Terrified: A Blog on Dating

Terrified.

That’s how I feel when I sit down to write this. It’s been well over a year since I published a blog, mostly because my writing is an overflow of what I’m learning—and what I’ve been learning has seemed far too vulnerable to share. Because it revolves around dating.

I chose not to date for the majority of my life for a variety of reasons: I was too busy, it was scary, no one seemed interested in me…and mostly, because I hated vulnerability. It was vulnerable to say yes to dating someone, even more vulnerable to ask someone out. 

Yet after a few years of therapy and a truly supportive group of friends, I decided to try a dating app, which led me to Josh. Two years later, Josh and I are still together, and dating has taught me more than I imagined about God, about myself, and about others. Vulnerable as it may be, I hope to write about the moments that have changed me most—starting here.

It had been a long day, and I was overwhelmed by emotions. I had spent the previous two days wondering about the relationship, worrying I was making the wrong decision, and paralyzed by the mere concept of a long-term relationship. When I make plans, I always have a plan B and plan C—I always have a way out, an escape hatch, if you will. I also tend not to share my concerns or worries with others because firstly, they’re often absurd worst case scenarios, and secondly, to admit my fears is to admit weakness. And as we all know, that’s not my strong point. 

It turns out that this kind of thinking does not lend itself well to dating; in fact, it produces a huge amount of anxiety and will land you on your boyfriend’s futon, crying and covered in snot, refusing to hold a conversation and repeating, “It’s fine,” over and over.

This is why one of the things I appreciate most about Josh is his willingness to face difficult things head on. When I lay there on the futon, I repeatedly turned my head away from his, trying to hide my tears. 

He knelt on the floor by my side and gently—but firmly—put his hands on my face and turned me so I was facing him. 

He broke through my desire to stay hidden, to live in the facade I had created where tears meant weakness, where denial of weakness meant it didn’t exist.

When he turned my face and I looked into his eyes, all my fear and my shame were met with concern and with kindness. Instinct told me to pull away, but each time I did, he gently turned me back toward him so he could look me in the eyes. Eventually, he held my face in place so I could not turn—and finally, when the shame was gone (but the tears and snot were not), I didn’t want to look away at all.

Josh isn’t perfect—actually, this whole story occurred in the middle of a fight—but still, I met Jesus in a new way in that moment, and in the moments to come (there have been many), when this same scenario played itself out over and over again.

When I think back on this experience, I think of how I so often turn away from Jesus’ face—on a daily basis, even! How in shame, I make split-second choices not to pray about something, or I believe there’s no way He could want to see my tear-stained, sinful self.

Yet He does. Gently—yet firmly—He puts his hands on my face and turns me toward Him, turning me to look in His eyes. And I am met with grace, with kindness. 

How tenderly He redirects my gaze! Over and over again, I look to myself to fix earth’s problems, and over and over I find myself entangled in a web of shame and guilt, believing lies and fixating on unfixable things.

The root lie is that I am not worthy of love and belonging—and then, the web of solutions entangles:

If I lose weight, I will be worthy.

If I make more money, I will be worthy.

If I own a business, I will be worthy.

Gently—yet firmly—He turns my eyes back to Him. There is nothing in the world as stunning as His face, but somehow I get distracted anyway. Slowly, I am beginning to understand that the brokenness of the world can be a blessing, if only to show me there is nothing like His face.

I am like a child standing at a locker with the combination lock code written down in bold letters before me, but who chooses to try to open the lock by trial and error. Jesus, in His patience, stands with me.

0000 doesn’t work. He redirects my eyes to the key—to Himself.

0001 doesn’t work. He turns my face toward Him.

0002. He puts His hand under my chin and lifts until my eyes meet His.

0003…

Again and again, gently—yet firmly—Jesus puts his hands on my face and turns me toward Him. No amount of shame (or snot) will deter Him from turning my face to Him.

And it hits me: He doesn’t just want me to see Him. He wants to see me. Because I am valuable. I am worthy of love and belonging. 

Love, belonging, and me—we find our place in His eyes.

Permissions for Life

Over the past couple years "permission" has become very meaningful word to me. It all started when I first came back from spending the summer in Cambodia a couple years ago. I was struggling with reentry to the States and was reading a wonderful blog post by Rocky Reentry that talked about the need to give yourself permission to grieve when you leave a culture.

Permission. In it I find grace and forgiveness. Through it I find freedom. In this season of life, rather than make a list of tasks or goals to complete this year, here are a few things I'm focusing on giving myself permission for.

