Valentine’s Day Redemption

On Valentine’s Day our two men surprised us by cooking us breakfast, decorating the table with flowers, giving us all a rose and a hand written note. I am going to be honest, this was difficult for me. I am going to do my best to explain why.

My father has been such a great model of how a man should treat me my entire life. I know how men should act and I have seen it in both my brother and my dad, but it’s been hard for me finding that in men my age. I always thought my dad put too high of expectations in my head and I was doomed for life, haha. Just last month in the village, we couldn’t walk anywhere without getting whistled at or cat called. Even this morning walking around San Jose, we had a strange experience with a random guy that wouldn’t leave us alone. Over the years, I have had some not so great experiences and it has caused me to put a wall up to most men, unfortunately. I was unaware of this wall until I started doing life with the two men on our squad, Ryan and Connor.

The wall that I put up has shut me down to allowing guys in and letting them see me where I am at. I treat men differently because I assume I will get hurt in the end, so I try and leave the friendship before I get hurt. This is my go to defensive mechanism until I realized Ryan and Connor weren’t going anywhere and they weren’t budging. They wanted to hear my story and at the end, they were still there telling me that the Lord loves me so much. This doesn’t happen in the millennial generation, these guys must be crazy right?! 

Nope, they are really that awesome and they are just trying to live like Jesus. They show us so much love, I see the Lord pouring out of them everyday. I bet it is hard for them living with mostly women, but you would never tell. They are such great examples of men and how the Lord created them to be. It was hard for me to believe that they did all that for us just because they love us as sisters in Christ.

This verse really stuck with me this morning after one of my squad mates shared it with me, “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” 1 Timothy 2:8 NKJV 

Lifting up HOLY hands without wrath. I felt like I needed to emphasize that. 

I get to learn how to empower them to be the men that they were created to be and they continue to empower me to be the woman I was created to be. It’s really beautiful. This Valentine’s Day was for sure a redeeming moment for me. It’s beautiful to do life with people who are living for Jesus and not themselves, our entire squad is devoted to spreading the Lord’s love.