Vengeance is a Waste of a Life

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave the way open for [God’s] wrath;
for it is written, Vengeance is Mine,
I will repay (requite), says the Lord.

– Romans 12:19 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

Silence Is Not Weakness

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is how to shut up.

I love to talk. I love learning, and I know that speaking with people gives me experiences that deepen the knowledge I gain through books and other media. Conversation is a gift. But sometimes the greatest wisdom we can apply is silence.

Not silence to intimidate.

Not silence to make a point.

Not silence because fear convinced us we have no voice.

Rather, silence that allows us to stand again in our God-given authority. Silence that reminds us of our dignity and self-worth because we are made in the image of God. Silence that trusts God for who He truly is.

He is Jehovah Tsidkenu—The Lord Our Righteousness.

Righteousness is BEING in right relationship with God and with others. It means living a life aligned with God’s character, His will, and His justice. Righteousness is not about achieving human moral perfection.

God is the Judge of my heart, my character, and even my feelings—not another person.

No human being deserves that seat of authority in my life. Nor in yours.

Godly counsel is different than allowing someone to be the judge of your life, including making yourself the judge.

Forgiveness Requires Boundaries

Many times, we stay silent out of fear of confrontation. When we finally decide to speak up, we end up speaking from a deeply wounded place. Instead of bringing healing, our words become reactions, and the very thing we feared—escalation—begins to unfold.

When two wounded individuals speak from unprocessed pain, they will create more wounds.

When two people understand and accept that they are whole in Jesus Christ, while still allowing Him to continue the lifelong work of sanctification and refinement, something solid has room to grow. We must accept that we have full healing in Jesus Christ for the healing to manifest physically.

I’ve also learned that it’s important to hold space even for people who do not believe in Christ, or who have walked away from the faith. When we truly see another person as a soul made in the image of God, rather than through the lens of our own wounds or insecurities, something beautiful can still grow. That doesn’t mean we compromise our convictions. It means we refuse to reduce people to our assumptions about them.

I believe we can know others because God first knew us.

As I have come to know Him more deeply—not merely through doctrine but through relationship—I have found myself seeing people more clearly. When we understand that we are fully known and fully loved by Him, we become more capable of extending that same kind of presence to others.

We stop trying to control people.

Instead, we cultivate them.

Boundaries Protect Love

This is why boundaries are important.

Learning whether someone truly sees you for who you are is a process.

Some people have stepped away from me because of the faith and convictions I carry. Others seemed interested in me until they realized my standards were more than words—they were choices.

When they knew they couldn’t get what they wanted from me that easily, when they recognized that my standards were not just talk, but actual action, they left.

Through those experiences, I began noticing patterns.

I encountered men who appeared to be looking for validation more than genuine connection. Their identity seemed to depend heavily on the admiration they received from women, even if their outward behavior appeared morally restrained (i.e. not fornicating).

By contrast, I’ve also witnessed men whose lives reflected the quiet strength that comes from being rooted in Christ. They treated women with dignity, respect, and genuine care—not because women had earned it, but because their character had been shaped by Jesus. A character shaped by Christ allows a man to operate from wholeness.

To me, a whole man does not need to compete with men or women because he knows who he is in Christ.

He knows he has weaknesses.

He knows that God is his strength.

He knows he is always growing.

His character is rooted in the Truth of Love and in practicing the True Way of Life (Jesus Christ IS the Truth, the Way, and the Life!)

What God Taught Me Through Relationships

When I first became a believer, I saw the world in more black-and-white terms.

If someone wasn’t professing Jesus, then I didn’t want to consider them romantically whatsoever.

Looking back, I can see that part of this came from fear. I was afraid of being hurt again, and I used biblical language to justify that fear. I genuinely believed I already understood what it meant to relate to men healthily.

I didn’t.

Thankfully, God knew that. In His mercy, He even used my bad boundaries to strengthen, mature me, and continue healing my heart.

At the beginning of my walk with Christ, I befriended a man at my first full-time job. Over time, I developed feelings for him, even though he did not believe in God.

Looking back now, I don’t think I was truly drawn to who he was. I was drawn to the fact that he was interested in me.

I still carried the memory of previous wounds. I had already experienced what it felt like to give my heart completely to someone, and that unresolved pain was quietly fueling my attraction to this colleague who became a friend, and eventually someone I thought I loved.

