Courtship, Pt. 2: "How Will I Know? The Bridge Between Friendship and Courtship"

     I am sure we have all heard at some point someone mention "Love at first sight," or "Somehow I just knew they were the one." Of these statements, I cannot say that I know the mystery of how God draws one's heart to another. And although I have not yet experienced this side of Courtship, I completely believe that God will one day draw my heart to the one and only man that will ever truly own my heart and affection. As I said in the first post, I want all of these words to come from my heart. And while I cannot tell you my own love story quite yet, I have prayed about it from the time I was very young. God has placed in my heart a strong desire for a God centered Courtship and love story. God has blessed me in more ways than one in this area. He has given me a picture of what it could like like for me, through others in my life. Just one example is Kaitie and Ryan.

     You see, my sister married our brother's childhood best friend. And believe it or not, my parents held their son-in-law as a newborn, not realizing that he would one day marry their daughter and be the father of their first grandson only twenty years later. To watch Kaitie and Ryan's Courtship unfold, as well as my older brother John and his wife, Sarah, has totally blessed me from the beginning. It has given me a vision of how I desire my love story to be--joyful and pure.

     Kaitie and Ryan have known each other pretty much since they were born. Our parents have been best friends since the time they met during childbirth class in 1989-- the thought of that still makes me smile. We have pictures and home videos of Kaitie and Ryan playing together even when they were toddlers. God had placed Ryan in Kaitie's heart from early on. However, no one knew this except my mom and Kaitie's prayer journal. She admired him not only for who he was, but what he stood for. Along with my parents, Kaitie prayed for Ryan and their friendship.

     I believe friendship is an essential piece in Courtship. It allows someone to see a person in their natural setting with no pressure or angst involved. It gives someone a clear perspective of how someone will react or handle any situation. Dating is the opposite. In a dating situation you have control over what and how you are being viewed. My dad describes it like this: "Dating is like getting a photograph of someone. You get to see the best side of them-- and everyone has a good side. It is a snapshot of their life-- no action. However, Courtship is like watching a movie; you get to see them in real life situations, you get a fuller version of who they are--how they relate with their parents, siblings, and friends; fully knowing that how they treat them is how they will treat their future spouse. What they are like not only on a good day, but every other day as well."

     I feel like that is a great picture of how it really is. Another way to view it is picturing dating like a high school prom. Both the guy and the girl spend all day preparing themselves for the night so they can "look their best." Whereas Courtship is like having two families get together for a casual dinner at home, rich in conversation and fully authentic--you get to see everyone in their natural setting.

     As I said, friendship is a big part of Courtship. There is no pressure involved--only joy and fun. A lot of people have asked me, "If you guys are just friends, then how will you know that you love the person?" This question always makes me smile, and most of the time I have responded by saying, "I will fall in love." It is a quick and easy answer, but honestly, in a friendship, if two people are "meant to be" then God will turn their hearts toward each other in His perfect time. As friends and in group settings two people can get to know each other. But there come a time when God opens up their eyes and heart to the person they will one day marry.

     For example, contrary to my sister admiring Ryan from the time they were young, it wasn't until shortly before he left for college that God began to open Ryan's eyes toward Kaitie. He began noticing her passion and joy for life, her love for everyone and more than that, her love for God. By this time God had moved in Kaitie's heart that her high school years were not to be wasted. "In high school I had released Ryan to God, and had a firm belief that God took him out of my immediate thoughts because I was meant to have that time to grow, and not worry about liking anyone or getting married. But I always admired his quiet spirit, his kindness to his mom; I never saw him disobey her. I also loved how in most picture we took, or places we went, he would scoop up one of his little brothers and hold them-- it was almost like a little gateway into his spirit and his way of saying that he was content to not run around like most young men, but to be mature and settled in spirit."

     This is the essence of Courtship. Kaitie and Ryan were friends from the beginning, but still admired each other for who they were.  God protected both of their hearts from the beginning by not allowing them to get attached prematurely.  Instead, in His perfect timing, He gave them the desire to focus only on Him until He opened up their hearts to one another.     
    
 I said I was going to be honest and write from my heart in these posts, and so I must tell you, this is what my heart desires-- a story like this. I was able to see the miracle and beauty of two people having a sweet friendship from the beginning, and God turning their hearts completely toward one another. Even being friends, they didn't realize how truly perfect they had been created for one another until God opened the eyes of their hearts. Simply reminiscing back to the complete purity and joy that radiated from my sister makes me cry. I got to witness this new beautiful beginning in their lives.

