GUEST POST – Guarding Your Heart, Women’s Edition

Haley Timmons is the Youth Group Director at a Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Denver and a dear friend of our family.

After reading Dave’s post on April 24^th about ‘A Way for a Woman to Guard Her Heart’, I had to ask, “Isn’t it a large part of the feminine genius that a woman doesn’t, in fact, have a 15′ high electric fence around her heart?” After all, if she were meant to have such a defense, how did the Serpent so easily seduce the first woman?

He was kind enough to explain to me that his analogy was meant to apply to a situation in which a woman found herself surrounded by less-than-holy men, who were just looking for a good time or some arm candy to take to the next party.  I immediately agreed that in such a situation, a yard full of hungry guard dogs would be exactly what was needed!  If I were to give a similar analogy to the teen girls I work with, it would probably resemble the picture he painted of a maximum security compound!

Here’s the thing, though: our defenses against emotional devastation are just as important as our defenses against physical/sexual relationship issues.  As I thought about this, I realized that my ideas about guarding my heart are—as Dave put it—indeed influenced by my own ‘different experiences, different relationships,’ expectations, etc.  My first thoughts about a woman’s heart are probably less about fending off hormone-crazed guys and more about spiritually and emotionally protecting my heart, and I guess that goes to show how seldom I go to bars and how often I hang out at parties populated by men and women who are practicing Catholics, like myself!  When I find myself surrounded by friends and meeting new guys who are faithful and well formed, my approach to guarding my heart is not quite like the one Dave described.

In fact, rather than resembling a S.W.A.T. exercise, I think our feminine hearts’ defenses have to be much less obvious and much more cunning (assuming, of course, that we’re operating in a safe environment, surrounded by trustworthy men, who aren’t going to slip something scary into our drinks!).  I couldn’t help but think of Lady Wisdom: “prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you” (Proverbs 2:11). After all, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace (Proverbs 3:17).  So if we can return to the analogy of the mansion that is our heart, I’ll admit that the first thing I picture in my minds’ eye is more of a fairy tale castle than a modern day mansion (but more on fairy tales, a little later!).

Proverbs 4:23 instructs us, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” And ‘springs’ make me think of a moat! Picture a moat surrounding your heart-castle: it’s just as effective for keeping things out, as keeping things in. I think this makes it a perfect defense, since I’m convinced women often fail to guard their hearts by sharing too much WITH a guy or ABOUT a guy.  It may be obvious that sharing too much about your past, your inner emotions, your prayer life, and your hopes and dreams WITH a guy may be opening the doors to your heart prematurely.  I’ll spell this one out, just in case it’s not obvious to a few of you (a recent conversation with a young man who was a senior in high school makes me think this isn’t as obvious to some guys!): a guy will give a girl emotional intimacy in order to gain physical intimacy with her, whereas a girl will allow physical intimacy in hopes of gaining emotional intimacy with him.  If both the girl and the guy are mature, it may not be so animalistic as this; HOWEVER, sharing your deepest fears and desires with a man who is not a very serious, committed boyfriend could be devastating.  Whenever we share such thoughts, our emotions get tied to the person with whom we’ve entrusted them, whether we intend them to or not.  That’s just a part of the feminine genius.

Getting back to the ‘ABOUT’ part: if you’re not in a serious dating relationship, your heart may occasionally be consumed by a crush.  I speak from personal experience, as I spent the better part of last year crushing on a particular guy, so I feel like this is still rather fresh in my memory!  Here’s how I tried to protect my heart in the midst of a serious crush: “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you” (Proverbs 4:24-25).  I’m convinced a crush stirs up feelings in our hearts that are intensified whenever we verbalize them to friends or spend time daydreaming about him.  Here’s where the moat is needed to keep stuff INSIDE!  The feelings and time we expend on a crush can never be recovered, especially if it remains an unrequited crush.  This can break away a little piece of our heart, which we’ll never get back!  It also sets up a perfect storm for the devil to attack you (more on this later, as well): i.e., if the devil wants to discourage you, all he has to do is point out that the guy you had a crush on never noticed you or loved you back.  Therefore, keeping our gaze straight on what lies before us is to focus on where our heart lingers, correct ourselves if we slip into fantasies, and refrain from scheming with our friends about how to get the attention of our latest crush!

If this as given you some food for thought, great!  If not, hopefully my next post will be helpful to you.  Until next time!

Haley