I do believe we cared for one another in the ways we knew how.
But caring isn’t always the same thing as loving well.
In many ways, he tolerated me.
In many ways, I treated him like a project.
Neither of those things reflects the kind of love God desires for us.
Love sees someone for who they truly are.
It doesn’t try to rescue them into becoming someone else.

Learning the Difference Between Love and Attachment

Before that relationship, another man had shattered my heart into pieces.

Afterward, he blamed me for his own actions.

I took responsibility for the ways I had hurt him. I apologized. I reached out. I even called him because I wanted us to have closure.

Instead, he ghosted me.

He never apologized, even though I continued extending olive branches whenever I believed the Lord was leading me to pursue reconciliation.

At the time, I believed reconciliation meant that we would eventually speak again.

I kept equating his speaking to me as him loving me and being chosen; this belief led me to keep abandoning myself.

Over time, I sensed the Lord teaching me something deeper.

Reconciliation wasn’t simply about restoring communication.

It was about making both of us new.

That kind of work takes time.

The silence became excruciating because it forced me to wrestle with questions I couldn’t answer.

Did he ever really love me?

Were his feelings genuine?

During that season, I believed the Lord kept reassuring me that what we had shared had been real. Yet I eventually reached the place where I released the outcome.

At first, I released it out of frustration.

Eventually, I released it out of respect for myself.

I realized that if God truly intended our lives to intersect again, I didn’t have to force it.

If reconciliation was part of His will, it would begin with God’s work in both of our hearts before it ever became visible in our circumstances, and it would happen organically. God speaks to our spirits until our souls come into alignment with the truth of what God says, but that means that genuine transformation must happen first.

Learning Where My Identity Comes From

One of the greatest lessons from that season was realizing that whether one man loved me or not had nothing to do with whether I was lovable.

If Jesus is truly the Lover of my soul, then my future is not limited by one person’s decision.

If that reconciliation never came to pass, then surely God would still remain faithful.

Praying that God would force someone to feel a specific way about me (not that He would even answer that – He respects us too much to mess with our free will) would be witchcraft. Surrendering the outcome was faith in action.

I also realized something much harder to admit.

I had given another human being far too much authority over how I saw myself.

My confidence rose and fell depending on whether I felt chosen.

That was never a foundation strong enough to build a lasting relationship.

As I prayed, I sensed the Lord showing me that He was inviting me to build my identity somewhere else entirely.

Not in another person’s affection.

Not in another person’s attention.

But in His truth.

In His love.

In His validation.

Looking back now, I can even understand why that separation became necessary.

Without it, I might never have learned how often I abandoned myself while believing I was simply being loving.

I still care deeply about him.

I still pray for him.

And I continue entrusting every unanswered question to God rather than trying to answer them myself.

Discernment Is More Than Shared Belief

Later, while I was still waiting and continuing to grow in my faith, I met another man.

This time, things seemed different.

We met while reading the Bible together.

Our friendship grew naturally, and eventually he even began attending church with me for the first time in years.

When we started dating, I truly believed this relationship might be blessed by God.

That same week, however, he was unable to come meet my pastor so that we could receive godly counsel together.

During that season, my bishop shared a prophetic word with me.

As I prayed about it afterward, I believed the Lord was reminding me to continue waiting for the reconciliation I had already been carrying in prayer.

My convictions shifted.

My feelings did not.

Not immediately.

Then one day he asked me, “So…what are we? Friends with benefits?”

Those words crushed me. I felt thoroughly disrespected, offended that this man could see me any other way than the way that he had professed to see me. But also grateful for the clarity that was arising. 

What I realized in that moment was weighty. 

Part of me had hoped he would fight for me.

Part of me hoped this relationship would somehow become God’s answer instead.

Instead, that conversation exposed something I hadn’t yet wanted to see.

I’m grateful now because it taught me an important lesson.

A person can know Christian language without allowing Christ to transform their heart.

True spiritual power changes us from the inside out.

It reshapes our character, transforms our desires, and most importantly teaches us how to love well.

As painful as that experience was, I now believe God protected me from building a future with someone who, at that point in his life, did not have the emotional, spiritual, and relational maturity to walk alongside me in the way I believed marriage would require. That isn’t a condemnation of him.

It’s simply an acknowledgment that compatibility in God’s purposes involves much more than mutual attraction or shared vocabulary.

In all of this, I never prayed for anyone’s downfall. Just for them to be blessed with healing, growth, wisdom, understanding, and for each of these men to find their future wives. I never wanted to impede what God has for them and for me.

