You are my missing piece

The first  time a boy made me feel something, I was only ten years old.I still didn’t understand what that something was. I was still a child.In the middle of innocence,  books and boarding school, I didn’t want to pursue it .I dared not to define it.I just know I always wanted to see that boy.Always.And when he was around , I would feel all these things in my stomach.Butterflies.Birds. At 10, and in the school I was in, anything that had to do with a boy and girl was forbidden.Taboo.Demonized.You couldn’t talk about it. We had a name for it :Kamchezo.A swahili word , loosely translated to the GAME!Tabia Mbaya!As a girl coming of age, that is not a good thing.I remember how once some of my classmates were badly beaten up, for playing the GAME.It was as if they had done the abominable.What I regret the most about that time is that we were taught to hate what is only natural, what blooms in the brightest of places, we were taught to be ashamed of something sacred that God had given us.We were taught to be ashamed of our sexuality and worse still there was no one to teach us what to do with it, how to embrace it, how to deal with the changes that we could not reverse. I held on to my feelings for that boy, bottled up, waiting to be released.There were times, I saw his lingering gaze and I swear I could have let it all out but I didn’t. 11,12,13,14…The years came and went.High school.I was still the same.I remember letters from classmates who did claim they had  loved me all these years.But still they didn’t mean much because I was staying true to that lingering feeling. 15, 16.I saw him, a small glimpse but he didn’t see me.Or even if he did, it wasn’t enough to recapture the wonder of  years past . That’s the thing about unrequited love.You wait for something that isn’t yours, that will never  come to you.17…still.There was just one interrupting pause.Another flame, but dimmed even before it could burn brightly.At 17, you know more than when you were 10.I was growing up but I had not left the girl that I had always been behind.She was still there.This one just vanished after playing with my artistic dreams.I wrote him a letter.He never wrote back.Broken , I went back to what I always had. Then came Facebook.We met again but never in person. You are my missing piece I didn’t have the courage to tell him what I had felt all these years. All 8 of them.Social media sometimes is a shadow of who we really are.We wear masks and never get to let people see the real us.At 18, I let go.I realized I was hanging on to something that was not real.None of it existed.And I had been doing it for 8 years.Such a painstaking labour.The trigger was something I had seen, a post, a photo that made every shiny thing I believed about this boy, rust before my every eyes.He wasn’t what I thought he was or who would be.We had nothing in common, not even value.And I could no longer cling to him. College taught me the essence of life.My roots were there.My calling was there.And for the very first time, I knew who I was and  whose I was.But even still  I had no idea what to do with the wave and tide of feelings, the butterflies and the birds.I learned that a crush is a crush, whether you are 10 or 19, 20 or 15…This one was much older, more refined, strong.It mattered that other people saw great things in him. It appealed to me that he was a  wordsmith…and every text, every message was the substance of whatever we had.I had friends too, great ones and good ones.And I am really sorry if I ever friend zoned or brother zoned the really good ones and learned that I hurt them in the process.I don’t think girls intentionally set out to zone.At 19, a good friend, a boy told me he liked me.I honestly didn’t know what that meant.I wish he hadn’t because I felt those three words ruined a friendship that meant so much to me. The one guy, who stirred so much in my head  turned out to be  something that yet again didn’t exist.At least only in my head.I realized that I had read too much into things .I was also pursuing what wasn’t real.And I pray that men will also learn not to play with women’s feelings, not to lead them on and most of all say what they really want.I hate colossal silences.They are painful and annoying.How is it possible you can talk to someone about something important one day, and the next it’s like  nothing happened? End of story. At 20, I decided I was done.I realized that I didn’t understand anything at all.It is written,”My people perish for lack of knowledge” and I was slowly perishing.I read and read and read.From God is Your matchmaker,The Lady in Waiting, God’s Leading Lady, Passion and Purity,The Lady,Her Lover and her Lord.It was Michelle McKinney Hammond who spoke to my inner ache the most.I have never read or listened to anyone with more sass, class and the Word. “What to do till love finds you, The Diva Principle, Secrets of an Irresistible Woman,The Unspoken Rules of Love, Blessed and Highly Favoured, How to be found by the man you have been looking for , The power of being a woman, The 10 mistakes single women make, Single Sassy and Satisfied…”The list is endless.And these books were my saving grace, for the next years till the end of college, no one moved me.Not for once did I ever think anything was wrong with me, or missing.I felt whole knowing that I had to wait, wait patiently until God’s appointed time.I laugh at how I was caught up in an arranged marriage, can you believe it, someone actually wanted a wife for his son.Those were shoes I could never fill.I  value the ability of choice.My Heavenly Father has always given it to me…free will. Now, I look back at that little 10 year old I used to be.There are things about her that are still with me.Is it possible to still get here and feel that way about someone?Is it alright for the Christian to crush?A crush is a brief but intense infatuation for someone, especially someone unattainable or inappropriate. Others say it’s a burning desire to be with someone you find very attractive and special.It often is the act of falling hard for someone even though it isn’t love yet, an amazing thing  that gives you the feelings of nerves or excitement whenever you see them. So should we crush?NO. WIll we crush ?YES. Do we have to crush? NO. Can anything keep us from crushing? “To Him who is able to keep us from falling…and present us before His glorious presence without great fault and with great Joy! Jude 24″What do we do about it when it happens to us?What should the 10 year old do with her racing tiny heart?Should the 13 year old start writing these letters to breathe life to her feelings?What about the 23 year old who starts falling for her colleague?I believe there are no generic answers.All of us come as one of a kind, and so are the answers for all of us.What I do know is that there are so many of us  crying for answers, sitting in despair, faced with situations and  we have no idea what to do.We can’t pretend. Should we crush? I find answers in God’s unchanging and sure Word.How much God loves us, even at our worst behaviour.With God, all His promises are Yes and Amen.His Word is sure.He has made everything beautiful in its time.And if a sparrow falls to the ground and He knows,  how much more the state of your heart?Fire burns.Cold coal stains.Even a raging bushfire started as a flame.God has shown us what love is and what love is not. Beginning with the love He had that He gave His only Son to die for us and redeem us.True love is of God, it is patient,it is kind, longsuffering, not rude, not puffed up, it keeps no record of wrongs.It believes all things.It bears all things.And here is the deal:Love never fails.It doesn’t because God doesn’t fail.Paul admonishes us to pursue purity, to pursue Godliness and honour marriage when we get there. He reveals how as young people and even aging, we can still guard our hearts and minds.(Phillipians 4:8) And the  peace of God will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. God knows you.He knows me.He knows the little things that make your heart beat faster or turn your knees into wobbly jelly.He knows you will even when you shouldn’t. And if you trust Him ,He will hold you when Hurricane Hormones overwhelms you.