A Commitment

Earlier this month I decided that I was going to shut down all my feelings about girls for a time. My rationale for that was that I wanted to defend myself from pursuing a relationship for the sake of a relationship instead of a young woman for her sake. And I didn't really have anything to lose seeing as I wasn't interested in anyone. Notice how I've been using the past tense for this whole intro? Yeah...

It's a little bit frustrating that within a day of making that choice a young woman here at the school started catching my eye. Or more accurately, started catching my eye a whole lot more. I have noticed her plenty as a wonderful young woman, but never in the sense of liking her. So now I'm faced with a quandary. How do I deal with these feelings? 


I didn't set a timeline for how long I was going to shut them down. I was expecting to have an idea when the time was right, but I sure know that it shouldn't be a day later that it gets thrown out the window. I made that commitment when I wasn't interested in anybody, when it was easy to make it because there was absolutely nothing to lose. But now that my mind has changed a little is that good cause to expect that to be the sign that I don't need to respect that choice anymore? No, that would be foolishness. 


So what does it mean to shut down my feelings then? Well, I know that it would be exceptionally foolish to just begin ignoring her. I've had bad experiences related to making that decision about girls. I've lost one (formerly) close friend and only by God's grace another relationship has been healed despite my bad decisions. So ignoring is out. I don't want to lose that friendship. Next, I refuse to allow my heart or mind get tangled up with another girl before I have some sort of committed relationship. Doing that was bad news for me last time, and I have just recently become free of the pain and hurt that it caused to my heart. To avoid that means not spending time away from her thinking about her. Instead, I will be redirecting my thoughts towards Christ whenever I find myself thinking about her, an idea I learned from Waldie last semester (better late than never, right?). It means enjoying the time that I do spend with her, but not bending over backwards to create that time. It means not talking about this with guys in the dorm, because talking about it will only cause feelings to grow. It means that this will be my only post about her for the foreseeable future. And it means that my obsession is going to continue to be Christ, by the grace of God.


Why did this have to start the very next day?