To serve God is to be selfless.

But GOD!

But GOD!

There was another lesson the Lord still needed to teach me.

God showed me that what I also needed to pray for was to be vindicated. I blamed myself for all of the pain that I allowed men to cause me, thinking that was taking accountability on my part, begging God not to let me hold onto ANY unforgiveness, scared that my heart was too corrupted to let go, that some unforgiveness would hide somewhere deep in my heart, and that the wound would impede me from having the capacity to recognize who was meant to grow in purpose with me.

Deep down, I always think, “Who am I not to forgive? If God forgives me, how could I not forgive someone made in His image?”

So God showed me that part of healing is ACCEPTING HIS JUSTICE, which was something I struggled with because how is it that you get justice for wrongs done based in wounds that you gave access to because of your own wounds? How do you measure righteousness in all of that?

Only God could tell me.

Sometimes I felt justice meant, “Let them feel what I feel.”

But that is revenge, not God’s righteousness.

God judges those who refuse to repent, and He disciplines those who do repent and turn to face Him without hiding, making excuses, or lying about how they actually feel. So instead of judging them in my heart or mind, I let them go to God, honest about the pain, and accepting whatever God chooses to do. Whether His judgment would be wrath or discipline was ALL up to Him. Not me.

I don’t know the depths of their souls to know what would make the most sense, but God does.

All I know are the feelings I feel, the knowledge I hold, and the belief that fuels me to keep going.

The Danger of Potential

Today, I have no suitors—not the man I believe God told me would pursue me, and not any of the previous men in my life.

If anything, some confusing feelings started to arise for a man who I thought was showing me nothing but kindness and genuine connection, without any ulterior motive. But alas, attention when you’re starving for connection almost looks like the same thing.

I love him like a brother, and considered him a close friend. Knowing we make a great team makes me think we could build a good future. He is even curious about my faith, and knew how to seem thoughtful about it too.

But sometimes we project what God has told us about someone if they were to choose Him onto who they are now, and that was how those confusing feelings began.

Let people’s actions speak for who they are now.

Potential is never holy ground. Sanctification is.

Both are different, though they momentarily look similar.

Because I valued his friendship, and because that prophecy was still at the back of my mind, I chose to surrender my feelings for him to God. I had grown accustomed to him being someone I could speak to about almost anything, despite us not being from the same kingdom.

You see, a kind person, when operating from their own flesh, will always look to satisfy their own needs over seeing how to serve your needs. Yet we are called to serve one another in the Kingdom of God.

So instead of cutting him loose sooner, I would make excuses by abandoning my needs and being overly understanding of who he is and why he moved the way he did, until God made his character now clear to me instead of allowing me to keep living in the “but, maybe’s.”

Faith Does Not Diminish Your Humanity

I’m learning how to fully let go emotionally while still having an honest space for those feelings, which has been a process.

There are days when I find myself asking God to cancel the prophecy, as I often get tired of waiting when my only source to keep holding on is my faith, because faith DOES NOT diminish your humanity nor your feelings.

I hope that the reconciliation will be two-in-one: not just a blossoming friendship but a fruitful partnership.

It’s scary to write this publicly where he can see this.

This is how God made me to operate, though: vulnerable, real, and with sensitivity to love.

I can’t help being the romantic that I am.

To diminish feelings is to suppress them. Walking by faith and not by sight doesn’t mean ignoring emotions, but using our emotions to gauge what God is healing, confirming, and leading us to.

The fruit of the Spirit carries an emotional energy and vibration that cannot be counterfeited.

So know yourself fully, so you aren’t a slave to your nervous system’s triggers by surrendering your mind, will, and emotions to Jesus Christ, and He will respond with something more beautiful than you could have imagined in your own consciousness—something deeper, like a spiritual neurological system God implemented in the Universe to explain faith in action in a scientific manner.

Maybe that’s why people confuse the Universe for God.

I know I did.

Faith honors humanity when fully aligned with Jesus Christ.

When the Enemy Uses Fantasy

You know what is funny?

The enemy can mimic love so well through the use of fantasy.

When I chose to let go of my feelings for the man that IS currently in my life (we work together), it was originally because I couldn’t picture not having his friendship for the rest of my life. Yet he had never expressed that depth of care for me. I was his “work buddy” while he was someone I loved like a brother, someone I would confide in, and someone who I thought genuinely saw my value.

