An Unexpected Crush

I have a confession to make.

I think I accidentally developed a crush on Saint Paul.

I know how ridiculous that sounds.

He's been dead for nearly two thousand years. I don't know what he looked like. He chose a life of celibacy, and if he were somehow alive today, he would probably laugh at this entire journal entry.

So no... it isn't that kind of crush.

At least, I don't think it is.

It's something much stranger.

The more I've been studying Scripture for my podcast, the more I've been getting to know Paul—not just through his theology, but through the man behind the words.

I can almost hear his voice now.

His urgency.

His conviction.

His tenderness.

His intelligence.

His courage.

His complete unwillingness to compromise the truth, while at the same time carrying such deep love for the people entrusted to him.

Somewhere between Corinthians and Romans, I found myself thinking,

"Wow... this man is incredibly attractive."

Not physically.

I have no idea what he looked like.

His soul.

His mind.

His integrity.

It caught me completely off guard.

For a brief moment, I even felt embarrassed.

How do you explain being attracted to someone you've never seen?

Then I realized...

I have done this my whole life.

When I was in college, I had the biggest "crush" on Mozart.

Not because of powdered wigs or portraits.

His music.

His mind.

His interior world.

His ability to take beauty and somehow make it audible.

Even then, I wasn't falling in love with appearances.

I was falling in love with someone's interior life.

And suddenly everything clicked.

This isn't really about Paul.

Or Mozart.

It's about what they revealed about me.

I've always fallen in love through admiration.

Not admiration for status.

Not admiration for fame.

Admiration for depth.

For coherence.

For people whose inner life is so rich that it spills into everything they touch.

I think that's why my marriage hurt me as deeply as it did.

For a long time, I believed I had found that in the man that I married.

The more we talked over the phone before we got married, the more I admired him.

He talked about books.

Apologetics.

Economics.

Ideas.

He sent me a picture once holding a book, and I almost melted.

That sounds so ridiculous now.

Most women probably wouldn't even remember something like that.

I do.

Because I thought I had finally found my equal.

Someone I could spend the rest of my life talking to.

Questioning.

Learning with.

Growing with.

Then life happened.

Marriage happened.

Reality happened.

I slowly discovered that many of the conversations I longed for often couldn't happen.

That the intellectual introspection I thought I saw wasn't really there.

The disappointment wasn't that he wasn't a genius.The disappointment was that I had mistaken the appearance of depth for depth itself.

That realization broke my heart more than I knew.

But maybe that's why Paul feels so refreshing.

He isn't pretending.

There's no performance.

No carefully curated image.

No need to impress anyone.

Just a man who was so conquered by Christ that every letter he wrote still burns with conviction two thousand years later.

And somehow...

That is incredibly beautiful to me.

It's funny.

A year ago, if someone had asked me what I found attractive, I probably would have talked about chemistry.

Today, I think my answer is much simpler.

Masculine integrity.

A man whose life is coherent.

Whose words and actions belong together.

A man who loves the truth more than his own ego.

A man who can admit when he's wrong.

A man who can be corrected because he fears offending God more than bruising his pride.

A man whose strength comes from surrender rather than control.

That is beautiful.

That is masculine.

And yes...

That is deeply attractive.

The funny part is that this little "crush" has become less about Paul and more about gratitude.

God has quietly revealed something about my own heart.

Not what I should chase.

But what I truly admire.

Maybe this wasn't an unexpected crush after all.

Maybe it was an unexpected revelation.

And if one day God ever writes another love story for my life, I pray that I won't be captivated by appearances, charisma, or potential.

I pray I'll recognize what is real.

Because now I know.

What my heart has always been searching for wasn't brilliance alone.

It was a man whose soul belongs completely to God.

And maybe...

That's the most attractive thing in the world.