It started with an internal struggle and a train of quickly dismissed thoughts.
I refused to to accept or even believe that I was beginning to like him. But I was. And eventually it became a challenge to be his friend. It was as if I reached the hardest level on a video game.
The rules?
Watch him be a total goof. See his heart for God. Try not to melt like an ice cream cone left out under the sun.
Let’s just say I was losing.
This was something I had to surrender and be accountable for over and over and over…and over…and over again.
But I can also say I was winning.
Because by the grace of God, I stood firm in my convictions and repented when I knew I was not honoring God with my actions.
And up to this very point, these are the 9 consecutive months he has never found out about, and he will never find out about. I am okay, and at peace with that.
It wasn’t always that way, though. There were a lot of things I was burning to say, hints I really could have dropped, situations I wanted to manipulate.
But I did not act on those impulses, and I denied those desires.
I didn’t tell him or show him or hint at him because I did not want to water the seed of romantic emotions and watch something grow in the wrong time. I saw the way God was pruning him and carefully nurturing him and preparing to use him greatly. Who am I to get in the way of that? Who am I to uproot this flourishing tree? Who am I to push my own selfish will against God’s? And what makes me think I could actually succeed in doing so?
It is the Holy Spirit that enables me to care enough to be careful on how I act, and to control how the words from my thoughts spill out. It is He who enables me to care in a way so different to how the world demonstrates it. They say to express what you feel, before it’s too late. But I care about him with self-control and selflessness, putting his highest good above my own fleeting feelings. And I care about him with quiet waiting, wanting more for him to be sanctified, and to experience the fullness of God’s will and presence in his every season. If waiting means he’ll pass me by, just as his friend, I still truly praise God because my joy and hope in waiting is not anchored on the outcome of “us” but on the truth that God is enough no matter what the outcome is. And I am peaceful because God is enough. I don’t need him to fulfill me or complete me. And because I don’t need him to fulfill me or complete me, I can be a blessing to him as a friend under one body and as a sister adopted into the same sonship, and this is what brings God the most glory.
These are the nine whirlwind months my crush will never know about. But the funny thing is, this isn’t even about him. In the nine whirlwind months my crush didn’t know about, I admired him, I did. But I fell even more deeply in love with the God who walked with me through it all.
