4 milestones of a dating relationship

So many people stare at me in disbelief when I tell them that my husband and I only dated for five and half weeks before we got engaged. Recently, a teenage girl asked me how I knew so quickly he is "the one." I started telling her my story and out of it came four milestones Dave and I were able to climb in a very short time. It hit me that these four milestones are necessary for any dating relationship to progress to the point of a good and healthy engagement/ marriage. Now, I do not readily recommend jumping over all four in five weeks; I would say this process usually takes at least a year. For us, God was the One to accelerate our timing, which is why it worked.

So the milestones:
1. You have to realize that you meet each other's lists. For my single friends, I encourage you to think through the things you really want in a partner. Prioritize them. Pray about them.
My list consisted of:
a. A passion for Jesus, one where I wouldn't have to awkwardly ask: "so where are you at in your relationship with God?" because it was self-evident in how he talked and behaved
b. Love for children, since I know that my primary ministry will always involve children
c. A good name and reputation
d. A beard
e. An openness to the movement of the Holy Spirit even if that means picking up and moving to Africa on a week's notice
Dave met all of these, and I was able to notice that soon after we met. I was hooked.

A friend of mine was talking to a group of high schooler girls about boys. She said there must be an attraction in body, soul, and spirit. The body part is obvious. The spirit is a spiritual connectivity. You both must speak the same spiritual language. The soul is the personality side of life. Both people must have commonalities in activities, in humor, in fun, in energy, in adventure. If all three connections aren't there, there will be struggle and second guessing. I had all three and knew it early on.

2. Get approval from people who you respect. It was so cool for us. See, we met online, which can be a scary unknown. However, shortly after we made it Facebook official we were dating, we had people coming out of the woodwork, mutual acquaintances that were speaking of both of our character. I would like to name just a few so you get the idea: his pastor I used to work with, my landlord went to college with him, his boss was a good friend of my dad's, some friends of mine from high school went to his church. It was amazing that every single one of these mutual acquaintances spoke of what an amazing man he is and how good we would be for each other. This was continued when he met my family. Approval all around. Same when I met his family. I do recognize that I am blessed to have a wonderfully friendly and accepting family. Some people might not have that privilege. But there should be people you respect who are giving green lights and speaking of your individual worth and the rightness of the couple. In fact, it is Biblical. In Song of Solomon, a love song between a man and woman in love, the friends look on them and say, "We rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine."

3. Openness about the past. We all have things hidden in closets and dark corners of our lives that we want to keep hidden. A healthy relationship demands that those things hidden be brought to the surface. In order for a relationship to move from casual dating to serious relationship, closet doors have to be opened. That means you have to talk about past sins, past relationships, past hurts, past decisions, past heart breaks. If those things remain in the dark, they become destructive when there is so much more on the line. Scarily, they become relational crossroads. It is possible that they will become the stone that shatters a fragile relationship. But they also could be huge bridges of grace. They could be moments where Jesus asks you to take on his heart, love this person, despite their past and what that can mean for your future. Dave was courageous to initiate these talks. He bared his soul. I don't know how he trusted me enough to do it after only dating me for a few weeks, but he did. He shared; I shared. We both chose to continue on the road, to forgive, and to choose love. 

4. Commitment. This last stage can take a long time for many couples. Both people in the relationship have to come to a place where they decide they are all in. Dave made this really easy for me as after only a week of knowing each other he put his cards on the table. He said he didn't want to play any games. He wanted to see if this would lead to marriage, and if we felt like that was not the direction, we would end it right away. It made it so that when the question came to my mind, "Could I spend the rest of my life with him?" I could easily answer that I did. 

In God's wonderful plan for me, he allowed Dave and I to hurdle over these milestones with great ease and little time. I know for many that is not the case. I do strongly believe though that if these four are not crossed in a relationship, there will be struggle, disappoint, and a constant questioning if your are doing the right thing or if this is the right person. Everyone must find the person in a relationship with to  meet the list, be approved of by respected people, be open about the past, and at some point choose to commit to the other person. 

Journals

Every once in a while, an all-consuming urge fills me to clean, organize or purge some part of my home. Yesterday the target of this urge was my bookshelf. It has been the target two or three times in the last year of my married life. So the only thing left to clean, organize, or purge  is the shelf of journals: every journal since freshmen year of college. The goal was to put them in chronological order.

God spoke to me as I looked through these journals, which was unexpected as I was merely looking for a date to put in order. There were some years represented by three or four different journals. Even the covers of some of the journals brought  back feelings of nostalgia and a fragrance of sweet memories. Inside them were notes of encouragement from others and for others. There were pictures of visions or dreams I had had. There were printed out emails. There were dried flowers from Egypt and a song book from a church I had visited. Most importantly though, there were conversations with God. My heart was on the pages of those journals. His heart for me was on the pages of those journals.