Before I saw how wrong I was, those feelings would cause me to imagine a beautiful life fantasy together—one where we would make art, travel and work together. He would say he was cynical about love, yet I would still think he was a romantic at heart.

I saw myself in him, and he knew that.

He wanted me to see him in this light because it validated his pride and ego.

He knew that when he was feeling sad, and he denied it, I could see it in his eyes and would offer a hug, encouraging words, and a listening ear. And because I would pray for him, I started to feel protective over him spiritually.

Sometimes, because I would see the growth in him, I would start to imagine us growing together even more intimately, walking more closely together, building a legacy.

If our purposes aligned in God, if God marked this as something deeper, I would open my heart to him all the way and take the leap of faith and be with him, but only if he pursued me like a gentleman.

But life can NOT be built on “ifs.”

It must be built on the truth of who someone is, not who you hope for them to be one day.

I find myself taking every imagination captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ now, because the enemy loves to manipulate our feelings so we obsess over someone so we think it is love.

Obsession looks like devotion in the beginning, until the mask falls.

I believe everything in my life must resonate with His Spirit, including imaginations.

Besides, some imaginations are based on what someone else is projecting onto you, which usually points to an inner wound that needs to be healed. Even if they deny it with their words—the Holy Spirit will never lie to you—people tell on themselves based on the psychological patterns they abide in.

People who don’t love themselves love controlling the narrative that other people have of them, so they have mastered the art of appearing righteous and/or loving. I tend to assume people are being genuine because of emotional intimacy, but what I needed to also understand is that some people love you for the emotional labor that you do for them, not for who you are.

Jealousy is felt, but not mentioned, because being honest would mean that their own conception of who they are would be challenged in that instance.

God always exposes what is hidden in His timing.

We are people, not vending machines.

For there is nothing hidden
that shall not be disclosed,
nor anything secret
that shall not be known and
come out into the open.

– Luke 8:17 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

Casting down every vain imagination is a discipline I’m exercising every day because I see the future God has for him a lot more than he thinks, and it draws me in, so I always have to remind myself I am choosing to continue living in purpose by focusing on whatever Jesus Christ wants for my life.

Holy Boundaries

I’ve also been used to the bare minimum in my life, so I thought that the kindness this man I deemed my friend showed me was genuine love, given that I knew he believed in God a long time ago and had even been a willing vessel in serving God.

I let that information cloud my understanding, thinking it was God’s understanding and wisdom, rather than me using history to justify my own feelings towards him.

He was familiar and therefore comfortable to me.

When I care, I DEEPLY care.

What I thought I saw in his heart has some elements of truth to it, but most of it was hidden underneath what appeared to me as a counterfeit light that turned out to be deep darkness, like the “enlightenment” and “wokeness” of the world; it is empty sight based on flawed human understanding.

I love him, but I’m grateful for the clarity that has freed me from holding onto the burdens of his own life.

There is a time when we minister so much that we need to let go, because otherwise, we give someone access to abuse the grace God is showing them through us.

And God does NOT stand for abuse.

He is an understanding Judge, not a benevolent pushover.

He is a God of boundaries and order, NOT confusion.

That is why I believe Holy Boundaries are part of God’s justice playing out in my life.

Prophecy is what God wants because prophecy IS the Spirit of Jesus. So I let go of the “could be’s” with some sadness, but also knowing that this must be the best timeline we could live.

Choosing God’s will over any desire to play out a movie we watched unconsciously is better.

You can’t change the past; you can only walk towards destiny by choosing the RIGHTeous choice today. TODAY. Not later.

Humans have free will, and prophecy hinges on people’s free wills aligning with God’s will.

Justice Through Obedience

So what have I learned from all of this?

How is this tied to God’s justice?

Well, I could have easily fornicated out of a reactive belief that I was hurting the man in the prophecy, in a vain attempt to make him jealous. I could have also pursued the man in the friendship I broke off if I didn’t value myself so much.

I have enough self-respect to understand that being a woman who pursues is outside of God’s order.

If the enemy convinced me I could get him to love me the way I want to be loved by lying to myself instead of being honest about where we are both at in life and where our hearts’ desires lie, I would have forced a lustful relationship that would have caused destruction in many areas of my life.

Because my deepest desire is to abide and live out God’s will in my life, God saved me from the self-sabotaging cycles I kept finding myself in due to a lack of love towards myself as His precious princess.

