The following is the first installment written a few weeks before the actual date shown (I just pasted it into my blog so it could go live and stop languishing on my desktop). i hope to write the subsequent stages sooner than later, but for now, here's chapter one. I will probably intersperse the occasional thoughts and commentary as well, but will set apart the "two years, two months" by its heading.
journals are important, i've determined. they will prove invaluable when we look back on the times we've forgotten. what helped jump start this was my friend and best man, John, who inspired me with his blog content and habits. he also inspired me to look at The Reagan Diaries, which begins with Ronnie lamenting the fact that he didn't start a diary sooner.
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It’s 12:36am and I can’t sleep. Not sure what the reason is, but I’ve had trouble sleeping the week before and the week and a half since we returned from vacationing in costa rica.
This is as good a time as any to begin the story of us: pooky and pookie under the grace of God.
March 2005
I love Christian apologetics.
It became attractive to me when I realized that, contrary to secular wisdom, Christianity is wonderfully logical, satisfying the queries of the mind and the heart. My mom, a tremendous influence on my life, shares my interest in defending Christianity, and forwarded me a weblink she knew I’d have time to peruse.
For once, the web ad became the focus, and, thanks be to God for a busy and aesthetically dismal homepage, I went straight to the link that said: christiancafe.com.
The first week was free and answering their questions to create my profile was fun. Nine years of minimal career productivity and maximum downtime had led to this.
I became an addict.
pouring over profiles of women defined my days immediately thereafter, and it wasn’t long before I’d singled out a few to know better.
One of my biggest regrets in life is how insensitive I‘ve been towards women, whether they knew it at the time or not. a single man can justify most anything. Unfortunately, since women are capable of the same thing, the consequences for poor judgment in relationships are rarely subtle. Four dates in one week can be deception if your desire for just friendship is never stated.
i never knew just how different my heart was from the women I’ve met until meeting the woman who became my wife. i flirted, misled, and betrayed throughout friendships and romances. I delayed or omitted verbal truths in favor of vague gestural ones. With an ignorance of the depth of difference between the sexes, i became quite careless quite effortlessly.
In the end, I’ve learned that interaction with the opposite sex requires constant sensitivity and self-control. And just because men are less sensitive and thoughtful doesn’t mean we can employ selective ignorance to justify our behavior.
My advice to women is this: a man who cares for your heart will want to know just how it interprets his behavior, and will not want to mislead it for his own ends.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”
That’s something you won’t read in Maxim.
So, back to the spring of 2005, when a young man’s fancy turns to e-dating.
New relationships are exciting and I ended up pursuing three at once. This wasn’t as illicit as it sounds. However, I did resemble a call center at work, receiving emails from three different girls and sending off responses, even to the point of getting a little confused as to what I’d told whom. Ultimately, it was a woman named grace on whom I focused. She quickly revealed herself to be someone who didn’t elicit any change in my communication style, and with whom I became fast friends.
A little backstory. Part of the excitement these courtships brought was a shared love of Jesus Christ and His Word which tells all about Him. For the first time, I was interested in girls who worship Jesus, and our email relationships often produced wonderful little bible studies. I was a kid in a candy store. Understand that I’m sold out to Jesus Christ as my first love, and at this point was also on my way to getting a girlfriend.
Having recently renewed my walk with Christ (that means I stopped remanding God’s salvation for my sinful soul to mere intellectual assent, and embraced the humbling repentance necessary to actually know Jesus’ love), the excitement of e-dating was compounded by a growing spiritual maturity.
I was joyful.
This is as good a time as any to begin the story of us: pooky and pookie under the grace of God.
March 2005
I love Christian apologetics.
It became attractive to me when I realized that, contrary to secular wisdom, Christianity is wonderfully logical, satisfying the queries of the mind and the heart. My mom, a tremendous influence on my life, shares my interest in defending Christianity, and forwarded me a weblink she knew I’d have time to peruse.
For once, the web ad became the focus, and, thanks be to God for a busy and aesthetically dismal homepage, I went straight to the link that said: christiancafe.com.
The first week was free and answering their questions to create my profile was fun. Nine years of minimal career productivity and maximum downtime had led to this.
I became an addict.
pouring over profiles of women defined my days immediately thereafter, and it wasn’t long before I’d singled out a few to know better.
One of my biggest regrets in life is how insensitive I‘ve been towards women, whether they knew it at the time or not. a single man can justify most anything. Unfortunately, since women are capable of the same thing, the consequences for poor judgment in relationships are rarely subtle. Four dates in one week can be deception if your desire for just friendship is never stated.
i never knew just how different my heart was from the women I’ve met until meeting the woman who became my wife. i flirted, misled, and betrayed throughout friendships and romances. I delayed or omitted verbal truths in favor of vague gestural ones. With an ignorance of the depth of difference between the sexes, i became quite careless quite effortlessly.
In the end, I’ve learned that interaction with the opposite sex requires constant sensitivity and self-control. And just because men are less sensitive and thoughtful doesn’t mean we can employ selective ignorance to justify our behavior.
My advice to women is this: a man who cares for your heart will want to know just how it interprets his behavior, and will not want to mislead it for his own ends.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”
That’s something you won’t read in Maxim.
So, back to the spring of 2005, when a young man’s fancy turns to e-dating.
New relationships are exciting and I ended up pursuing three at once. This wasn’t as illicit as it sounds. However, I did resemble a call center at work, receiving emails from three different girls and sending off responses, even to the point of getting a little confused as to what I’d told whom. Ultimately, it was a woman named grace on whom I focused. She quickly revealed herself to be someone who didn’t elicit any change in my communication style, and with whom I became fast friends.
A little backstory. Part of the excitement these courtships brought was a shared love of Jesus Christ and His Word which tells all about Him. For the first time, I was interested in girls who worship Jesus, and our email relationships often produced wonderful little bible studies. I was a kid in a candy store. Understand that I’m sold out to Jesus Christ as my first love, and at this point was also on my way to getting a girlfriend.
Having recently renewed my walk with Christ (that means I stopped remanding God’s salvation for my sinful soul to mere intellectual assent, and embraced the humbling repentance necessary to actually know Jesus’ love), the excitement of e-dating was compounded by a growing spiritual maturity.
I was joyful.
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