Chick Chat: Conversations with Boys

On occasion, I am blessed with random inquiries from young men.  These are some of my favorite conversations: unplanned, unpredictable and unique.  Their inquiries always intrigue as well as encourage me; gleaning insights into the mind and life of a woman. 

What I love about my conversations is they are genuine, sincere and out of necessity to them and to us.  Sauntering in to my office, seated on the other side of my desk, we catch up on casual conversations. And then the fun continues.   

“Can guys and girls be best friends?”

Great question!  If you would have asked me ten years ago, I would have said yes.  However, time and experience has afforded me the opportunity to learn and know differently.  Question for you: does your mom have a guy best friend other than your dad?  Is there a guy that your mom goes to hang out with, do life with, talk about deep insights with?  Does your mom go on day trips with this best friend or stay up late on the phone, texting endlessly?

That’s what I thought!  Of course the question can be interchanged from mom to dad.  Either way, the principle remains the same, guys and gals cannot be best friends.  The person you marry is your best friend.  Also, the Bible is pretty clear with the boundaries within marriage, concerning husband and wife relationship as well as nurturing your marriage. 

Ultimately, it comes down to two things: mind and emotions.  The dynamics of a guy gal relationship affect the mind and emotions.  To guard your heart, you need to know the condition of your mind and emotions prior to entering in a guy gal relationship. Additionally, to further protect your heart, you need to place limitations on how far your mind and emotions are involved. 

“Why do girls use the God card?”

Ah, what the wild card is to the game of Uno is the “God Card” in the Christian community as it relates to romantic relationships.  It’s the game changer.  Guys and gals use it at various times, in various situations and when they do use it, it’s the last round of ammo in the Christian arsenal to deter a person.

Dialoguing through the question, the reality is that guys use the “God Card” just as much as the girls.  In this particular conversation, the boys wanted to cast blame on the girls for using the “God Card” instead of just saying things the way they needed to be.  I could sit there and listen to their heart about why they wanted to blame the girls and spend time venting.  However, there are three issues that need to be resolved.

First things first, the issue of position; the guy is the pursuer, the leader and the initiator.  The responsibility of the guy is to seek God’s heart to know about the relationship before it even begins, know how to cherish and care for a girl’s heart as well as seek God’s approval before initiating something more serious.

This in itself brings up a couple of choice topics: do you seek God’s direction before you pursue a girl or during the pursuit? Do you wait to know if there is a “spark” or seek God’s direction for this relationship?  How much does God want to be involved in my relationships: platonic and romantic?

Second issue is that of accountability and mentorship.  It’s important for guys to be accountable to other guys as well as have mentors.  This gives opportunity to learn, grow, ask the hard questions, learn how to cherish a woman’s heart, how to provide, how to lead, how to nurture a relationship and so forth.

Last but not least, the issue of skill. Some people, flat out, just are not equipped with the skills to communicate how they feel, what they want, what they need and at what pace they need the relationship to develop.  It’s a pretty rampant problem within this generation let alone the Christian community. The “God Card” gets pulled most often when someone doesn’t know how to respond, is responding out of fear or past pain, or out of religious position. 

 I hope this article has been insightful and helpful.  As always, I welcome your questions and comments.  If you have any topics you’d like to learn more about, send me an email.

Chick Chat: Learning to Love

Think about all the things we’ve learned throughout life up to now.  We’ve learned to crawl, walk, run, talk, cry, laugh, smile, hide, find, dance, put on make-up, dress ourselves, ask for help, sing at the top of our lungs, balance our check book, cook, clean, read, write and so forth.  We’ve also learned how to comfort those who are sad, listen to a friend, make friends, overcome unfortunate situations, feel disappointment, rejection and sadness. 

At every season of life, we are learning new things.  Whatever we are learning in that season is helpful for that season we find ourselves in but is also for the seasons to come.  What would it look like if we never learned a new thing?  What would it look like if we refused to grow and adapt to the seasons of life and our surroundings?

I absolutely adore newborn babies. The first couple of years are the most precious.  Everything is new: their first steps, words, smiles, coos and not to mention all the outfits, toys, blankets and bottles.  How a child communicates with us during this stage—diaper changed, hungry or sleepy—is different than the years to follow. 

