GROWING AND GUARDING

It’s clear that we need to refine our definition of success in courtship. Getting engaged should not be our overriding goal. What should be?

I believe that in a God-glorifying, wisdom-guided courtship we have two central priorities. The first is to treat each other with holiness and sincerity; the second is to make an informed and wise decision about marriage.

In courtship our goals should be to grow and guard. We want to grow closer so we can truly know each other’s character, but we also want to guard each other’s hearts because the outcome of our relationship is still unknown.

At the beginning of a courtship a man and a woman don’t know if they should get married. They need to get to know each other, observe each other’s character, and find out how they relate as a couple. This is what it means to grow closer. But the fact that the future is unknown should also motivate them to treat each other with the kind of integrity that will allow them to look back on their courtship without regret, regardless of the outcome.

Second Corinthians 1:12 sums up what every Christian couple should be able to say at the end of a courtship:

Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.

Instead of making engagement the finish line of courtship, our goal should be to treat each other in a godly manner, make the right choice about marriage, and have a clear conscience about our actions.

My friend Leonard, a single man in his thirties, was disappointed when Rita broke off their courtship. But because he acted appropriately toward her, he had the peace that comes with clear conscience.

“Sure my pride was hurt,” Leonard says. “I asked myself, “Why?” and “What went wrong?” many times. But I consider our courtship a success because I was able to walk away from it praising God that I had served and honored my sister. I treated her with the respect a child of God deserves. To the best of my ability, my motives, thoughts, words, and actions were in the right place.

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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ONE MORE LETTER

I didn’t tell you about one other thing Rich had put in that box before he buried it. When he carefully wrapped it years before, he placed one new letter on top of all the others. It was a letter Christy had never read. In it, Rich asked her to marry him.

So, Christmas morning, over four years after it had been buried, the box of cherished letters was unearthed and opened. And four years after it had been written, Christy read Rich’s letter proposing marriage.

Today, Rich and Christy have a soaring story of romance because they were willing to be guided by wisdom. Anyone can have passionate feelings, but only those who seek God’s purpose and timing can know the true joy of romantic love fulfilled.

Just ask Rich Shipe. In the very spot he buried his hopes, he saw them come to life. In the very place he knelt for a funeral of his dreams, he knelt four years later to ask Christy Farris to be his bride. And as he pulled an engagement ring from his pocket, he heard her answer, “Yes!”

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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A RED MAPPLE FOR CHRISTY

Rich and Christy didn’t begin a courtship then, but they did to start to talk and ease back into a friendship. A year later, with Christy still away at school, they began a long-distance courtship.  Things were so different this time. Their relationship was just as romantic, but now it had purpose and direction. They had their parent’s blessing. Every day their confidence for marriage grew.

All the time the box full of love letters lay hidden. Rich had never told Christy that he had buried them in her own front yard. She thought the letters had been burned. The Christmas before she graduated from college she found out otherwise.

Christmas morning, Rich was celebrating at the Farris home. “This one’s for you,” he said, handing Christy a small box. She unwrapped it and found a nursery tag for a red maple.

“I bought you a tree,” Rich told her.

“Oh” Christy said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Her family, who by this time were all in on the surprise, could hardly contain themselves. “Why don’t you plant it in the front yard?” her father suggested.

“Now?” Christy asked.

“Sure!” Rich said. “Come on.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her outside, where the tree and a shovel were waiting.

“Where should we plant it?” Christy asked as they walked down the drive way toward the front yard.

“This spot will do,” Rich said, pointing to the ground. He smiled at Christy, then raised his shovel and drove it into the earth.

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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THE REST OF THE STORY

A month after Rich buried their love letters, both he and Christy left home for colleges in different parts of the country. They didn’t say goodbye. They didn’t write or call each other. Because their schools had different schedules, they didn’t see each other during the year. Those were difficult days. The love they felt for each other hadn’t gone away.

A year and a half after they’d broke up, Christy called her mom from school and told her that she was still struggling with her feelings for Rich. When her dad found out, he asked if she knew how Rich was doing. “How would I know?” Christy answered, the emotion in her voice thinly veiled. “I haven’t talked to him since we broke up.”

Her dad was impressed. Rich had stuck to his word and broken off communication with Christy. Mike decided to intervene once more. A few months later, when Rich was home from college, Mike called and asked him to come to his office.

“I had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about,” Rich says. “I thought I must be in trouble, but I couldn’t imagine what I’d done.”

As I turned out, Rich wasn’t in trouble. Mike wanted to meet him to thank him for keeping his word. He also wanted to tell him that he felt it was an appropriate time for Rich and Christy to begin a courtship.

Rich was floored. He told Mike that he needed time to pray about it. “Well, next week I have to go down to Richmond,” Mike told him. “Why don’t you drive me down, and we can talk about it then?”

A week later Rich and Mike were on the road again. It was just like old times. And it was time for another talk.

Rich had prayed hard that week about starting a relationship with Christy again. But as he sought God, he sensed Him saying that it still wasn’t the right time for a courtship. “I still wasn’t ready to get married. I was still figuring out what I’d be doing for a living. It seemed that God was saying, ‘You committed to these principles, and you need to stick to them even if her dad is giving you the green light.’”

When Rich shared this with Christy’s dad, Mike couldn’t have been more surprised or more pleased. It was as though their roles had been reversed since their first talk about wisdom and romance. This time it was the young man who sharing what God had taught him about waiting for the right time.