I was struck with a sadness as I realized that the last year and half only took up one journal, and it was more filled with sermon notes than an ongoing conversation with my Creator. The vibrancy I once had has changed and settled into an everyday kind of pace. I want it back. I want to know His heart for me and speak it back to him on the lined pages of a journal once more. So I finished my organizing, cleaning, purging endeavor, not by purging anything, but by adding this last years journal to the end of the row. I went out and bought a new one, for in faith, I believe a new season is also coming.

A beautifully dreaded, black woman stands under the spot light. She sings, skats, and bebopps as nimble fingers pound a piano, pluck a bass, and drum out a beat. Her energy is electric. Her eyes roam the room until they connect with mine. Something inside me responds. She sings about a love re-found, a love much like the first glimpse 

"Some things that happened for the first time 

Seems to be happening again

And so it seems that we have met before

And that we laughed before, also loved before

But who knows where or when"

It seems that a beautiful piece of music has the ability to penetrate the soul. Actually, my thinking must be broader than that. Beauty and creation penetrate the soul. It is as if our hearts are each encased in a shell much like an egg. A wonderful melody, a beautiful sunset, a child's laugh, a blossoming tree strikes at that shell and sends a shaft of life pouring in. The hole created does not just allow beauty in light in, but it also pulls out the best of who we are. It calls us to create. It calls us to show off the best version of who we are, to show that to the world. 

I believe with all my might that God's image in man demands that he answer the call to create. God's process of creation involved creativity, beauty, and the spoken word. Then he looked at his creation and called it good. We, his divine image bearers, are intended to perpetuate his creative process. Unfortunately, the marred creation means we are marred creators. We get lazy and comfortable. We criticize our own handiwork, and we criticize the handiwork of others. We fear reactions. We shell up our hearts and our creations. 

But then every once in a while, you hear a jazz musician that breaks the shell. She stares you down, and her energy and confidence and beauty pull out the creator and thus the creation. For a brief second you forget the fear, the reactions, the critics, the laziness and comfort. For a second you envision your creation and call it into being. 

Doing and Believing

 Recently, I finished Deuteronomy and a question I usually find myself answering for others came to my own mind. See, the end of Deuteronomy serves as Moses' legacy, his final words to the people he has reluctantly led. He lays out in vivid language the blessings associated with following God's ways and the graphic consequences of veering from that path. My mind was torn apart as I read that the consequences of disobedience are famine, sword, violence, a lack of God's presence and a flight of conscience. He describes mothers secretly boiling their babies for a little bit of meat to eat. It is truly horrifying, and something I know later actually happened.

The question: Where is faith in all of this? The focus of Deuteronomy seems to be works... obedience... doing? What about believing?

This line of questioning led me to search my own heart. I am finding that this current stage in my life does not have a lot of "doing." As a doer, I find this very difficult. So I began to question of the Lord if I am doing enough. The questions rolled in: does my life look different than the world? Do I follow your standards? If faith without works is dead_ where is my faith? Does my life reflect the words of love and faith that my mouth easily espouses?

But really if I am honest, that is not the core of my questioning. The core is "Lord, do I please you?" The question itself is painful. I want to know if my actions cause God pleasure. I want to know if He is proud of me. The questioning itself means that there is a small part of me that fears a negative answer. The question is painful, for the answer could be painful.

God gently led me to read 1 John. John mentions over and over again in this short book ways to know that you belong to Christ and are living for Him.

1.  Don't walk in darkness
2. Walk in the light (which means you have fellowship with believers and are purified from sin)
3. Don't claim to be without sin
4. Confess your sin
5. Keep His commands (which will make God's love complete in you)
6. Live as Jesus did
7. Don't hate your brother
8. Love your brother
9. Don't love the world (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life)
10. Do the will of God
11. Remains with believers
12. Don't go away from believers
13. Don't deny Jesus
14. Acknowledge the Son
15. Remain in what you have heard 
16. Continue in Christ confident and unashamed
17. Don't continue to sin 
18. Do what is right
19. Love your brother
20. Don't hate your brother (these two John found worth repeating several times)
21. Love with actions not just words giving materially to those in need
22. Know God is greater than your heart
23. Do what pleases God 
24. Believe in the name of Jesus
25. Have the Spirit
26. Love others for love is of God, and so you know God if you love
27. Rely on the love God has for you
28. Accept the testimony that whoever has the Son has life

These fall into four categories: 

1. We obey and stop sinning
2. We love others 
3. We acknowledge Jesus is who He says He is and we rely on the love God has for us
4. We remain in the truth

All this is while we remember that God loved us first. He lavished His love on us by sending His Son to die for us so that we might be called children of God. 