God’s justice plays out in the actions that we take, because heeding His voice is the pathway for Him to redeem all the years of people’s injustice through their mistreatment by getting us to implement a system meant to protect us:

Holy Boundaries.

Then He gives us peace to know that these people will all reap what they have sown, meaning that the pain and confusion they caused me will ultimately be dealt with by God in the manner needed for them to come to repentance and the fear of the Lord.

I don’t have to make that happen.

I don’t have to become their judge.

I don’t have to become petty.

Me trying to be petty toward someone I let hurt me is a waste of time, energy, and life.

Vengeance is the Lord’s, not our right.

His vengeance, His justice, His righteousness is His gift meant to heal the parts of our hearts that were stepped on, like the Rose of Sharon was stepped on. The value and aroma were still present, even in the pain of being overlooked and being treated unfairly when what was being offered was genuine love and support.

Surrendering the Timeline

So I won’t wait until he notices me.

I will surrender my timing for the man in the prophecy and trust that God will do what He said He would because He is not a man that He should lie, nor a man that He should repent.

I’ll stay present by living fully in God’s will, conscious of who He is, that He lives in me, and that He gives me all I need.

His understanding for my life is what causes me to follow His wisdom.

His way of living is what creates joy and peace in my spirit.

His loving nature keeps me patient and kind.

My own limited understanding through a logical framework of my feelings is a shadow of the healing that comes through the processing of my emotions through God’s mind—His Spirit speaking tenderly through stillness in His presence.

Let Him rewire your nervous system by meditating and being still in Him.

The enemy tries to keep planting dreams of something more with this man I unfriended because I see him so often, and he uses my history of romanticizing previous male friendships, and because the past two men I dated while being a follower of Christ started out as friendships.

But my relationship with God makes me believe in the prophecy God gave me.

And I have wrestled with God about this connection, and God showed me that I am too valuable to settle for breadcrumbs of love when I give feasts.

If I wasn’t so aware of why holding onto this imagination isn’t good for me, I would live here for years until something more happened.

But waiting around for someone to choose you is not fun.

You can love someone deeply without being romantically entangled with them.

Not every close connection is meant to be something more, and not every friendship is meant to last.

Let God expose the hidden enemies rather than feeling validated in being liked by so many people.

“Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.
If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.”

– Galatians 1:10 (New Living Translation)

Faith has to be at the center of everything.

Therefore, God’s justice must prevail in every aspect of my life, including being vindicated from the pain of choosing wrong based on potential in the past and giving myself so fully to so many men, just like the woman at the well with the multiple husbands, rather than having the assurance of faith.

If God is at the center—if He gives the okay, if a man fights for you through God—then that’s the most romantic love story ever, because that reflects the heart of God deeply.

Also, my name means princess, and I expect a prince.

And what does a prince do?

He pursues with chivalry.

It means the character of royalty, not the performance.

It’s found in the mindfulness of action, the depth of self-mastery, a conscious meditation on Jesus Christ and how He is found in everything.

Nothing is complete without Him.

Silence Is an Act of Faith

I do not hold ill will toward anyone who hurts me, because I was the one who gave them access to hurt me—you decide who you let into your soul.

I know that whatever unfolds next will be in God’s will, and He will keep me innocent in His court because of the pure heart posture I am staying aligned to. And He will do the same for you if you just believe and surrender to Jesus Christ.

I began this by saying that silence is not weakness.

I believe that now more than ever.

Sometimes silence is simply the decision to stop trying to control what belongs to God.

Not silence to intimidate.

Not silence to make a point.

Not silence because fear convinced us we have no voice.

Rather, silence that allows us to stand again in our God-given authority.

I can still feel.

I can still hope.

I can still love.

I can still be the romantic that I am.

But I don’t have to chase what God has not asked me to chase.

I don’t have to force what God has not asked me to force.

I don’t have to manipulate someone’s free will to make prophecy come true.

I don’t have to avenge myself when vengeance belongs to the Lord.

I can surrender my feelings without pretending they aren’t there.

I can bring my questions to God without demanding that He answer them on my timeline.

I can wait without waiting around.

I can love without being romantically entangled.

I can believe in what God has spoken without building my life around “ifs.”

And I can be silent—not because I am defeated, not because what happened didn’t matter, and not because I have nothing to say, but because I trust the God who sees what I cannot.

Silence is not weakness.

Silence is an act of faith.