     Courtship doesn't end there, when God turns a man's heart toward his girl, he goes to her father to ask for his spiritual blessing over their relationship...

     To Be Continued...

Courtship, Pt. 1: "Once Upon A Time..."

I am going to start this off by saying that I have tried again and again to get these thoughts down on paper, however, each time I wrote, I felt like something was wrong with it.  I realized that the other times I have written this, it has been from my own head knowledge that I have on the subject.  And that is not what this is about—and not the person I am, nor want to be.  And not even why I believe in Courtship versus dating. This is about the heart…so it needs to come from my heart.  I have tried to make this perfect—written well from beginning to end.  However, again, that is not what this is about.  All of it is for the glory of God.  And that is the reason I write this.

These thoughts I have on Courtship are enough to fill a book, but I am going to try and condense it down to just three posts.  So, if you have any questions, please, feel free to ask me; I love talking about it! Before I begin, my advice to you, whenever you read anything, is to bring it back to God’s word, to test and approve what is being said.  Lastly… pray.

The Flaw:

I am sure you are familiar with the dating system, so I will not go into great detail about that.  However, I will ask you to dream with me for a moment.  Imagine your dream wedding dress.  Whether it has diamonds all the way down the front, or it is simple and elegant; I want you to picture it.  Now imagine that the first guy you ever dated took a red permanent marker and wrote his name on your sparkling white dress.  Then your second boyfriend did the same… then the third… all the guys you dated up to the time you met your future husband, all wrote their name on your dress.  When the love of your life sees your dress, he feels love just looking at you, but you can imagine that his heart is hurting over the fact that others had also held your hand, and taken a piece of your heart, and worse, would presume to take ownership of a piece of your beautiful dress.  

This is an imaginary interpretation, but I tend to view it this way and it is partly what has formed my belief.  You see, the flaw in the dating system is that hearts are broken.  Feelings are hurt, leaving scars, small and large, that we will one day need to take into our future marriages.  I believe that is not what God intended, and He desires to bless us with so much more than we could ever even think to ask for.

Every girl’s desire is to be loved by someone—and every guy’s desire is to feel like a hero and rescue the beauty.  So we go searching for that.  We end up looking for fulfillment and love in someone that will only be a fleeting wind in our life.  We invest time, emotion, and money into something that is going to take our heart away.  Whether we realize it or not, every time we enter into a relationship with someone, a little piece of our heart is taken with them.

Our culture is telling girls and guys that they are not worth anything until they have “love.” So early junior high and high school kids—who are not even of an age to be thinking about marriage—are throwing precious “I love you’s” and kisses to one after the other.  Until they start to feel empty again.  Then the process begins again.  Even worse, our culture sometimes tells us lies that the only way to know how to have a successful relationship is to ‘practice’ by many relationship experiences so we’ll know what the ‘real thing’ looks like when we see it.  In turn, all you have is how to experience the break up of a relationship, not what it takes to keep a godly marriage for a lifetime.

So what is Courtship?

Like I said, God did not create our childhood to be wasted whispering sweet nothings into gangly, pre-adolescent boys, nor impetuous attention-seeking little girls.  No, our childhood is a precious time in everyone’s lives.  God intended it that we fall in love with Him every day of that season in our lives, not living for in between heartbreaks.  God’s desire is you.  He wants us to fall in love with Him every day and seek fulfillment in Him—because only in Him is our satisfaction to be found.  God cares more about who you are going to become, rather than who you are going to be “with” in two months.

Before we can have an earthly Courtship, we must fall in love with the God of love.  We must experience true love from the Author of Love before we can learn to give it away.  That is what Courtship is all about, realizing that our waiting time is not a curse—it is a blessing.  It is a time for us to learn to lean on God for everything.  It is a time when young men learn how to love and to work.  A time for young women to learn to serve and to nurture; it is a time to desire God.  And believe me; God can give love like no other.

And I am going to give you a little secret: whether you believe it or not, God is a total romantic.  You might be thinking, here goes Kara about romance, again!  But I am serious.  God is so romantic; He wrote me love letters compiled into one book so I can see Who He is.  He sends me flowers in the spring; so many that we see them everywhere!  He writes me love songs, and sends the birds to sing them to me.  He tickles me with the wind and flirts with me in the clouds and warms me through the sun.  He is amazingly romantic.  You should definitely get to know Him.

