“Fallen Eve controls her relationships. She refuses to be vulnerable. And if she cannot secure her relationships, then she kills her heart’s longing for intimacy so that she will be safe and in control. She becomes a woman who “doesn’t need anyone-especially a man.”…Beneath it all, behind it all, is a simple truth: women dominate and control because they fear their vulnerability. Far from God and far from Eden, it seems a perfectly reasonable way to live. But consider also this: “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). That self-protective way of relating to others has nothing to do with real loving, and nothing to do with deeply trusting God. It is our gut-level response to a dangerous world.”

-Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading Captivating off and on depending on my mood. I came across this paragraph yesterday and was shocked at how true the words were. It isn’t always easy to admit, but I think all women know deep down that at some point they have felt the need to protect themselves, out of fear of being vulnerable and getting hurt. We put up these walls to keep ourselves from ever getting our hearts broken again but while doing so we miss out on truly experiencing love. More importantly, when we try to convince ourselves that we don’t need a man or that we can do life without a partner, we’re basically telling God that His plan isn’t good enough and that we don’t trust Him.

How many of you have had your heart broken by a guy and swore you’d never be in a relationship again? You hang out with your other single girlfriends and blast guy-hating music, eat a ton of ice cream and maybe even come to the conclusion that you can be just like a boy. Heck, I know there were a few nights like that at my apartment back in the day. My roomies and I would sit around talking about how cruel guys were and decided that we could “play the game” just as good as they do. We gave up on romance. We stopped seeing the good in men. We cheapened ourselves. We hardened our hearts.

Is it any wonder that starting a new relationship with that mentality can be a train wreck? How can we expect to find love when we’ve hardened our hearts? How can we think that we’ll be able to fully love a man when we have put up these huge walls to keep all men out of our hearts?

Aside from the fact that going through life like this destroys any real chance at love and a successful connection with a good man, lets look at what this says about God. God has placed a desire for intimacy in our hearts. In the Garden of Eden that desire was safe, Adam was the “perfect” man. Once Eve & Adam decided to not listen to God & take matters into their own hands (a.k.a. eating from the “forbidden tree”) everything started to unravel. Through the thousands of generations through then women have perfected the art of convincing themselves that we know better than God. We can protect our own hearts. We can take care of ourselves. God doesn’t write our love story, we make our own….. How has that worked out for most of us so far? Not so good eh?

When we see the Truth, that Christ is the only way to salvation, we are supposed to put our lives in God’s hands. Most of us will say that we totally do that….but do we really? Do we really trust God in all areas of our lives? Cause I for one know that I trust God in almost everything…except for my love life. For example, I’ve had the privileged of getting to know an amazing, intelligent, Godly man over the past few months but I still find myself keeping him at arms length at times. It is so easy for me to try to keep that figurative moat around my heart and not allow myself to really let him in. I can question everything he says, try to control how close we get, wait for the moment where he’ll mess up. Those things have become 2nd nature for me. But are any of those things of God? No!

Trusting God, placing my heart in His hands, knowing that He hears my prayers & knows the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4) are all things I should be doing. If I know that God is the Creator of all things, that He so lovingly sent his Son down to Earth to die for my mess ups, why am I reluctant to do things His way? It all comes down to the fact that we live in a fallen world. We feel the need to control everything ourselves to prevent our hearts from being destroyed by a man but in doing so we’re taking to power out of God’s hands.

We aren’t letting Him do what He does. God loves love. God is love. Of course he wants to see his children in love, in Godly relationships!

Let go of how the World has taught us to live as women and embrace to promises that God has given us. Trust Him, have faith that He will give you the desires of your heart when you seek Him. Stop trying to harden yourself and control your emotions all the time. Eventually if you keep living that way you won’t be able to let yourself love when the right guy does comes along. In my opinion, missing out on my future husband because I’m so afraid of getting hurt is far worse than having my heart broken ever could be. Be vulnerable, trust Him to guard your heart for you, and let love in.