Only Time Will Tell...

Two years ago I was writing a letter to a friend who I had hoped to be in a relationship with to this day. I told him that I was certain that he knew exactly how I felt about him, and the fact that he was remaining entirely disinterested was far too much for a woman of my impatience to bear any longer. As dramatic as I could possibly have communicated it with him, it was my final and last romantic gesture in bargaining for his attention with a guilt-ridden plea for closure.

Isn’t it funny how things can change? Here I am, two years later, with a man who loves the Lord with his entire heart supporting me as I write my words to you. I, Kendra Shannon Wise, am taken. Twenty-one years of being single and that is by far one of the most awkward yet rewarding statements that I have ever made. I can’t lie to you, being in a relationship is nothing like what I thought it would be and, being only a few short weeks in, I honestly can’t recall what exactly I thought it would be.

The story? Entirely God’s to tell. With each step of this relationship, I have seen God move in ways that are so vivid and so evident that denying His orchestrating of the events leading up to it would be completely foolish! Is my boyfriend my husband? Only time will tell. But it is the uncertainty, the unknown, the reliance on God’s plan that has challenged my own thinking of relationships in general. Here I thought that I was an expert on the lead-in stage. I could tell any man and any woman how to pursue, be pursued, and treat one another in such a way that the relationship would be entirely utilized for the glory of God. The problem with such prideful and arrogant claims, is that they often shatter when under the pressure of experimentation in one’s own life.

For me, my claim to fame was the idea that dating was to remain as dating. We were to not be afraid of asking one another out to spend intentional time together, getting to know one another. Relationships were therefore an extension of dating, the choice to no longer date several people but focus on one person, hoping that in time, it would be revealed if the two are to get married. Marriage, the beginning stage of life united together, is then chosen by those who have committed themselves to one another in such a long-lasting way, that they are affirming it through vows, a certificate, and standing before there most beloved friends in hopes of being held accountable to their commitment.

I still agree with my original thought. I still think that we should keep dating as dating, but I don’t know if I fully believe that you are to know who you are going to marry within the first week, month, year, or even several years of an intentional relationship. This is where people will probably disagree. You see, in the Christian circle, we like to play the “God card” often times when it comes to breaking things off with one another. We share that we just don’t think God has allowed our plans to work together in a way that “fits”, so we copout and break it off.

My original idea was that dating was used to find one person to step into a relationship with, but I never really processed through what the relationship stage of dating entailed. The first thing I have learned is that this stage of the relationship isn’t marriage. When you embark in a new relationship, you don’t suddenly get the benefits of a marriage as a result of pre-committing yourself to someone. It isn’t a sense of entitlement, and in fact, I think there is even more pressure through this stage to protect and guard your heart, and the heart of the one you are with.

I think we have this jaded perception that once we change our Facebook statuses, we “win”. We now “get to” do things together that we hadn’t in the dating stage. We get to become physical, let our guard down, fall in love, and essentially give ourselves fully to the relationship, knowing that it is headed towards marriage. But what if is isn’t? What if we assume that any relationship we enter into isn’t going to end at the alter? Then why on earth would you even date that person in the first place? Because you can’t know who your husband or wife is after one date. You can’t even know who your husband or your wife is after several.

Yes, I do believe that there is this concept of a “feeling” that people get. I have heard several pastors stand on stage and describe the minute their wife walked into the room for the first time, God told him that they would be married. But sometimes I think we expect that feeling so much so that if we don’t get it, we think we should walk away. That is the problem with feelings. God can utilize feelings to urge us in our choices, just as much as He can use His Word, other people, and life experiences. But if we start to put too much of an emphasis on feelings alone we can begin to miss out on opportunities that perhaps Christ has blessed us with, or let go of ones that could be exactly what we need.

I have seen so many friends wait for that feeling. I had a friend once who thought she had that feeling with this one guy, who turned out to be a total jerk after playing games with her through their entire relationship, eventually leading to a broken heart. She explained that she thought he was the one, but now is happily married to an entirely different person. My question that I have been wrestling with is what if that feeling doesn’t come. Or, what if that feeling comes when we least expect it?

