by Eric Blievernicht

I tend to be quite shy in person, and engage in very little socialization. I was twelve years old when I last had emotionally close friends, so although I am considered very friendly and get along well with people on a casual level, I don't have the experience I feel is needed for deeper relationships. Nor do I run into attractive single Christian women very often (I've often joked about G-d keeping me "in a demographic black hole!") For this reason, I suspect I may be prone to over-react on those occasions when I do see such a lady so I need to be careful.

I became an enthusiastic advocate of courtship a few years ago after the folks that run this site introduced me to it at a homeschool presentation. But advocating it for others is different than making a definite decision to seek marriage for myself, and as I saw no potential helpmates around me the whole question of personally seeking marriage and applying courtship myself was a moot point.

I had pretty well becomecomfortable with singleness before finding out about courtship. That doesn't mean I never wanted to marry, but it was not something that I was pining away about. How I came to this point can best be described by the following imaginary conversation:

"So you feel lonely and want to get married. Do you think you can last through this day without getting married?"
"Of course! It couldn't possibly happen so quickly anyway so no use stressing about it."
"Well then, what about tomorrow? Can you get through tomorrow?"
"Yes, of course. One day isn't going to kill me. And for all I know, I might meet the lady I'm destined to marry next week. So why sweat tomorrow?"
"How do you live your life? How are you living the next 50 years of your life expectancy? All at once or one day at a time?"
"One day at a time, of course!"
"Then why worry about the future? You don't live your whole life all at once, so why worry about whether you'll be married five or ten or twenty years from now anyway?"
"Ahhh…"

My organizer has a quote for each day, and yesterdays' illustrates this moral. It is from the Roman philosopher Seneca: It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own." (Matthew 6:34)

So I have been content as a single, and lived day by day. However, this does not mean my interest in a relationship and marriage was dead. G-d created us to cleave together and be one flesh (Genesis 2:24), and so I do have a sense of incompleteness that remains even as I live, contented by the grace of the L-rd.

So I have prospered and gotten a little older and hopefully a little wiser. I recently took a job in another state than where I grew up, cutting my last ties with my parents (Genesis 2:24 again), buying a house and truly becoming independent and established in my own right. I also have a good job and substantial cash reserves (if I'm allowed to count the cash value of my house minus the mortgage, and use the after-tax value of my income, I have the three years savings that Ron Correill jested about! :-)

A couple weeks ago I had an opportunity to go to a Christian music concert by my favorite musician, someone whose music I absolutely adore. It is restful and serene and soothing, and I can listen to it for days on end without tiring. For someone who is alone and without friends or family to share burdens with, it helps calm a soul troubled by the hurts of the world. The musician in question happens to be a young, single beautiful Christian lady from Australia. (And no, it's not Rebecca St. James - gotcha! :-)

The concert was thoroughly enjoyable. The lady in question turned out to be even prettier than the photos of her I'd seen would indicate, and I was really attracted by her sweet shyness and humility before the applauding concertgoers. Being shy myself I could empathize with her. It was a fairly small affair and I had the opportunity to talk to her during breaks if I had wanted, but I couldn't really find the right words to say and felt too shy anyhow.

Anyhow, you can guess where this is leading. As I left the concert, my heart was touched as it had not been in years. Could it be?? Once I would have thought of a well-known Christian music artist as being too far above me, but I have learned something of the masculine boldness spoken of by courtship authors, irregardless of my shyness, and am no longer a stripling in the Faith or the eyes of the world.

I began to pray about this in the days following the concert, and she was much on my mind and in my heart. I asked for guidance from G-d about whether I should seek courtship with her, and whether I was prepared for marriage or what areas I needed to work on.

Two nights after the concert I had a good deal of trouble going to bed. Doubts were gnawing at me, particularly about my shyness and lack of social skills. Such defects, I have feared, left me in a catch-22 because I needed to develop social skills before I could confidently be ready for marriage, yet who would invest the patience and time with me if I was so incompetent in knowing how to be a friend? Was I doomed to be alone forever?

I couldn't sleep, and the doubts turned to emotional and even physical pain. I had encountered this before but not for many years, in the time before I had known Christ and was desperately "in love" with a young lady but suffered panic attacks whenever near her. I call this state "stress shock" and nothing else I have suffered even comes into the same class of pain and anguish as it does.

Finally, it suddenly entered into my head (by my own inspiration or otherwise I know not) that this attack was not of natural origin. I have had some experience with spiritual warfare (though not in several years.) Immediately I prayed, and then commanded the evil spirit tormenting me to leave by the authority of Christ and go to the place appointed for him. Immediately the pain left me and I was at peace.

I would speculate that my attraction to this young lady and the wrestling in my heart that resulted created a window of vulnerability in me that the Enemy tried to exploit.

I continued to deliberate and pray about the matter. I learned what I could about the young lady from resources on the web. It was around this time that I found the Courtship Connection website, in a seemingly unrelated yet parallel thread of my web wanderings.

I had known she was lonely due to separation from her family and friends in Australia but I found she had close friends who kept her good company, and that gladdened my heart. I learned she had no plans for marriage and wanted to return to Australia at the end of her musical career. Such things did not trouble me much as Doug Wilson's book had reminded me that the man seeking marriage is inherently seeking to disrupt (though not ignore) the plans of a young lady, to her own joy and benefit therefrom.

I was able to determine other things as well, such as her rough age (a little older than I had guessed, but a little younger than myself.) One thing I was not able to determine was her church, her personal doctrine.

As I pondered these things, I began to question my basis for my attraction to her. Basically it boiled down to three things:
1. Her wonderful music.
2. My confidence in her strong Christian faith.
3. My attraction to her beauty, her wholesomeness and her personality.

Now, #1 is nice but irrelevant. I can obtain it from the music store and an occasional concert whether I marry her or not! As to the other points, I realized that I was jumping the gun. My attraction here was real enough, but I knew very little about the specifics.

The question arose: was I attracted to the actuality of the young lady as she really was, or the archetype she represented? An archetype is a sort of standard or symbol that best represents some class of things. For example, a particularly striking bald eagle is an archetype of raptors, and Abraham in the Old Testament is an archetype of a godly man.

I realized that I didn't know her well enough to know the actuality of what she was really like. It was the archetype of the godly Christian lady that I saw in her that so attracted me. I had no specific reason to count her out, but neither did I have sufficient information to go forward on. I do not know her doctrine so I could be clear up front that we would be compatible, and I did not know her well enough generally at the personal level.

If by some chance I have an opportunity to get to know her better as a friend things could change in the future. But for the present G-d removed the desire from my heart after I simply prayed that, if it be His will, such friendship might occur. This conclusion came yesterday, and as I pondered the whole episode I thought it might be worthwhile to share. I would be interested in everyone's thoughts and suggestions, and hope it was a worthwhile read. :-)