only as a brother in Christ
Trina Holden
I was not initially attracted to the first man who came to court me. Yet, after truly seeking God’s heart for the situation, I felt He was calling me to love this man. So I said ‘yes’ to a ‘season of exploration’ — to a courtship. As the months passed, my choice to love selflessly bore fruit and I began to find great joy in our relationship. Then, suddenly, the Lord made it just as clear that He was calling me out of the relationship, to relinquish my desire for marital love, and to only love this man as a brother in Christ.
Read Courtship: Dispelling the Myths
"God was slowly just using a bunch of different things to convict me that I had a certain script laid out for how [my love story] was going to go. He just impressed upon me the need to hold my hand more openly and not decide how it was going to look like and how it was going to go—that I would not be so quick to judge and so quick to determine [my husband] was or wasn’t him."
(Lisa Jacobson in "Are You Ready for a Real-Life Love Story?")