THE WAITING
I’ve said before that if I had been then who I am now, most of the relational decisions I made would never have happened. The first few times I said it, it might have been with the intention of shading those someones that I used to know. After a while, it became less about who was at fault and solely in reverence to the truth that mismatched goes both ways. Someone being wrong for me equally means I’m wrong for them too. Of course, we’re a little more generous with the grace when we realize that even our best efforts don’t make us the best fit.
When we talk about waiting, we think about delayed gratification and abstaining from physical intimacy. It makes sense, when we talk about fasting, the first thing we think about is how it’ll work when we get hungry. It’s in our nature to resist things that might be beneficial to us because we don’t see how the benefit of withholding outweighs the benefit of engaging.
Abstaining, celibacy, temporary asexuality, whatever you want to call it, the benefits far outweigh the physical. Aside from being certain protection against unplanned pregnancy and diseases, abstaining protects your mental and emotional health as well.
I’m sure we’ve all seen articles or video explanations of the scientific breakdown of what sexual intimacy does to us. I’ve heard things that were meant to explain why women are more susceptible to emotional attachment after becoming physical and as much as I love and respect science, I don’t know to what extent any of it is true. What I can vouch for is experience. I have experience that says that vetting (dating) a prospect without crossing the lines of physical intimacy makes it easier to move on when the connection proves unfruitful.
My experience says that the emotional investment I’ve prematurely placed in improperly vetted relationships has added to the archives of memories that bouts of depression call on to guilt and shame me. Bouts of anxiety call on those same experiences in the war against my hope for my future and though depression and anxiety aren’t always circumstantially triggered, those moments of personal impropriety have become munition for the darkness that tries to rise up against me mentally and emotionally on any given day.
The thing about it all is, if we never give ourselves a chance to experience something new, we have no alternative information to test our process against. After 4+ years of abstaining, 4+ years of shifting the way I process attraction, and 4+ years of mental, emotional, and spiritual growth, it makes the way I did things before feel ridiculous to the tune of "how did I not know better?" There’s grace for that, but there’s also a relief that comes with knowing that short of the proof that looking back from a 50-year anniversary would be, there are sufficient results in the shift in process. Waiting has cleared space for mental and emotional restoration. Waiting has allowed me to grow in my identity and it has allowed me to reframe the working vision for my life.
I can imagine what not waiting would have been in those 4+ years of abstaining because I experienced it before making the decision to do something new. I can imagine how I’d be feeling now if in those 4+ years, instead of healing and growing, I was still banking distrust and hopelessness.
There are many other things that add to mental pressure. Love, when done right, should be a reprieve from that. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” - 1 John 4:18
PRAYER
Lord, I’ve done relationships my way and to say I’m discouraged is an understatement. I feel okay when I’m alone-- when the prospect of love is so far ahead of me that it feels mythological in its hypothetical state. When my perspective is the only one I see myself from, I feel a little more capable. The moment a new prospect enters the picture, I’m second-guessing everything there is to me. The moment I meet the capacity of someone who might be a little bit compatible, I freak out, lose every bit of confidence and allow thoughts of fear to absorb every desire, every hope. On the off chance that I feel capable of moving forward, in the chance that I’m encouraged in my interest, the fear of the end takes over. I’m tempted to feel jealous of women I’ve never met. I’m tempted to look for reasons to evacuate. I’m tempted to sabotage every possibility. I know that’s fear. I know that’s not from you, but I don’t know how to conquer it. As much as I need your help to wait on the right offering of love that aligns with who you’ve made me to be and the direction you have for my life, I also need your help to separate my idea of relationships and love from the fears that are embedded in everything I see and hear. I don’t want the history of my experiences to taint the vision of my future ones. Help me to believe that love can exist for me without fear and empower me to wait for it. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
REFLECT
What does love without fear look like? What does it feel like? Who are you as the recipient of love without fear? Who are you as the giver of that love? Read 1 John 4:18 and take as much time as it requires to fully imagine it —as much time as you need to evict the temptation to find it impossible and believe that it could be.