I finally called my discipler to discuss my issues today. Had I made this phone call a week ago, I may have saved myself some heartache, though I may not have. Somewhere between this conversation, 14 hours of sleep, and many unpleasant trips to the bathroom, I was able to formulate some conclusions about the past week.
There is a nasty pattern of behavior in my life...
15 years ago this month, I wrote a love letter to a girl I had liked for two years, with some encouragement from my friends. After receiving no response over the following weekend, I walked into our school cafeteria and was mocked by her friends. Hurt by this, I never initiated conversation with her again.
During a Thanksgiving trip in college, I spent the majority of the weekend with one girl, who made conversation easy and considered my chivalry and respect to be noble. Saturday night, after spending an hour together atop the Empire State Building, we took a walk together, and she expressed that I was pretty much the perfect man. Once I shared that I had strong feelings for her, she felt differently, because she was fixated on a guy that she couldn't even bring herself to talk to. I remained a disappointed and embittered "friend" for the remainder of the school year.
Roughly three years later, I met a girl at a friend's party, and she immediately matched my enthusiasm for romance. I spent the next three months making her the center of my world. She promised me that I had no reason to fear, and that she wouldn't lose interest. After returning from a visit to see her family, I noticed that her demeanor had changed. She told me she needed space. A couple weeks later, I told her that I wasn't interested in just being friends; I couldn't just force my heart to feel differently about her. For the next two years, I watched her jump in and out of relationships with manipulative men, never understanding what I had done wrong.
This is an abridged summary of probably ten women that accepted my emotional investment in them, without reciprocating commitment. To be fair to them all, I allowed myself to continue to emotionally invest myself, even after my expectations were fractured.
Today, I should not be surprised at how quickly I bail at the tiniest indication of doubt. It is still in my true and romantic heart to invest myself fully to a woman of God. But I cannot help but be driven to an uncomfortable level of fear when the indication is given that her enthusiasm does not match mine. Immediately, I draw into my shell of defense that says, "Here we go again."
What is so damaging about my behavior is how poorly it represents the man I am created to be. Every work that has made me more Christ-like is neglected in my pain. As much as I function as an understanding instrument of grace and truth in every other facet of my life, I immediately revert to bitterness, self-righteousness, and justification when faced with my area of pain.
I know that I desire Christ enough to want to rid this from my life, otherwise I will continue to respond to doubt in the same fashion. But this will require a conscious effort everyday, not to mention the grace of the woman who loves me -- that she would know that this is not who I truly am. I can only pray that I would extend the same measure of grace to her.
1 comment:
good words.
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