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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AN EARLY MORNING FUNERAL

Rich was digging a hole in Christy’s front yard that night to bury a box that contained all the letters they’d written each other. There were over one hundred handwritten pages inside it.

Had his feelings for Christy changed? Not at all. But he realized that he couldn’t be guided just by his feelings. He had to act on principle and do what was in Christy’s best interest. He couldn’t just do what felt right; he had to do what was right. Even though it hurt, he knew that the most caring thing he could do for the girl he loved was to get out of her life and end the relationship that was distracting both of them from serving God and obeying her parents.

It took Rich nearly two hours of digging to finish the hole. He made it two feet wide by three feet long and eighteen inches deep so it would be beneath the frost line. He picked up the box of letters and laid it gently into the ground. He had wrapped it tightly in several layers of plastic. Rich wanted his hopes to be able to stay in the ground for a long time… maybe even forever.

For eighteen-year-old Rich, that moment was the funeral of his dreams. He was submitting his feelings and longings to God. He stared at the box one last time, looked up at the quiet house, and then pushed the dirt he’d unearthed back into the hole and packed it down with his foot. If you want to dig this up someday, I know You can, he told God. But if not, this is where it will stay.

He covered the spot with sod, then quietly stole away.

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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THREE WORDS

Ending what he and Christy called the “us” part of their relationship wasn’t easy, but they both knew it needed to happen. They went back to being just friends. They interacted at church but didn’t act like a couple. They thought of each other as brother and sister, not boyfriend and girlfriend.

The plan worked… for a while. Even though they both knew what was right, their hearts were deceitful. They wanted the feelings. They wanted the thrill of expressing how they felt. They wanted the security of knowing they belonged to each other. As a result they began to compromise their commitment to keep the relationship strictly a friendship. In a letter, Rich told Christy that he loved her. She did the same. They did nothing physically, but before they knew it, they were back in a full-throttle romantic relationship, this time behind her father’s back.

But after several months, conviction set in. Deceiving Christy’s parents began to take its toll on them. “We have to tell your parents,” Rich told Christy one day. “We can’t go on like this.”

They never got the chance. A day later, Christy’s dad walked by while she was on the phone talking with a girl friend about her relationship with Rich.

“Christy, what were you talking about?” her dad asked when she had hung up. “Tell me in three words.”

“Personal  prayer requests,” Christy answered.

“Really?” her dad asked. “It sounded more like, ‘Richard Guy Shipe.’”

They were caught.

Christy broke down and confessed her deceit. Rich met with Christy’s parents a few days later. Like Christy, he was brokenhearted at the way he had deceived them. He’d gone back on his word to Mike. He’d stolen more of Christy’s affections when he knew they didn’t rightfully belong to him.

Rich asked Mike and his wife, Vickie, for forgiveness. This time, he promised, the relationship really was going to end. He understood now that this would require drastic measures. They couldn’t simply be casual friends. “If we didn’t pull back, we would be moving forward,” Rich says. “You can’t stand still in a relationship like that.” They had to get out of each other’s lives.

That when Rich asked Christy to give back all the letters he had ever written her. Reluctantly she handed them over. “I wanted to serve her,” Rich explains. “I wanted to take everything from her that represented my feelings for her. Those letters were the record of our love and all we had shared. We cherished them and reread them over and over. I knew that in order to truly lay the relationship down at God’s feet, we both had to part with them.”

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

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ios.florinac@gmail.com

UNTIL LOVE SO DESIRES

Romance is a very good thing. But just because it’s good doesn’t mean that we can enjoy it whenever and however we please. Like all the other good gifts God has made, romantic love can be misused.

Even the Song of Solomon, which reveals in the ecstasy of romantic passion, is filled with reminders not to remove that passion from the boundaries of God’s timing and purpose.” I charge you,” Solomon bride says, “do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (Song of Solomon 8:4).

Rich and Christy’s feelings for each other were real and deeply romantic. But were those feelings being awakened in God’s timing and purpose? Christy’s dad, Mike Farris, wasn’t so sure. When he found out how emotionally involved Rich and Christy were, he decided to intervene.

Mike had the chance to interact with Rich on a regular basis – he was his boss. Mike was running for the office of lieutenant governor in Virginia and had hired Rich to drive him to the different rallies and events being held around the state. On most of these trips, Mike worked quietly in the backseat or made phone calls. But to Rich’s surprise, one day Mike decided to sit up front. As soon as they were under way, Mike turned to Rich and asked, “So what’s this I hear about you and Christy?”

Rich gulped.

As Rich drove, Mike talked to him gently and with fatherly concern about the importance of wisdom in romance. Mike had many regrets about the years he had spent dating girls in high school and college. “When you’re close emotionally, you give away part of your heart,” he told Rich. “There are long-term consequences.”

To his credit, Rich really listened to what Mike had to say. The truth sank in. Rich wasn’t ready to support a family – both he and Christy still wanted to attend college. And it was also too soon for them to stoke the fires of romance. A premature romantic relationship would only distract them from preparing for their future.

“I had never heard anything like that before,” Rich remembers. “Mike convinced me. It wasn’t a case of him forcing me to break up with his daughter. As he shared his own understanding about relationships, I saw that he was right.

Written By: Joshua Harris

From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)

God Bless Us..

cabreraflorina.blogspot.com

ios.florinac@gmail.com