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It's partly because I'm starting to move into that older woman stage of life, where I shake my head and roll my eyes at the youth and their crazy ways. It's really because, like all women, or men, who get some life experience under their belt, you look back with hindsight and a twinge of pain, and hope that your small words of warning will be heeded by someone like you, so they are spared some of the heartache.
I didn't date until I was in college. Because I went to college in the early 2000's it was on the heels of the great evangelical purity movement that had taken all of our youth groups by storm. Not only did I carry the baggage from that movement, and the countless books I had read pertaining to the topic, but going to a Christian college magnified the movement ten fold.
There were no Sarah Besseys or Rachel Held Evans, because they were still wrestling with the same issues at the same time. There were no calls for a Christian Feminist movement, at least not in the circles I ran in. There was focus on the family, purity rings, and complimentarianism in all of its glory.
The first guy I "talked to" about dating was timid and shy, and I read him the riot act about not taking the headship in our relationship. Why wasn't he pursuing me more? Why wasn't he taking the initiative? It was his job, his role to take the initiative. My friends quickly rallied to my side, taking up my cause, quickly cherry picking scriptures and telling him he needed to lead if he wanted to actually be in a relationship with a good Christian girl like me.
We never went from "talking" to "dating".
When I finally went from "talking" to "dating" a guy, I was elated. I got those butterflies in your stomach, the tingles up and down your arm like tiny firecrackers. We both cared for the poor, we both were passionate about youth ministry, and about Jesus. It felt like a dream. It felt like all of those books I had read were correct, and I often told people "when you just wait for God to piece your love story together, He sends you the right person." Because I thought he was the right person.
Then one very late night, he called me as he often did, and we were talking about a conversation he had had with someone at work about something in the bible. I said "Oh yes! It's in Romans 8." He stopped talking.
"I wish you wouldn't do that." He said.
"Do what?" I responded, completely clueless at what I had done wrong.
"I wish you wouldn't just know things like that. I wish you wouldn't just tell me the answers. It's intimidating."
It was my turn to be quiet. I never told him, but I sobbed into my pillow that night. I had been "intimidating" to boys for much of my life. I was outspoken, I was well read, I loved to learn, and I was, and am, incredibly opinionated. More than once boys and men had made comments about how "intimidating" I was, or how I wasn't "really a girl" I was more "like one of the guys." It was heart-wrenching. I wanted to be seen as a girl. I wanted to be viewed as pretty and sweet, as gentle and kind. I wanted to be someone guys wanted to date, but I also wanted to read and speak my mind, and talk about how much I loved the Bible. I cried big wet tears, because I felt in that moment that I couldn't be both. I couldn't be loved and pretty, and be outspoken and bold.
So, I stopped talking as much about the Bible, about the books I was reading at school, and history of Christianity, and I got really really depressed. As I talked less, our physical relationship got more and more intimate, because at that point I felt I needed to do whatever it took to stay together, to keep him interested, to not be intimidating. Which only deepened my depression and the deep chasm in my heart.
If I could tell my younger self anything, it would have been to break things off in that moment. To not compromise yourself and your voice to keep going in a relationship that wants you to be submissive and sweet, because that's just not who you are. But the older me wasn't there to tell my younger me anything, and so I kept going.
One day while having a conversation about my dreams for youth ministry, and how I was going to balance my calling with being a mother, he stopped me and said "Wait! You don't think you are still going to be a pastor when we have children, do you!?" I froze again.
I thought that was the straw of irreconcilable differences for us. Of course I'd still be a pastor while I was a mother! I was called to be a pastor when I was young; why would God just take that calling away from me because I had children?
This broke me. I talked to so many friends about how I thought that was it. How we couldn't be together. In all the wisdom 20 year olds can muster, they told me to stick it out, that things can change, that this didn't need to be a deal breaker.
It did need to be a deal breaker. It wasn't, but it needed to be. If I had allowed those red flags, those signs, those feelings of unrest to speak truth to my heart, instead of listening to the stupid books I had read, and the guilt I would feel if things didn't work out, I would have been spared a lot of wasted time, and a lot of heartache.
If I knew then, what I know now, about what relationships can look like, about what they should look like, I would have gone into everything so differently.
My husband is about as opposite of that first relationship as one can get. He quit a job he liked, without knowing if he'd have another one, to support my call to plant a church. We talk about each other as teammates, and he pushes me to speak my mind. I have never heard the words "you are intimidating" come out of his mouth once, but rather I've heard "you need to speak more, you have something to say". He has washed dishes and cooked me meals , he does laundry better than I do, and we have talked about managing a family and a ministry together as partners. He doesn't see my boldness as a counter to my femininity, in fact he values it, and cherishes it. He doesn't feel emasculated when I am in charge at church, instead he tells me he is proud of me and cheers me on. We work together in all things. We serve each other. We care for each other. We submit to each other. It's beautiful and life giving.
I wish someone had told me when I was 20 not to lesson my voice to make a man more comfortable. I wish there was someone who really sat down with me and told me that submission isn't relegated to women, but to both men and women as we work as a team. I wish that my friends had said "men don't have to take the initiative all the time, we work together as equals." And those voices might have been there, but they were hidden under stacks of "I kissed dating goodbye" and purity ring ceremonies lying to me that God had created one perfect person for me, and would conveniently send him my way when he was ready.
There isn't a one. There isn't some golden formula, and God doesn't bless us ten-fold for waiting to kiss a guy until we are engaged (These are all things I believed at one point). There are real broken people, who have to navigate real feelings, and who have to learn to live life the way God wants us to, as partners, as equals. It's hard, but it's beautiful.
So, I get impassioned when I talk to young women, because I don't want them to walk through months or years being told that they are intimidating for being bold, or that they are "one of the guys" when they don't fit a mold. I want them to know they can be pretty, desired, sexy, and wanted AND be bold, fierce, strong, and smart. That not all men are intimidated by intelligence, the best guys definitely aren't, and that they want to be with someone who loves them for who they are, not for a role they play. I want young women to walk boldly into whatever it is that God is calling them to be it motherhood, pastoring, teaching, healing, or speaking.
You are not less of a woman for speaking mightily. You are not less pretty or sexy because you are smart. Don't allow those lies to penetrate your heart. Don't give up who you are to play a role. Don't silence your voice. Don't sell yourself short for anyone. Not because there's a guarantee the right guy will come along and love you for who you are, but because being who God created and called you to be is so much better than being miserable for someone who doesn't value that. You can be both beautiful and bold, never think otherwise.
