The dark terrifies me.
Some nights, such as tonight, I sleep with a crescent of light shining from the bedroom corner as if to ward off the menacing shadows of the unseen.
In many ways, this is the same terror I feel over love.
The only thing offering more fear than never loving again is loving again.
Love.
Have I ever known true love outside of the Father? Have I ever given or been an example of true love to the men to whom I've given my heart? Or was the heart I believed I had given only scraps of flesh fashioned in a way mimicking and mocking the true virtues of true love?
Will I be hurt again? Will I hurt someone? How do I protect the men in my life from me?
This very fear and the calling to honor the sons of Our Father have made me conscious of interactions with the opposite sex. I do my best to be purposeful. Calculated. Careful.
How I engage my brothers presently is very different from days before my salvation. The longer the OYC continues, the more I realize this, and the stranger it is to see myself have changed in such a way.
I don't pursue men.
I keep a distance from men to whom I am attracted.
I also keep at arm's length from men I feel may be attracted to me.
What began as an effort to only honor my OYC has translated into training for years to come. I don't flirt. I don't extend inappropriate invitations. I hardly extend invitations at all. Above all else, honor. Honor is protection. For some men, the best protection for their hearts is not being friends. For other men, the best honor is to remove myself from the friendship should I sense myself wanting something more.
As much as this challenge has been about growing into a better person just for me, just for God, it has also very much focused on retraining myself in interaction with men.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out after the challenge is over. Not pursuing men. Will I become so bored of men not pursuing me that I start in on my old ways? Or will I have trained myself to the best of my ability to be a woman who continues to honor not only herself, but those around, and most importantly, her husband?
As much as I've wanted to be dating these last few weeks—more in part to those dating around me than an actual desire in myself to want to date—I realize that in having only 3 months left of this challenge, I owe it to myself, to my future relationships, to my future husband, to God—to not focus on my lack of dating or even a fear of future love, but to presently be in attendance of learning and training myself diligently in the ways of honoring men to the best of my ability. I realize the goal of this challenge is not just to finish it, but to develop myself in such a way that it carries over, having invited God to create in me a completely new heart toward my brothers.
Having spent all years up until now treating men as a commodity won't easily and quickly change. But if I wrestle with this heartily enough, and if I learn to trust myself around men, eventually I will be able to trust the men around me.
And maybe the terror I feel about love will not hang so dark as the shadows of the night then, and the light that is emitted will be enough to shower away the fear of falling in love again. Cascades of light that stem from a guarded heart, sweeping against years of conscious effort, can cause what flows from it to be a source of unwilted redemption and overwhelming fruit.
