To worship a God...

There's something strange about the word, "crush." Many guys will shy away from a girl who has a "crush" on them, or will even turn away (it seems like it) if a girl says that she has a crush on someone. If one girl tells another girl that she has a crush on someone, the second girl will automatically squeal in a very high-pitched annoying tone that some how all of us manage to do at some point in our lives, and then automatically demand to know everything. Pushy girl. The girl with a crush, if she is 12, will think it's amazing and that she couldn't possibly fall "in love" with anyone else, ever. If the girl is 16 or 17, she will feel silly for having a crush (possibly), and feel like she's in middle school again, discovering the fact that boys really don't have cooties.

As long as I can remember, I've always been told, by my parents, to guard my heart, so that when the right guy comes along, I can give him my whole heart. When I turned 12, I had my first recorded crush. I was certain that he was the one! Since I'd been a little girl, I'd read stories of princesses and their handsome knights in shining armor who worship the ground they walk on. Somewhere in my future there was going to be a fantastic wedding, I would be the one wearing white, and at the end He would be standing there, ready to pull me into His arms, to love me for who I was. Surprisingly enough, the person I had the crush on at age 12 is Him. Every young man who was remotely good looking, or had a good disposition and manners, or even possibly liked me, was considered. I pined, I dreamed, my imagination sometimes pushing me to tears. Why didn't any of them like me?

I was 18 when a young man who had entered my life several years earlier, declared that he really liked me. Unsurprisingly enough, I really liked him back. He was cute, he was funny, that crooked smile of his charming birds out of trees, my heart from its chest, and he, at the time believed in the same God I did, and was willing to ask my dad if he could date me. He had put off telling me that he liked me and wanted to date me for a long time because he knew about my parents dislike with the word "dating" and how they would rather I "courted." Then he did something that no one else ever had: he went to my daddy and asked him for permission to date me. My parents were reluctant, and it took them a whole month to get back to him, but in the end, because of many persuasive arguments that started and ended with, "Because, I just want to date him. Do I need a reason?", they gave in and told him that we could date. It was on my 19th birthday that my daddy called him up and let him know.

I was on cloud nine for three months, during which we went on dates, held hands, went to homeschool prom, but never kissed. I told him I was saving that for the man who married me. He respected that. Towards the beginning of the third month, he called me (we had a long distance relationship) and told me that he'd realized that I was more emotionally involved then he was. He said he didn't want to break up with me because he still liked me, but that he didn't want to break my heart, because he realized that I'd given it to him. He was right. He tried to hand it back on a silver platter, the way I'd handed it to him. At the end of the third month, something wasn't right. He was distant. I knew something was wrong, but he wouldn't say anything. I had to ask him if he still liked me. When he said no, I broke up with him, and told him we could go back to being friends.

My parents were worried about me. My best friend, who had steadfastly warned me against dating him, was relieved. I was glad I hadn't had my heart broken, and proud of the fact that I'd not shed a tear over any of it. I told my mom that I didn't regret any of it, because it was a huge learning experience. I told her the truth.

At the same time, I was left with thoughts running through my head. They were the same thoughts I'd had before I had a boyfriend, but now they were intensified. "Why did he tell me he loved me one month and then not mean it the next? Is something wrong with me? Why doesn't he like me anymore? What's wrong with me?" It took my conscience probing deep, asking some questions that he didn't realize hurt, to make me realize that I was feeling these things.

I swore off boys.

The end.

Ok, not really, but I did for a while decide that the only safe place for me was a nunnery...or rather a home with the nuns. (I can't think of the word right now.) Then I stumbled across a saying, on, of all things, a facebook bumpersticker: A girl's heart should be so lost in God, that a man must seek Him to find her. That completely changed how I looked at relationships.

While I had been told all my life that Prince Charming would come (dude, Cinderella's had come hadn't he?), I had also been told that God should be the center of my life, and that he would write my love story. That's what Eric and Leslie Ludy had said! I had read the books that they had written, and come to the conclusion that if I pursued God, that if I tried to bury my heart in God's, romance would come blooming into my life, instantaneously, like those funny little sponge animals that you could buy in plastic capsuls and then drop them into a cup of water and they'd expand instantly. I was convinced that if I just found the cup of water, my romance would blossom instantly.

I'd missed the mark again. I was still focused on the word "romance." I was ready to drop everything if a guy that loved God came waltzing into my life and declared his love for me. It wasn't until last semester, a mere 3 or 4 months ago, that I realized I had a "crush" on a guy again. I hadn't had a "crush," really, since that disastrous three month relationship. I'd been denying the crush for a while, I'd been fighting, because I had told God that all I really wanted was to know Him better. I wanted to bury myself in God. In todays terms, I wanted God as my boyfriend, as my husband, my lover. Even though, I'd been doing this to subconciously to find romance, God had been faithful, and honored my feeble attempts to draw closer to Him. He wrapped me in arms as large as...well, as He is, and drawn me towards him. When, in about November, I finally admited that I liked this guy, I struggled with it for about a week because I didn't want a crush. It was a hinderence in my trying to bury myself in God. I wanted romance to hit me over the head. Then, at the end of the week, I realized that I didn't have to struggle with my "crush." I could ignore it and continue to pursue God, because, God was the creator of the "crush."

I decided to sit back and go along for the ride.

What a ride it's been. I've sat back and watched as the "crush" on this guy is put on the back burner and God has put Himself front and center in my life. Every time I approach a guy, I approach him now, with prayer, asking God to lead our relationship. It has done wonders to me and my relationship with my champion, my knight in shining armor, my savior who died for me, saving me from the jaws of the dragon.

One last thing before I sign off. In answer to the questions I asked myself before I had a boyfriend and afterwards. "Why don't they like me?" My answer is, "Who cares? If they had shown me that they actually liked me and done something about it, I wouldn't have even considered God. I would have shoved Him on the back burner and forgotten about Him. Instead, God, in His sovereignty, knew exactly what I'd need to pull me towards Him, and gave me the yearning for romance, but made sure that there was no romance in sight. Instead, He stood there, waiting patiently for me, holding in His hands a white dress that is more beautiful then anything that I could ever imagine, dressed as a groom, waiting for me, His bride. Why He would choose me, me who would easily chase after something that doesn't fulfill is beyond me, but He has. It doesn't matter whether or not the guy next to me, or the guy who I am/was "crushing" on likes me. All that matters is that He adores me. He does."

I don't want a man who worships the ground I walk on. I want to worship the God whose ground I walk on.

As I end this post, Phil Wickam is singing in the background,

For You I sing, I dance,
Rejoice in this devine Romance,
Lift my heart and my hands,
To show my love, to show my love.