Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don't impose it on others. You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you're not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe – some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them – then you know that you're out of line. If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong.
~ Romans
14:22-23, The Message
This passage hit me more strongly when I initially read it in context
of what I was thinking about at the time. But the post hinges on
this.
–
As the title suggests, this is a response to my most recent blog
post. Having had some time to myself after posting it, I finally
realized what it was about the post that never sat right with me.
I cited 1 Cor 7:7 and 7:38 in my last post, that God gives the gifts
of singlehood and marriage to different people, and that neither is
inferior or superior to the other, as a sort of disclaimer. And
indeed I said it was my opinion.
The problem, I realized, was that my belief – the Word – did not
line up with my opinion – singlehood is inherently better than
marriage.
Keyword: Inherently.
–
You might have gathered from my last post that I have a lot of
trouble seeing romantic relationships in a positive light at this
time. There are reasons for that. I started to really think about it
after one of the last times I was at youth group. It was a Q&A
night, and one of the topics that kept coming up was romantic
relationships – specifically, how do you know when you're going too
far, and if you don't want to go that far again, what can you do to
keep it from happening?
I thought about contributing to the discussion, but I didn't realize
an "audience" member could do that. And by the time I
learned that, we were wrapping up.
I
only realized a couple of weeks ago that I went further with my
ex-boyfriend than I wanted to go. Didn't go too
far – thank God – but still further than I was actually willing
to go. I didn't realize my discomfort meant exactly that at the time,
because I thought I was just breaking out of my shell – stepping
out of your comfort zone is supposed to be a good thing, right? Well,
not so much for intimacy, it turns out. It's about all I can remember
when I think about the relationship, and it colors any outlook I have
on future relationships.
Takeaway:
Going further than you want to go, at all,
does your mental/emotional health bad.
He manipulated me. I don't know if he realized that's what he was
doing, but he guilt-tripped me into pushing further and further out;
I did it because I didn't want him to get bored, and I wasn't about
to lose the experience so quickly when I had waited all of high
school for a boyfriend. I told him once that I didn't like the
"ickier" stuff as much as the innocent stuff we did in
public; I don't remember his response word for word, but it came down
to him not seeing it as such a big deal, and me then feeling like I
was too chaste for anyone's good.
If there is a next time, I know that I'm going to have to outline my
boundaries right up front – if he still wants to cross them, or
agrees with me but still hopes to cross them via wearing me down,
then he's going to have to move on to someone else. I'm sorry, but
that's a whole mess of conflicting emotions that I really do not have
the time, energy, or mental stability to deal with.
So I realized all of this a couple days after that Q&A night,
because I was thinking about it; thought about posting the same
thoughts on the Facebook page for the youth group, or one of the
devotional Groups I'm in, but for whatever reason I never did.
I
realized that even though I said I believed what God said – that
singlehood and relationships are on the same level – I did not
conduct myself that way. I conducted myself with the opinion that
relationships cannot hold a candle to staying single, and I imposed
that on others in my previous post. Given a chance, I might have done
the same in real life.
I don't know how well this is coming through. What I am trying to say
is that there was a disconnect between what I said I believed online,
and what I actually believed according to how I conducted myself.
The real problem: it was affecting other relationships in my life,
particularly concerning trust. I had difficulty trusting friends,
parents, even God – BIG no bueno.
The syllogism is supposed to run like this:
God wants a relationship with you.
All things that come from God are good.
Therefore, relationships are good.
Well, okay; my Philosophy professor would have a thing or two to say
about how that is false, therefore unsound, but you get the idea (I
don't feel like fixing it). If all kinds of relationships come from
God, then all kinds of relationships are inherently good – it's
human error that makes any of them abusive.
If I insist on viewing romantic relationships negatively, unwilling
and unable to trust him, then how can I expect to have positive,
trusting relationships anywhere else in my life?
It
sounds a bit weird to me, to say that looking down on – even hating
– the idea of romantic relationships would consequently poison
friendly relationships and father/mother-daughter relationships, but
it turns out that can happen. It makes sense given my personal
relationship with God – I said in my post about Song of Songs that
it's a deepest devotion, and to me that means romantic. I am the
bride of Christ, after all.
So that's my self-improvement project for the time being: Learn to
view romantic relationships in a positive light again.
This won't happen overnight. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about
this, because I'm still not in any mood to get into another
relationship. I suppose more time is the answer.
We'll see what happens.
~Sarah
