This was very hard to write (which is why it’s late). There’s a lot more to this part of my story than can be contained in one single post. And even though I’ve talked about it before, in a series of all things, I still feel like I have to do a lot of explaining. I’m still figuring a lot of things out myself, but here it is. Part of my story that’s still in the making.
-Transcript-
July 1, 1997
Dear Diary,
She told us not to go w/ any boys even how cute they are! Like we don’t know that! She said we can date at 18 but a double date. At 21, we could. These things go naturally. She can’t do this. It’s not her life! I’ll date anyone who I like even if I’m only 12!
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One of the goals I set out for this #write31days challenge is to find out how I’ve grown, changed, or stayed the same. If you’ve read my blog before, then maybe you know that I’m single and not dating. That I believe we need to honor God with our singleness. Let Him provide for us our love lives just as He provides for us in all the other areas of our lives. I believe our God can and does and will do that if He so wills it.
What you might not know is that I’ve always been single and I’ve never dated. You see, growing up on Disney princess movies and being a hopeless romantic made me have high standards. One time in middle school, this boy asked me to the dance through his friend’s friend. And that’s just not gonna cut it, no matter how much I liked him.
And anyway, “she” might have thrown a fit. “She” is not my mom by the way, but someone very present in our family’s lives at the time. The funny thing is, I was 18 when stars aligned. I liked a boy, he liked me back, and we talked. A lot. That’s all. Attraction grew through the talking (and the texting), and one night I received a text from him with the 3-little-words in it. But it all ended and I was hurt.
And like a good little introvert, I turned to the one person who would understand. I turned to God.
I can learn fast. That’s one thing about me. If I care enough about something, I can learn it quickly.
And I cared about…well, me. I didn’t want to keep going through heartbreak after heartbreak as relationships come and go in my life. That didn’t make sense to me, but isn’t that how love goes? That’s what everybody said. They told me that I need to date different guys to know what type I like. They said that guys are different as they “woo” you because they’re trying to be with you, and that’s just how it is. They said that I’ll get over it and move on.
Well thankfully, and I believe that it was God’s doing, going on around the same time was all the kiss dating goodbye, waiting, and stuff. Those books, ideas, and challenges provided a different perspective. But they didn’t really stick until there in my room in the middle of the night, God came through with a request. Wait. Focus on Me. Trust Me.
In the loving way He whispers to our hearts, He whispered to mine that this waiting thing is a legitimate choice. I can do this. So like a good little Christian, I did. And like a good little INFP, I committed to it like a tightly held cause. When we INFPs commit to something we believe in, we’re practically loyal to a fault.
Fast forward 11 years (that’s over a decade!) and here I am. I don’t date whenever and whoever I like. I would probably also tell my kids they can’t date until they’re 21. Or tell them that God’s “natural” order of things is much different from the world’s “natural” order of things. We need only trust Him. He never leads us astray.
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