I have another friend who explains that her and her husband now started out as friends, not even thinking of one another romantically. It wasn’t until far into their relationship that she could even envision marrying him, but now they are happily married. She explained that it took time, and investing in one another to really know if they were someone to join in life with.

It makes me nervous to think that we aren’t maintaining the same mentality through dating that we are through a relationship. I don’t know where God is going to call me after graduation in May. I don’t know if my relationship will remain long distance for more than this year, or if God will beautifully orchestrate our plans to fit together. But if God has already led me to where I am with my boyfriend now, then why not trust that He will continue to move?

In trusting in that alone, I am also readying my heart to listen. My boyfriend is first and foremost God’s son. He has a plan, giftings, and a will by God to do what he has been called to do. I will always view him as God’s son before he is ever my boyfriend. I am not taking ownership for someone who isn’t mine, and not expecting my plan to be the one that he follows. In return, he gives me the same respect in understanding that God has called me to minister to college women, and our relationship is centered on building one another up in Christ, and letting God take hold of this relationship.

Obviously it is far easier for me to say that I am doing that, because you have to remember this is fresh and new. Some of you will read this and claim that I am naïve. You are exactly right. I am naïve, I have never done this before. But my prayer isn’t that I’m telling you how to live your lives, but that you watch the journey I am on through these discoveries, and hopefully take hold of some of the truth that comes out of them.

In viewing my boyfriend in such a way, I can’t give an answer when asked how it will end. I have my desire and my hope, but I can’t predict what is going to happen, and that would be true if he lived down the street or four hundred miles away from me. What I can do is assure you that I am not living in a way that suggests I do know the future. I think this is how relationships often work. We act as though we know exactly how it is going to end. I don’t. I am not going to pretend I do and that is why I have still maintained boundaries in my emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of my time in relationship.

I am letting my guard down. But just because you let your guard down doesn’t necessarily mean that you give yourself away. Think of a castle. There is a drawbridge that lets visitors cross over into the kingdom, but the kingdom is still protected by men, walls, and a gate. Even once the gate is up, there are still several procedures a visitor must go through before entering the court. It requires time, a process, and investing in one another in a healthy way. I just started a relationship. I don’t want to hold my boyfriend’s heart in my hands, I am nowhere near equipped for that or vice versa. I pray that God holds his heart. I pray that God protects his heart and that I can love him by God’s love as well as my own through loving God and revealing to my boyfriend how Christ views him.

This may take all of the romance out of the picture for you. Where is the heat? The overwhelming attraction? The passion? The mystery? Honestly. I have had my fair share of heat, overwhelming attraction, passion, and mystery and I have been left not only hurt but also broken from it. I would way rather build a relationship based on God’s love, for when it comes to my own love I am jaded, sinful, selfish, and lustful. I pray that the romance comes through knowing and appreciating one another. I pray that the romance is steady, healthy, and growing. I pray that intimacy comes in time, through prayer and trust in God’s plan, and investing in one another. I don’t want to fast pass each beautiful stage of what relationship entails. I want to embrace it.

So there you have it. Things are changing for me each day, but I pray to walk through this as much as I did in my singleness with you, so that you can be the first to hear all that I am learning as a result. Just because I am taken doesn’t mean that my words aren’t valid in relation to living as a single woman. I still have some pretty quality experience, and perhaps now as I step into this new chapter of my life, you can watch God grow and stretch each one of my views in the next stage of what dating brings.

My hope and prayer for you today is that you challenge yourself with what romance should look like in your own life. I could be entirely wrong, I could be so far from what God’s idea of relationship should look like, but something tells me that there is nothing wrong with taking the time to figure that out! I’d way rather take a slow and steady pace before I rush past what Christ had intended for this season. Thanks for reading!


Love,

Kendra