God clearly showed me that I do have His Spirit. I confess sin when He makes me aware of it. I do obey, when He asks me to follow. I do believe that Jesus is the Christ and I do rely on the love God has for me. And when my heart condemns me, I know that God is greater than my heart and He will keep me. If I am not "doing" now, it is because He has not shown me what to do. 

My pastor in church said this line and I think it was God's capstone for me on the question of my heart: "Lord are you pleased with me?" 

He said, "God does not get rid of our sin, He covers it. He does not remove His wrath, Jesus absorbs it. God always calls in the debt owed Him, but Jesus paid it on our behalf. God always calls us to believe in what He has done for us in Jesus by the Spirit even before He calls us to obey. God is not pleased with us, He is pleased with His Son, with whom we are clothed." -Scott Osborne 

A ten month hiatus

Well, it has been ten months since I have last written on this blog. Ten months! A lot of life has happened between then: moved, got married, started a new job. While I could say that those are the major reasons for my written absence, it would not be entirely the truth.

Many things in the last months have drawn my attention, quickened my spirit, and invited to rejoin the creative, cathartic outlet of this space. I went to a concert in a log cabin, with some dear followers of Jesus. I was thinking the whole time how I wished I had my computer so I could write. Then there was the time I was on a retreat in the Western mountains of Virginia. Surrounded by nature, my insides cried out to join the song of worship that nature begets by creating my own written melody. Then there was the children's Bible that comes with an audio tape. The words were so well written, each story painting the wonderful picture of a Savior who was planned since the beginning of time.

Each of these times, I kept thinking how I should partake in the creative outlet God has so tailored for me. But each time the cry in my heart was ignored. See it has been blocked out by distractions like laundry and the ever enticing television with its mediocre story plots. Then there is the tiredness factor. It is so hard sometimes to muster up the energy to create. Then there is fear. See the blank page or blinking cursor can sometimes yell at me about how little I have created, how difficult it will be to get back, how I have nothing worthwhile to say.

Well, now that I put them all on the screen they sound like nothing more than excuses.

Tonight I went to an amazing concert. Musicians, talented, trained musicians, poured their hearts out on the stage. Before they went up, they showed a documentary they put together about how they spent a week on an island in Vancouver, Canada making music together. Then they sang and played. It was truly creative, truly worship. I thought as I listened that I could not let another ten months go by without joining in the song with my creative outlet. In fact, I couldn't let another night go by. So here I am, writing once again. You can be sure to expect many more in the days to come.

My Statement of Faith

This is what I believe...

• God is good. 
• God never promised my life would be easy. He did promise He would never leave me or forsake me. He promised His presence.
• He never promised I would get the job I want, but he did promise that He would supply all my needs according to his riches in glory.  
• He never promised me perfect healthy, but He did promise that through his stripes I am healed. He promised he would take my sin as far as the east is from the west. He promised to make my crimson stains as white as snow. 
• He didn't promise circumstantial perfection, but he did promise a relationship with the Creator of the universe. 
• Jesus is my all. 
• God is good. 

My Story Part 10: The things I've learned

I want to share a few things that God has taught me through this process of singleness, dating, and now engagement with marriage on the near horizon. 

• Don't give in to the desperation and hopelessness of your singleness. God had me single for a reason. He was working in my heart things that would have been very difficult to do while in a relationship. God has a purpose for singleness. 
• Don't do nothing in the name of waiting. Faith doesn't mean you sit back and let life happen to you. Faith takes steps. God loves active waiters. So actively wait: go to singles meetings, dress up, go online, pray and ask others to pray. 
• Don't settle. God gave me someone that exceeded my expectations. He is smart, funny, handsome. He loves the Lord. He (sometimes) beats me at scrabble. He enjoys movies. He talks about God, Jesus, and church pretty seamlessly. He loves me. He loves me so well. God has exceeded my expectations beyond what I could ever imagine. So don't settle. 
• Don't "arouse or awaken love until it so desires." God has honored my sexual purity. God will honor my sexual purity. God will look on me with pleasure on my wedding night when I am presented to my husband pure. I stand with no regrets and no baggage in that regard. 
• Don't date potential. If you can't respect him now, you shouldn't be with him. 
• Don't lose hope. Godly men do exist. Dave loves Jesus. He is a leader. He is kind. He loves me so well. He protects me better than I do myself. These men, though rare, do exist.

God gave me a man. A godly man. A good man.