Once a child learns to communicate his/her need, a new process begins.  It seems there are various stages throughout a child’s life where one process ends and a new process begins.  It’s the process of retraining a child.  Makes sense right?  Of course! Imagine with me if you will that a baby cries to communicate what he/she needs. 

Fast forward five years later and the same child uses the same skills to communicate his/her need.  Most likely not the best way to communicate with parents, family and new play dates.  Let’s fast forward five years later, the child is now ten years old, and the same child continues to communicate with cries that have escalated to tantrums and loud screams. 

And we wonder, “Is this really happening?” Oh, but of course because this child is now an adult and a glimpse into his/her life shows that he/she still cries, throws tantrums and gets into fits of anger in response to not getting his/her needs met.  I’m sure you’ve seen it a time or two and said to yourself, “seriously!”  Ever wonder how it happened?

At every new stage in a child’s life, it’s an important opportunity to retrain.  Taking the time to retrain a child in communication as well as teach new skills helps the child to evolve.  It allows the child to face varying situations with knowledge and skill to walk through them equipped.   With each new season, it’s an opportunity to recalibrate.

As an adult, I’m learning that recalibrating is a necessity.  In every season of life, recalibrating helps to adapt, stay flexible and grow in maturity.  Acquiring new skills are important to staying mentally sharp.  Last but not least, as the seasons present themselves, learning to love is an asset.

Being purposeful to grow in love, to learn how to love better and gain deeper insights in love does wonders.  How we learned to love others and ourselves when we first got started in life will be different as an adult. The love chapter in the Bible is the hallmark of how to love as well as what love is. 

Love is patient, kind, always trusts, hopes, protects and perseveres; love never fails.  Starring at those words, “love never fails”, leaves me speechless.  “Really!  You’re telling me that love never fails?  It doesn’t give up on me when I don’t get it right?  It doesn’t point fingers at all my shortcomings, failures or mistakes?  It doesn’t wait for me to become the person I should be?”

Love never fails because this love we speak of is unconditional love. This love is a love of choice and not that of a feeling.  The love we speak of is a love that is deeper than deep, wider than wide and higher than high; we could not weigh or measure this love no more than we can determine its circumference.  This love is ours if we choose to receive it.

Just as we choose to learn and grow to adapt with the seasons of life, so it is with love. We choose to receive love. We choose to learn new facets of love.  We choose to put on love like we choose to put on an outfit; an absolute must, a necessity not an accessory.  We choose to give love away and give it in spades.

This love originates with God, manifested in the form of Jesus to demonstrate to the world what love looks like, how love receives and responds and who love is available to.  Love covers over a multitude of debts, transgressions.  Love does not keep record of wrongs, is not easily angered and banishes fear.  Just as darkness cannot hide light so fear cannot abide in love.

In every season, love is always a foundational fixture.  Learning to love in every season is a precious commodity; it’s rare and priceless.  It’s free to all, but chosen by few. It always starts out with many admirers and advocates, but quickly narrows with age, understanding and in action.

New Approach: Rejection

The other day I was driving home and just started crying. Not sure if it has ever happened to you, but I seemed to be overwhelmed with emotion and the only way the emotion was getting out seemed to be through tears.  Behind my sunglasses, my eyes well up waiting for their turn to roll down my cheeks.  Of course, fighting back the tears wasn’t an option because I think it was “a ready or not, here I come” sort of thing.  I reached over to open the center counsel to grab a napkin, wiping my cheeks, I just cried.  It’s in that moment where you hope everyone on the road is rocking out to their favorite song, not to notice the uncontrollable sobs. 

As I was driving, I was asking the Holy Spirit to help me understand what I was feeling and what was going on.  Prior to the cry fest in my car, I had felt sad, borderline depressed and wasn’t sure why.  I was feeling bits of anger and at times vacillated back and forth—sad, angry, depressed and repeat.  Then the million dollar question, “why?” rolled off my lips and floated into the air. Waiting for an answer, I turned off the radio, grabbed another napkin and kept driving.

