Step #7:  Learn the power of redemption. Have you learned how to make a comeback? Have you learned that mistakes aren’t fatal, that you can learn and grow and improve, that failure comes from quitting rather than from making mistakes? Do you know forgiveness – how to experience it and how to grant it?  Do you cut people slack when they foul up?  Are you a person of the “second chance”? Have you learned how to meet in the middle?

Relationships are about failure and redemption. Many people don’t know how to fail and come back. They hide when they make mistakes and pout and hold grudges when they’re hurt. And most people don’t know how to let others fail and come back. They can’t make themselves apologize when they’ve caused the problem, and they can’t forgive when the other person has messed up big-time. If you don’t know and practice the power of redemption, you will never be able to build a serious relationship with another complex and fragile human being.

If you can work on these seven powerful steps, you will indeed become a person worth knowing and marrying. You don’t do it to find a marriage partner, though. You do it to find a life.

But here’s some exciting news:  If you become this type of person, you stand a good chance of being interesting to a person of the opposite sex who is becoming the same kind of person.

Get out of the way, world!

Excerpted from "Am I the One? Clues to Finding & Becoming a Person Worth Marrying" by James R. Lucas.  Copyright © 2002, James Lucas.  ISBN 0-8054-2573-X.  Published by Broadman & Holman Publishers.  Used by permission.  Unauthorized duplication prohibited.

James R. Lucas is the Executive Director of the Relationship Development Center and a noted international speaker.  He has authored ten previous books including the Broadman & Holman titles:  "A Perfect Persecution" and "Walking Through the Fire."