If God designed our relationships and they are supposed to reflect him, help us, and help us to love one another and understand God more, then they should be good. They should not be negative and frustrating the majority of the time. Relationships can be like glass; sometimes it can be better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.

The truth is this: Dating is actually pretty easy. Ask any married couple if it gets more complicated or less complicated when you go from dating to marriage. I promise you they will laugh and then answer you quickly. People shouldn’t be walking away from marriages, but dating is not marriage. Dating is supposed to be the time when you get to know someone and you just enjoy them. And if you really match up with each other you should be able to step back and say “This is a positive experience. It makes me more kind, loving, diverse, happy, closer to God, balanced, and generally a healthier person who is growing in life.” If this is not your experience, perhaps you shouldn’t be in that relationship.

Relationships are not designed so that you have to manage heart break. That is not what God wants for you. He wants us to thrive in them, not just deal with them. And when you think about dating keep this simple thought in mind. Dating should be positive. If it’s not then rethink how you are doing it or who you are doing it with.

— Chad Eastham (Guys are Waffles, Girls are Spaghetti)

Excerpted from Guys are Waffles, Girls are Spaghetti by Chad Eastham. Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Published in Nashville, TN, by Thomas Nelson. Used with permission. All rights reserved.