When a guy picked me up for my first-ever date — at age 26 — I was nervously excited. He was a strong Christian with good character. I thought I knew what I wanted the relationship to look like.
And I was terrified I would mess up somehow.
I just knew I would find a way to make a mistake. Surely, I would move too fast — or not fast enough. Most likely I would ask the wrong question or give the wrong answer to one of his questions.
That relationship lasted only a few weeks, at least in part due to my fear of making a mistake. But I don’t think I realized how great a role fear played in relationships and my life in general.
A few years later, I listened to an earlier episode of “The Boundless Show” podcast. As Lisa Anderson and her roundtable guests discussed how to get a date, Travis Williams pinpointed my problem. “There’s healthy fear and unhealthy fear,” he said. “There’s so much fear wrapped around this issue.”
I remember the first time I heard that…
