me and girls

Lately, I feel like God’s been opening a lot of opportunities with girls (not in that way), but a lot of me is scared to approach this. For sure, God knows that I need to reconcile with girls, mainly because the ones in my past have negatively affected my perception of women and their role in my life. However, friendship with a girl is a tricky one. In the past, I have been easy to fall into the trap of expecting more out of friendships, easy to think that they owe me something, and easy to establish my identity into a relationship… all pretty bad things to fall into. With this a lot of the times I lose and hurt myself (and maybe even others). Directing myself back to the first sentence, yeah, I feel like God is inviting me into cross gendered relationships, yet it frustrates me that he fully knows of my weaknesses in this matter and lets it happen anyway. It completely frustrates me that I believe that I need to work on other things in my heart that I deem as a higher priority, yet with all my weakness put into account, He still says to go forth. Do these words stress my fears enough? Does this genuinely represent the fear I have with this subject? By all means, I hope anyone who reads this can see how completely terrified I am about this.

God please do not let my fears limit my faith, please do not let my fears limit the relationships, and please do not let my fears limit You, Your love, Your righteousness, Your grace, nor Your glory. Please watch over me Father, and please when I stumble, as you walk next to me, pick me up with your loving arms. May I grow the wisdom in which only you can give. Please may I see a glimpse of your promises.

Judges

Recently, I've been getting criticism that I am a judge, and no matter how much I try to justify in saying that I just hold opinions of people, it's so evident that I do judge.

Without a doubt, some judgements are not too harsh... like judging professors or food and stuff like that, but I have come to the point where I judge totally based off people's impressions and with that give off negative emotions. I'll even come to judge random people on the road sometimes, and this recent realization startles the crap out of me.

But how does a guy from a life full of pain and loneliness guard his heart from a world that has failed countless times?

I don't want to justify judging anyone anymore. I want to let go of this defensive mechanism that has become a parasite--benefiting itself at the expense of my sanity and peace.

But where do I go from here? How can I even make this applicable in my life?

God, may you meet me where I am.