Four Lessons that Maryjane needs to learn:

Four Lessons that Maryjane Needs to Learn

This past Tuesday, being Maryjane premiered on BET. Most women can identify with her character in some way. Maryjane is the typical Black woman going through life with the basic needs that all humans share. The need to be loved, desired, have companionship, sexual fulfillment, and all. There is nothing wrong with all of those desires, but the way that she is going about it is the wrong way.  She is a woman who gives a lot and covers others like so many of us women do.  We are natural nurturers.   Sometimes, after that nurturing we hope for someone to love, cover, and nurture us. Maryjane gives of herself to her niece,  a brother who depends on her financially, another brother of hers, and her parents making sure they are OK.  She is a single independent, and successful woman who at this point in her life has to work like so many of us single women. Below are four lessons Maryjane should learn in her journey of life and single-hood:

1.) The men that do not respect you come across your path to teach you what you don’t want, as well as help you to appreciate what you really do want which is a man who truly respects you enough to be exclusively yours, a man who will consider your needs as much as his own if not more, a man who will give her real love. This is what Maryjane really wants because if she did not want more she would not have been so upset when her arrangement with do not answer #2, David, did not turn out the way she desired. So, many women settle for the wrong guys because those wrong guys are the only guys that cross their path. However, just because many wrong guys cross our paths doesn’t mean that’s all that we are worth having. Never agree to have a relationship with someone simply because that is what’s available for that moment when you know that isn’t what you really want. Never agree to have a relationship with a person when you sticking with them, is based on whether they will change or not. The individual has to be ready to change for themselves. Maryjane agreed to have a booty-call agreement with David, or do not answer # 2, but as the relationship went on she became upset with him and tried to alter their agreement which blew up in her face. She had a man periodically, but she did not get what she really wanted and it left her frustrated.

2.) Boundaries are set up to protect us. Boundaries are limits or standards that we set for ourselves to keep us safe or to protect us from harm.
God’s word is a boundary in our life teaching us how to navigate  this fallen world where everyone doesn’t have the do-right in them to treat us the way that we deserve. Maryjane seems to identify with religion in some way like most people. In the first episode, she played Detrick Haddon and Darwin Hobbs  “He’s Able” in the car while she was riding her niece somewhere. When her niece wanted her to turn the song off she mentioned that she thought that it would be inspirational.

God’s word is more than inspirational. His commandments give life, and protect our lives. The bible says to abstain from sex outside of the boundary of marriage. Something that Maryjane is not practicing at all. She identifies with God to the degree of religion, but not to the degree of obedience. Now, she finds herself soul-tied to a married man, and another man who doesn’t really want her, but is only using her for his convenience. She takes a back-seat to who she really is, a woman worthy of real-love, to the side-piece, and booty-call chick for the moment. Her heart is wide-open for all of the emotional hurt that we watched her experience over and over again. When will she learn?

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 1 John 5:3
Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die. Proverbs 15:10

God shares in his word that his commandments are not grievous; however the person who views God’s commandments as grievous and chooses to turn away from them will experience some form of loss.
Grievous as defined by dictionary.com means:
1.) causing grief or great sorrow
2.) flagrant; outrageous; atrocious
3.) full of or expressing grief; sorrowful
4.) burdensome or oppressive.
5.) causing great pain or suffering

3.) You have a choice. Take responsibility for how you want your life to turn out.  Just because something is being sold doesn’t mean we have to buy it. If Maryjane had realized the guys she’s allowed in her life weren’t right for her; and stuck to a sound decision of choosing someone who is better suited for what she wants and needs, she could have avoided a lot of her own heartache, but because she doesn’t believe there is anything better out there, she’s made the decision to settle for the scraps. It’s OK to learn and go through heartache in relationships seeing different people’s character and so forth, but when the same thing happens over and over again just with different guys, then you have to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why am I allowing this perhaps I need to make some different choices.

4.) Learn your worth. Love yourself first. When you learn to love yourself certain things you just will not put up with. Take your own self out instead of getting so excited that a guy wants to take you out that  you have to masturbate as Maryjane’s character did. Hang out more around those who love and appreciate you; it will only remind you of your own worth. Instead of her pushing her mother away; She should take her mom out to lunch. Utilize the relationships that God has given you now in this moment that build you up instead of tear you down.