There are stories that break your heart and there are stories, like this one from Facebook user Treszka Tio Oliveria, that has the ability to make you feel hopeful and courageous about facing new things.
In her Facebook post, she shares her love story with her now husband Mark Oliveria and the journey they both took with God to get to where they are now. She even shared a photo of them from way back and wrote how things were so different back then.
Then that moment came, that moment when she knew or had a feeling as to what she can do. She continued walking towards that direction, while without knowing, her then boyfriend was watching her.
"I knew any relationship that wasn't built out of God's love can last for lots of years, but will become so poisoning. We could date for 10 years, but those can be 10 miserable years. Our situation was in a unique case that time, because I was pregnant. So I asked him to just continue giving me space to learn and pray for this.
"Little did I notice that as I walked with the Lord, Mark was closely watching. And I guess that's what gave him the inspiration. My walk in getting to know God was different from Mark's. We knew we had to grow individually before we could grow our relationship."
In the end, Treszka learned a very important lesson: That you can't make anyone change for you.
"But the truth is, you cannot make anyone change."
"I didn't understand this when my mom repeatedly reminded this to me when I was 16. I had a boyfriend who would always tell me 'I have changed for you. I am a bad boy but you make me want to be good'. Loool. But back then, I felt like a superhero. It caused me lots of heartbreaks to learn that my mom was right.
"Change comes from love, from real love. The love that was demonstrated to us by God. The love that forgives, encourages and the love that is selfless. Not the love we think we get from relationships. When I fell in love with the Lord, that's what inspired me to be a better person."
Ahhh, how inspiring. But if you think they're perfect now, she admits that they're not.
"Guys, Mark and I are sinners. We are not too different from others. The difference probably is that we choose to surrender every day. We both need to keep on growing. Learning and growing should never stop. We share this story with you to inspire you that change is never too late and to show you the wonders God can do if you let Him guide you. Do not expect perfection, but expect things to be better than today.
"And we admit, without God, there probably will be no 'us' today."
Aww, Treszka and Mark are now happily married and they now have their own family. There are a lot of things we learned from their love story, but we're directing you to what she's written because we couldn't have said things better.
This story originally appeared on Candymag.com.
* Minor edits have been made by the Femalenetwork.com editors.