Eventually, I got the insight I had been waiting for—stages of rejection.  “What? Seriously! I totally thought I was over that”, I exclaimed.  But really, I wasn’t. I hadn’t even left the first stage of rejection, which is denial. Oh yes, my friend, like grief, rejection is a process.  The reason being is it’s a traumatic experience.

For example, the school you had your heart set on didn’t reciprocate the same desire.  What about the boy that rejected you because he wasn’t “feelin’ it”. Maybe your husband that left you for another woman, changed his mind or has emotionally rejected you.  What about the team you tried out for, but didn’t make. Perhaps, it’s the job you thought would be a good fit and the interview went well, but you found out they decided to go with another candidate.  It can be quite a traumatic experience for you.

For me, I thought I was completely over an experience I had back in January only to realize I wasn’t yet finished with the process.  Yes, it was a traumatic experience for me. Yes, it rocked my world.  Yes, it did affect me in a way that I wasn’t prepared for.  Why?  Because all the signs and conversations pointed in one direction, yet at the end of the conversation, I was rejected and didn’t expect it. I definitely didn’t prepare for it because of course, I wasn’t expecting it.

Nonetheless, here I am four months later, crying in my car and overwhelmed with emotion. Clearly, I’m not done.  When I got home, I researched the stages of rejection and here is what I found. I share it with you in the event you ever find yourself in a place where you are rejected and it’s a traumatic experience for you.  Keep in mind, not all rejection is traumatic.  Some are just a doozy and others roll off your back like water on a duck.

Stages of Rejection

Denial

At first it is extremely difficult to take in the rejection experience. It often feels like being totally abandoned and left to fend for yourself. Denial is the state that occurs here. The rejection does not feel like it actually happened. It feels surrealistic, a trauma someone else is facing, not you.

Rage
The next emotion experienced is rage. You are angry with the person who rejected you. You may feel this anger intently or it may be experienced as more distant. Often the rage becomes self-directed. You express anger at yourself for not being "good enough" for the rejecter. You dwell on second guessing and wondering what could have been. You blame yourself for his leaving and at that point you are indeed broken hearted.

Bargaining
The next stage is bargaining. You say to yourself, "If I change this or that, he will come back to me." If I stop smoking, I will be reunited with my boyfriend."

Depression

The next stage is depression when you begin to realize that the person who rejected you is not coming back. This stage is filled with sadness where the tears fall and the longing ache for the rejecter is realized. Bitterness is also part of depression. It is at this point that you feel extremely resentful that you gave so much of yourself to your lover and now he is gone. You also realize that your vision of your former lover is tainted and he is not the virtuous person that you believed him to be. It feels like he bought the heaviest boots he could find and stomped all over your heart.

Acceptance
The final stage is acceptance where you understand that the time to dwell on this loss is over and it is time to move on. 

If you find yourself walking through rejection, I want to encourage you read through the stages.  There isn’t a time frame and it isn’t a step by step process. You can experience any one of the stages at any given time in any given order. 

When you find yourself processing through the stage, take time to feel what you feel.  What you feel is valid because what you experienced was real. Second, ask the Holy Spirit to help you process through it, to help you understand the emotion, why you feel what you are feeling and to help you better understand the emotion.  I always suggest journaling. It’s an avenue to get what’s going on inside you on paper and out of you. 

Even though you can’t say what you want to say to the person(s), or maybe you are waiting until you cool off, journaling can also help you sort through your emotions.  It’s a safe place for you to be you and to say what you need to say.

Choosing to forgive takes time. When you choose to forgive it’s for your benefit.  By saying you forgive, you are making a choice.  This next part is important so re-read it if you have to.  Between the time you choose to forgive and you are ready to move on, you are healing.  That place between does not have a time limit, it doesn’t have an expiration date.  Healing takes time.  That time is a gift, so please take it.

At times, I think we forget that we are human.  We don’t go from forgive to forget in one step. It’s a process and we all process experiences, emotions and situations differently and at different paces.  What happened to you was unfortunate.  Choose to forgive, take time to heal and then be ready to move on.