1. Permission to say things you're not supposed to say

By that I don't mean I'm going to say things like, "That dress looks terrible with those shoes on you" (I'm not the one to consult for fashion advice anyway). I mean saying things like, "Truth be told, sometimes I get scared, and right in this moment I don't want to go to Cambodia." That doesn't mean I won't step on the plane tomorrow anyway (emotions are fickle, anyway, and in 5 minutes I could be pumped about going). It just means fear gets to me sometimes, and it's a very real battle to walk by faith and not by sight.

After growing up inchurch, it can seem un-Christian to be open about our struggles. It's incredibly difficult for me to be vulnerable about fear and faith when it comes to Cambodia—and any change. Yet perhaps admitting our weaknesses and clinging to His grace is the most Christlike thing we can do in these moments.

2. Permission to feel and own emotions

I'm not sure where the idea that emotions—particularly sadness and grief—are weaknesses came from originally. I believed that idea for a very, very long time, but the opposite is true. It takes far more courage to face fear and grief than to run from it.

I've learned the hard way that when we try to numb an uncomfortable emotion, we end up numbing all emotion. For years, I refused to let myself feel emotions because I didn't want to feel grief. A monumental moment for me last year was purchasing a box of tissues. (I know, kind of lame.) But it meant acknowledging tears and grief and in a way, welcoming them. Sometimes we all just need a reminder that it's okay not to be okay. Though it's difficult to sit with my emotions and feel my feelings (I'm not really an ushy gushy type of person), owning, feeling, and sharing emotions is an incredibly healthy practice.

3. Permission to love and take care of myself

This one can also seem downright un-Christian sometimes. What happened to "put others before yourself" and "God first, others second, and yourself last"?

I'm not sure I believe in that mantra anymore. If I'm not taking care of myself, how can I care for others? This is very obvious in the physical realm: if I have a diabetic patient who doesn't take care of his body's nutritional needs, he'll end up with life-threatening blood sugars, wounds that won't heal, hospital stays, etc that will prevent him from physically being able to help those around him. The same—maybe even to a greater extent—can be said for mental, emotional, and spiritual self care. The Lord commanded us to love others as we love ourselves. I think as we learn to love ourselves better, we will learn to love others better too.

4. Permission to ask for what I need

In a way, asking for what I need is part of learning to take care of myself. It's a way of setting boundaries. This is still new to me, so when I put it into practice it feels awkward and like I'm bumbling my way through.

This process is two-step: it requires me to know what I need (self awareness), and then it challenges me to follow through with the action of asking for it. One reason I'm drawn to this practice is that it helps prevent me from blaming others and playing the victim. It's easy to blame people for "not being more sensitive to my needs" or "walking all over me." But in the long run maybe it's better to muster up the courage to clarify boundaries and ask for what I need instead of assuming others will automatically know.

5. Permission to fail often and miserably

This is perhaps the hardest for me to write and accept. The perfectionistic side of me screams that this is heresy. Yet I have found failing often means more growth than success does, and my quality of life soars when I can accept my imperfections.

It's absolutely impossible to move forward in life without failing, without falling flat on my face. So I may as well make a break for it and stumble my way toward living a more full and joyful life.

Perhaps what makes failure so dreadful is not the falling itself or the pain or the slow process of getting back up or even the guarantee that it will all happen again soon. Perhaps the worst thing about it is the shame of knowing others will see me fall. They will see I am a fraud; I am not perfect. I am weak and scraped up and sometimes so broken I seek professional help to get back up. Yet I am encouraged by the wisdom Elizabeth Gilbert received long ago and now shares in her book Big Magic (p. 174):

"'We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we're so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won't be completely free until you realize this liberating truth—nobody was thinking about you, anyhow.'" —Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't want to wait until I'm sixty to live from that truth.

6. Permission to forgive myself

With #5 comes, in all likelihood, the fact that I will make a fool of myself. And with making a fool of myself comes the challenge of forgiving myself.

A few months ago I was struggling with the concept of mercy, and a friend told me how one of the Hebrew words [checed] in the Bible that's translated "mercy" is also translated "steadfast love." I'm not a Hebrew scholar or anything, but this helped me grasp mercy. It made sense to me. In some cases, mercy and steadfast love are synonymous. This new perspective makes it easier to accept the Lord's mercy and understand how I can show mercy toward myself. To forgive myself, I must love myself. 

I'm still thinking through several other things I would like to give myself permission for, and I have a feeling it'll be a lifelong process to put these into practice. But keeping these in mind helps me keep my inner critic in check, and the liberating thing is there is no time limit—they are lifelong permissions, and they are permissions for a more abundant life.
 

How do you pursue living a more abundant life?

Are there things you would like to give yourself permission for or have learned to give yourself permission for in the past?