I might be close to a breakthrough, in the very least, my life. I have idea in my head from years of repetitive assurance, consecutive examples, and constant reminders from myself that I ought to treat all girls like my sisters. “They are to be love as a dear sister” is how the idea often goes. This has been so engrained in me and I would say with confidence that it has greatly benefited my relationships with both my sisters and those who are treated as such without being such. But I have recently questioned the assumptions that this idea presents and has possibly ensnared me with.
Why does this phrase draw a distinction between girls and sisters? Why can’t there be a girl and we treat them as we treat all girls? What is it about a sister that makes it more special a category of girl than simply all girls? As I write this the idea becomes clearer and I hope that I can relay this idea smoothly and not catch up with myself too quick and thus skip valuable steps to the finale.
The basis of this phrase is dangerous when dissected. I have found the pouch containing the dangerous poison of such an idea while at the same time respecting the intention of the carrier. There is this idea that all men have about there sisters that is both crucial and unique: don’t like your sisters. Now the humor in that phrase is that, in one moment you all would raise your hands and protest and then in the next instance you understand in what sense I am using the word like. Side note: I think it is that fleeting refinement of sense that we often move behind before it has time to develop and therefore find ourselves in awful conundrums of our making. So at last you understand; “like” in a romantic way, a pursing, shy, confident, and beautiful way. Sisters are dear imago dei’s of the opposite sex that we can neither gawk at except to compliment their hair nor ask out for coffee (again I ask you to give the fleeting sense time to mature). And herein is the claw. We must understand and embrace the magnificent difference between our dearly loved sisters and our dearly respected sisters in Christ. This is where I have found myself in grave fault and danger. Of late I have simmered my mind in the idea of that phrase and now, when the time of one chapter is coming to a close, I find myself grasping for a rope of security that i am finding is not there. I hope I have not lived the wrong mindset of sisters for too long and become too good at living that way.
I must stand in a different sense upon a different paradigm. All these girls are of great importance, and I am obliged to be a respectful gentlemen to them all. But they are my dear friends. They are not closed off from pursuing more as my sisters are but they are all viable (though in varying degrees and granting those already taken as non-viable). Assuming I am a Christian man with all virtue and capable and willing to express in a right and true way my more-than-friend-and-sister affections towards girls, what is stopping me? But myself: that dangerous villain ever wishing to usurp the power given a greater man for worse action.
One day I will have to make a stand and, knowing who I am and what I, as a true man of God can do, must run, nay, run with such voracity as to trip up over my own legs, towards a girl with all love and patient tempered desire.
It is not fear of rejection that stays my mind and confidence but the fear of mistake. Not the protection of myself but the protection, respect, and first thoughts of the girls well being.
God give me the strength to deny myself and become him who is ever within me and more like your son by your grace and blessing.
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