chapter 2 Adam was working and tending to his business less than half way into the chapter he said it wasn't good for him to be alone. By verse 23 Adam was telling Eve: you’re my person, you came from me. God does not work on a time schedule when he’s the author of time. Everything that has been God sent never took a long time finding me.

A good indicator that the person you're dealing with is not your soulmate is your ability to not let them go. One thing you don’t have to do is hoarder a soulmate. Go to God about everything. If it’s a soulmate you’ll be okay with letting it go. If you’re afraid to let it go then it’s not from God. Be cool with being by yourself. Adam was whole enough ALONE. When it’s time God will create you a helpmate and parade them in front of you.

4. Divine Confirmation! Do you have a word from God?

• Do you feel the presence of God when you're together?

• Tell God if this is a you thing I want to feel it when we're together. If you don't feel it then God didn't send it.

And lastly….

5. You have to have some sense of purpose.

• Your soulmate is for your purpose. In order to figure out what your purpose is you have to know who you are.

• It’s crucial to find your purpose before the relationship. Because the relationship can change the purpose. Or worse you’ll get in a relationship with someone that is not satisfying to you because it does not ignite purpose in you and now you’ve realized that you’ve made a mistake and now you’re living in your own hell on your own account because you don't listen and neither did you ask. The end goal has to be the same.

• When you find the one you won’t have to change who you are to accommodate them. Puzzle pieces don’t change in order to fit. You have to find they’re piece in order for the puzzle to make sense.

** When you know you know and it’s a no unless God says so. Only God knows how to fill you up so let him…. Be blessed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJutjZ5mm9E5 Keys To Identifying Your SoulMate - Touré Roberts