And while we are on the subject of romance, God’s thoughtfulness doesn’t stop there.  This very minute He is shaping your future spouse into someone that will fit you perfectly— someone that will not only love you for your heart, but also for the little details about you.  Someone that you will adore.  God cares about what you desire in a future spouse, so ask Him for those things.  You and God can share this beautiful secret between the two of you.  He delights in hearing us talk to Him about the deepest desires of our hearts.  In the midst of this, God is building in that future mate all the things you and God have dreamt of together.  That is another piece of Courtship, He wants you to ask for it, so He can give it—just another part of His loveliness! J

To sum up Courtship in three short posts is going to be hard.  And who knows, maybe I just rambled on about a small piece of Courtship when there is a whole world more than just what I have touched on. However, Courtship is not only about getting to know another person with the intention of marrying them one day, it is also growing into who you will become and desiring God, all of Him, the whole way—it is learning what you want in a future spouse and praying that you will receive what you desire, and praying specifically for your future mate—where they are, what they are doing, and so on.  This post is about the waiting aspect of Courtship.  Even though the world is flying in from one relationship to the next, we can stay strong under God’s wing.  Even if your heart has already been broken or mistakes have been made, God is a Redeemer, He can wash away every mark or stain or blemish on that beautiful wedding dress.  That is the beauty of Courtship: God can make your heart whole again. It is never too late to start a Courtship with Jesus!

Then He will ordain a meeting between you and your future spouse…

To be continued.

Light

Here it goes again
The night you thought you could not live
Another sleepless and restless night
Afraid of what’s in the dark
Blackness pressing against you
Fear of what’s in the unknown
Cannot tell what’s in front to stumble you
Nor what’s behind to catch you


Here it goes again
The game you can never win
Another day hurried
Afraid it will never end
Grey all around
The faded distinction of good and bad
Their pulling you this way
You take one step and fall four behind


It’s the day you could never live
The game played as a looser
It takes a step into the dark to see
The end of the tunnel submerged in light
It doesn’t seem right
The dark is when we see the bright
The blackest part is when He shines the brightest
Our Strength is stronger than our weakness


You have been told we are only as
Strong as our weakest link
What is our weakest link?
Our pain? Hurt? Fears? Failures?
Sin? What is our sin?
We are forgiven
The Dawn is coming
Dusk is only the beginning of seeing
Our mortal life
He is our Light
We are forgiven

Scars

We wander in and out

Hearts hurting and eyes burning

With the unshed tears

The wounds on our hearts are bleeding still

The unspoken pain building the walls

These walls we think will protect our vulnerability

Our innocence from a wounding world

Holding our stories in, trying to ebb the flow of our

Bleeding hearts

Not wanting to speak for fear our wounds will

Burn as our stories are recounted

From the outside, we are living perfectly

We portray our lives like a story book

A fairy tale we have always wished them to be

We forget that the greatest stories of victory

The ones we cry as we hear, watch and see

Are the ones with the most

Pain, sorrow and struggle

When we think their lives can’t get any worse

They sink farther

Until Someone risks their all and reaches out

Takes their hand and saves them

They triumph over their situation

Over their pain sorrow and struggle

To live a life worthy of praise

But Someone had to reach out to them

To leave their mark

They walked them through the most painful

The unshed tears fall harder and harder

But the wounds on their hearts

Turn from bleeding to healing

To a scar

Our pain is not permanent

Our bleeding will stop

Once we allow the healing

But the marks of our healing are forever there to remind

Us of what we were pulled out of

They are scars—they are healed

The nails still left marks on His hands of perfection

But those hands are not destined for death

They are pre-destined for life

This world will try to bring us further and further down

Like a ball and chain to drowned us

But once we reach out and take the scarred hands offered us

Our shackles fall—it is for freedom He set us free

We are free

Free from the pain others inflicted on us

Pain of abandonment

Of abuse

Of physical aches and pains

Of the sins we committed against ourselves

Against the ones we love the most

Against God

His mark is left on us

Now go out and leave His mark

On the others who are imprisoned

He is mighty to save

And He has called you

To go out and make

A legacy worthy to say

“Well done, my good and faithful servant”

In us, He will be well pleased