Navigating a church crush
TL;DR:
After years of healing from a toxic past relationship and focusing on my faith/self-worth, I (28F) have developed my first "adult crush" on someone at my church. I feel a mutual attraction, but I tend to freeze up or avoid one-on-one interaction because it feels so new. How do I navigate this intentional, God-honoring "re-entry" into romance without letting fear or old patterns take over?
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Hello everyone! Throwaway because I don’t think I want to get too much into this, but consider this post a sort of confession from my part about a new thing I am experiencing that I feel odd to express outwardly.
I am F28, turning 29 this year and I love Jesus! I was raised a Christian and found Jesus personally as a teenager. A lot of what I’ve been taught and my personal convictions have always somehow led me to Christ, but even when I strayed away. One of those things I’ve been very careful about is dating. Even as a little girl, I had many crushes and was very imaginative, but as I grew older I knew that I would not easily give my heart to someone for a kiss or for attention, as much as I yearned for it. There was always an invisible wall that I now understand as an adult, was the fear of God.
I went on dates, but they didn’t seem to go the way I thought and I was able to spot true intentions right away, usually by being asked to do things I didn’t want to. And I didn’t do them. End of story. Around the time I was turning 19 and wondering when I was ever going to experience a sort of romance, X appeared and it felt like we were “supposed” to be together. It felt rushed, X always tried to go a step deeper and I felt helpless at times to stand for myself and say no. Falling into my own weakness, I continued this relationship until I felt in my heart it wasn’t right and X was not respecting my boundaries time and time again. I ended things, but they didn’t end well at all. And for the next years after that, there was a toxic tie that brought out the worst of us and at times brought us together, X even asking me to consider him again because we “just made sense.” But then I remember all the colors that came out from this throughout the years (even X slapping my hand to shush me, disrespecting my with hurtful words, or yelling in front of others,) and I knew he was not a line to cross.
I closed myself off from dating and pushed it away. I yearn and at times, maladaptive dreaming helped through that because I found myself throwing my delusions on celebrities or singers because they were as they wanted to be shown, specially in the light of perfection. In the back of my mind, though, I told myself I was too much for anyone and I just had to hide myself from any attempt at that. My own delusions were my masks to cover up my pain, that I have come to understand was not for me to blame someone else, but to finally come back to the One that has fully known and FULLY LOVED me.
Fast forward to the past couple of years, internal and physical healing that God has given me, also a new sense of worth, where I am finding my own voice in Him and that I can finally see myself as His daughter, worthy of love and of forgiveness. I also still guard my heart and as much as it can jump for someone at times, there is the unspoken understanding that I will not give it away so easily. Currently, there is still healing and growing, and part of that is finally inviting the idea of romantic love, that I can one day trust someone to love me like Christ does and create something beautiful.
Friends, I have met someone I like the past few months, that we clicked quickly but it was something unexpected. We both go to church and he serves in church. I never “noticed” him in any way other than the knowledge that he was in the team. We have chatted, specially now that we are both in a group during a special service, but I definitely freeze and in general, interactions are hard for me. I say this very carefully because I have not been looking for anything remotely romantic in the past couple of years and it all feels brand new to me - but I think he feels attraction. I think he is interested and I do see how he responds to me, how he seats close by, and recently during a group interaction, he would speak directly to me many times. I have avoided more recently any one on one conversations (I know I know it’s childish,) but I just feel so small, as if I won’t know what to say now that I have acknowledged that I have an adult crush. I don’t leave open spaces, but I definitely want to.
I also don’t want to rush, I don’t want those mistakes again, but I also think that I am ready to be intentional in my relationships. Basically, if someone has been in my shoes of rediscovering this thing called romantic love - how do you navigate it? How to express it in a way that is God honoring without pushing yourself into unhealthy territory.
The more I write, the more I understand that the holy spirit also does that work in us. I will also continue to pray about this and get out of my comfort zone. I think I am just confronted with new emotions and feelings and I want to navigate it well. Would love any advice or even observations.