The Reason for the Season

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth!

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Blessed Christmas everyone!!! Let us keep the Christ in Christ-mas!!! God became flesh to reconcile us to Him! What love!!!!!

Not-So-Simple Rule #6: You Can't Make Bad Batter Better by Adding Good Batter to It!

I have neglected my Not-So-Simple Rules for too long! So here we go again!

First let me be upfront and say Rule #6 is especially for R! Yes I can hear you screaming :) But trust me, this one you really really need to know.

Rule #6 - You can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.

A good cook will tell you, if you made a batch of batter for pancakes or waffles or fried chicken and it didn't turn out right, just throw it away and start afresh. That would be the best option. But many amateur cooks and cost conscious mums try to make the bad batter better by adding stuff to it - like more butter or more flour or more cream or even add it to a batch of good batter and hope that the good batter will mask the mistake and somehow 'rescue' the bad batter :)

But the end result, my daughters, is always that the bad batter ends up costing you more - more money, more wasted time, more heartache, more frustration. It would have really been better to throw out the bad batter and start afresh. You really can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.

So what does all this have to do with dating? You can't date a 'bad boy' and think that you ("the good batter") will be the one to change him. (I can hear you screaming again.)

You see, my daughters, many women are drawn to 'bad boys' - especially the ones who seem to be waiting to be rescued; from themselves. There is a little bit of "the saviour" mentality in many women; maybe it is the maternal, nurturing instinct in us, maybe it is the innate desire to fix things and make it better.... The fact remains that many women are drawn to 'bad boys' and we begin to think that we will be the ones who will make the difference - that all that this guy needs is a friend who believes in him, a friend who accepts him and is willing to stand by him while he works through his problems etc etc etc....... But trust me, my daughters, there is wisdom in Jeremiah's words "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil." (Jer 13:23) Bad boys can't be made good. Instead it will be the good girls who will get drawn into an unrewarding, demeaning and destructive relationship in the end.

I don't think I need to describe these 'bad boys' to you. They walk around with a devil-may-care attitude, they admit to having a huge problem that they want to break but can't (smoking, drinking, drugs, anger, gangs etc etc ) and then suggest in some ways that maybe they can't change on their own - their family doesn't believe in them (their mother / father / abusive siblings / step parents - the variety I have heard is endless), they don't have true friends, noone cares... Then they will talk of themselves as misunderstood beings, guys who could be someone different if only.....

That "if only" my daughters, must not be YOU! :) No, you cannot help him quit smoking, no you cannot be his friend while he is in a gang, no your friendship isn't going to save him, no you must not spend hours on the phone counselling him, no you cannot go with him to talk to these people who are making his life miserable.

And if, my daughters, you have already started a friendship trying to fix one of these "bad boys", you must have the strength to end it because the "bad boy" date is also emotionally manipulative. You will get calls and sms messages that portray him in different dire situations, his friends will call on his behalkf to talk to you, he will moon around in your presence, you will get messages that he is crying or drunk or suicidal. So you see, it is better not to get into one of these friendships at all because you will be sucked into a relationship that will drain you and get you in deep waters because the fact is, the saviour he needs is not YOU.

Dating a "bad boy" will mean moving from one calamity to another, from one situation to another because even when there are no problems, he will invent one as it is your sympathy that is keeping you hooked. And as long as he can keep you sympathetic, as long as he keeps you believing that he needs you, you will stay. And that will be a disastrous decision. So, my daughters, if the batter is bad, chuck it down the kitchen sink no matter how tempted you are to try and save it. Because you can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.