Day 36

All my life I’ve struggled against the lie that I’m not worth pursuing. Don’t get me wrong. People have sung my praises, exclaimed what I wonderful wife and mother I’ll make someday. But let’s face it. Usually those words get spoken in the context of my domesticity—canning, cooking, sewing, the art of corralling children. What a woman really wants to know is—all my practical skills aside, is my heart worth fighting for, knowing, and loving? And even if those affirming voices weren’t referring to my industrious skill set, they’ve never been the right voices. Fathers and mothers and girlfriends are supposed to say those things. Even young married men noting how lucky some guy will be to have me as a wife feels a little hollow. If I was that worth pursuing, what kept you from trying? All the affirming men I know chose somebody else. Not me. So what does that say?

I feel like I’m intimidating, especially to men. I have vision for my life. When I know that I want something, I go for it. I don’t sit around putting my life on hold waiting for some honorable man to get his act together and work up the courage to ask me out. So I probably come across as a bulldozer. Stay out of her way. Someone once told me I needed to work on my come hither look. And as the Lord has worked healing in my heart I’m softening. But I also want someone man enough to not be intimidated by me. To swallow his fear, to show up at my doorstep with a two-by-four, thunk me (gentlemanly of course) on the head and say, hey, can I bulldoze alongside of you?

Aaron told me over and over that I was worth pursuing. Maybe that’s why I thought he felt safe. Our first phone conversation lasted 2 ½ hours and I remember getting off and thinking, wow, he wasn’t intimidated by who I was even though I was up front and honest about some potentially dicey subjects. And he loved my vision of what I was called to do. I honestly didn’t know if it was possible for any man to fit those two things. But now the only man who has ever been brave enough to tell me (and show me) I’m worth it, turned out to not be worthy of that pursuit. So what does that mean?

I know the logical truth. I can recite it in my brain as the correct answer. I’m still worth it. Y’shua was the one who defined my worth and proved I was worth pursuing long before the idea of Aaron even existed. Yet, I’d be a liar to say those words don’t feel a bit empty now. I’m faced with the truth that the only man who ever bothered to pursue me wasn’t as honorable as he seemed. He was second string. Am I a second string woman? Of course I know I’m not, but tell that to my heart, not my brain.

I’m not a pessimist, and I’m not bitter. I don’t even have a desire to point any fingers at the honorable men I’ve been privileged to know and be invested in my life [this post is not a personal jab at any of you]. But these are the raw questions running through my mind that I’m forced to filter, the questions I’m sure a lot of women think but feel they are never allowed to speak. So here’s to speaking them. Here’s to not pretending everything’s okay when it’s not, so I can get to a place where it eventually will be.