The Choice to Love; Part I

So, God's been teaching me a lot of things lately. Some of these are things that I'm still processing, and I'm not quite sure how to communicate them yet. But writing always helps me to figure life out, so I'm going to do my best to communicate and...well...we'll see what happens. Rather than doing one, mammoth blog post, I'm going to break my reflections up into 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6 or maybe more) parts. Hopefully, I'll be coherent enough for you to make sense of what I'm trying to say and, as always, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. This post mostly just lays the framework for those that will be following, since I'm not actually planning to talk about human relationships very much.

The Choice to Love; Part I

I don't know about you, but the whole idea of falling in love scares me.

It's the 'falling' part that really puts me off. The very wording paints a vivid picture of a complete loss of control.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not a control freak. I'm fine with other people controlling many aspects of my life. In fact, I actually prefer it sometimes. But I want to give other people control, not lose my own ability to manage things. And, from my observations, 'falling in love' makes a lot of people unable to manage things.

We've all most likely witnessed the transformation of respectable, intelligent, emotionally mature friends or family members into...well, something completely different...whenever they meet THE ONE. And whether that person turns out to actually be their partner for life or just another relationship, the time between the commencement of the relationship and the breakup or the second year of marriage is generally laced with some degree of foolish behavior.

"We're all fools in love." -Jane Austen

Yes, I know that I'm walking on shaky ground here with all this talk about love and relationships. I know that someone's likely to point out the obvious; well, who gave you permission to judge? You're still single! To which I'll respond that no, I don't have much experience in the romantic relationship department, and actually, I'm not trying to judge anyone. But I have experienced emotions and hormones (because, you know, I'm a girl). I'm aware of just how cloudy my judgment can be and I try to avoid making important decisions when I know that my common sense isn't functioning at full capacity. Why? 'Cause I'm concerned that I'll do something ill-advised and hurt other people. Right now, one of the biggest ways I could potentially hurt other people - and myself, and my ministry, and my relationship with God (besides abandoning my relationship with God) - is by pursuing an ill-advised relationship.

Yipes!

I'm a romantic (I mean, I write poetry, for goodness' sake. It doesn't get much more romantic than that). I never really had a problem with the idea of being married, except during one reactionary and immaturely independent stage. But I eventually got over that and no longer feel the need to prove my independence to the world by staying stubbornly alone. However, that whole 'falling in love' bit might well be the reason I'm still single. The idea of making a decision that could effect the next 60 or 70 years of my life while I'm not fully rational scares me to death.

Of course, I fully realize there are ways to prepare for making such a decision in a wiser way and minimizing the potential damage. But still there's risk and the the possibility of damage. While I hope that I won't allow such risks to scare me away from the potential of a good relationship someday, I'm still afraid that heart will over-rule head. I'm still concerned about losing control, about falling...and about the havoc I could wreak in so doing.

And, I suppose, it's not until I meet someone worthwhile (and goodness, I sound so cold and proud when I put it this way!) that benefit will outweigh the risks and all my protestations.