Courtship; A period of time when two people (male and female) are building their relationship to lead to marriage.....~ Enid
If you have read my blog before you probably know that my husband and I waited till marriage to have our first kiss (2 and a half years).....I blogged about the reasons
HERE . Before you start to think that this is not for you because you already 'messed' up kindly take time to read my testimony
HERE .
With that out of the way, I want to share a few lessons I learned over the 2 and half years of courtship......
1. PUT GOD AT THE CENTER
I know it has become a cliche, but this is the MOST important thing you will do. Take for instance, a bicycle wheel, the center of the wheel is called a hub which contains the axle and the bearing that enable the wheel to rotate, I can comfortably conclude that the wheel can do nothing if the hub is not at the center.(the best it can do is be pushed by a kid down the hill to move)
In the same way for those desiring to court in a godly way, you cannot do it if God is not at the center, your efforts to live a holy life will be futile.
So how does it look like to put God at the center? It simply means handling the relationship in a manner that is pleasing to Him..... involving God in the decisions you make, praying about things together, want to set a wedding date? Pray about it together,....putting God at the center means even the 'smallest' of decisions such as where to hang out, which activities to do together etc should all be led by Him.
Enid, aren't you over-spiritualizing this thing?
1 Cor 10:31: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
As Christians we are called to do everything to bring Him glory and this includes our relationships and the only way to do this is to allow Him to guide us in every little thing...
He promises to guide us and teach us His way only if we allow Him...
Psalms 32:8: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Story #1
My husband and I set our wedding date thrice, the first two is because we 'felt' it was the right time and probably we had waited long enough. The second date we had set God spoke to both of us that it was NOT in His plan for us to get married then (I broke down..tihihi..the wait was real yo!) and then we decided to pray about the date and God gave us the date 4th of March and we sit back now and see how beautiful the day was, how much favor He has shown us in that ONE day that He chose and we can only say that His timing is P.E.R.F.E.C.T because if we insisted on our choices we would have struggled so much! To tell you the truth our wedding planning was easy peasy lemon squeezy! we were NOT stressed about anything!
Involve God in EVERYTHING! it will save you a lot of stress, He knows best
2. PLACE BOUNDARIES
I know it could fit up there with putting God at the center but I wanted to tackle this on its own. You all know that when you are in a relationship with someone, you are definitely attracted to this person, I mean they make your blood boil with every touch and every whisper, they make you want to read Songs of Solomon all day long and just day dream about them...lol...you get what I mean, there is physical attraction....
There are so many couples who make vows to each other to wait until marriage to have sex but end up falling into temptation along the way...why? what happens? and what happens after this ?
Why?....because many fail to put boundaries, in that you do not communicate to each other what are the do's and don't's in the relationship and assume that since you two are born-again you can 'fight' off temptation with only prayer and casting out demons....forgetting even Joseph fled when He was sexually tempted...
What happens?.....We start pushing things to see how far we can go before we fall into sin....and we convince ourselves that we have the will power to stop when we can...and we eventually fall into sin...
What happens after this?..Remember Adam and Eve at the garden of Eden after they fell for the Serpent's lie? They hid from God in shame, and we do exactly that and start pointing fingers at each other, no one usually wants to take responsibility and may lead to a break-up, unplanned pregnancy, etc....and we have seen this happen in churches and people conclude that...'Christians are pretenders'.....
Thing is, when you decide to be in a relationship, first thing you should do is put boundaries, evaluate your weaknesses (can be a place or if you are touched in a certain way) then put boundaries around that, make them known to the other party and keep each other accountable, pray about the relationship because the boundaries are not enough, only the Grace of God can keep you but we have our role to play, which is placing boundaries and God is faithful to keep you two.
Even if you two have already 'fallen' and the shame is there, a child is involved etc, we can never out-sin God's grace and all you have to do is to go to Him and repent and let Him heal your wounds and make you whole, do not be ashamed of the child born out of such a situation, children are a blessing from God, even if people in church will shun you etc...God will never leave you nor forsake you.......we are all a new creation when in Christ...hold your head up!
Story #2: From the beginning of our relationship, we established a few boundaries that we felt would enable us to wait till marriage to have sex. For us, the first three boundaries that we set were; kissing was off the table , no front hugs this meant we would give each other side hugs and we would not be at any one time alone behind closed doors, this meant that we would not visit each other when unaccompanied, so most of our hang outs are always outdoors...you will find us going out for picnics, cycling and hiking...oh! and going to restaurants with very bright lighting..lol.
It was easy to keep these boundaries in our first year of courtship, but when we got to the second year (I think when we grew in love), we soon found out that it was hard to keep our hands off each other and this led to us adding more boundaries in our basket. A few of what we added were; he would not touch my thigh, we would stop calling each other late in the night and we put a curfew where our dates end before 8:30pm. (removed from a post I did on boundaries)
3. HAVE PEOPLE TO COUNSEL YOU/KEEP YOU ACCOUNTABLE
Since I already defined courtship as a time when two people are building their relationship to get to marriage, get people who are already married and have the same beliefs as you. People who have walked the journey that you two wish to walk, they will offer a lot of wisdom and help you two avoid a lot of pitfalls along the way, you know its always better to learn from other people's mistakes than your own.
These people will keep you accountable, they should be able to ask you the tough questions no one else will, they will challenge you and you can borrow a lot from them on what works and what does not work......
Story#3 We had an older couple who had been married for 23 years counsel us and walk with us (we prayed about this before we chose them) and they would send us a list of questions which we would go through individually then we would visit their home at least once a month and get to ask each other the 'tough' questions, for me it 'busted' a lot of myths about relationships and marriage that I believed, some of the wrong advice I had been given were diluted with every session. They kept us accountable because we knew that whenever we would meet them, they would ask us how we are. They showed us by example how to serve each other and to have a relationship that reflects Christ and the church......They even at one time helped us solve an issue that we had.....P.S the lady changed my perspective on submission and serving my husband...they are God sent!
4. TAKE TIME TO GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER
I know that most Christian couples are usually encouraged to NOT take too long dating to avoid falling into temptation....this piece of advice is not entirely wrong.....it's just that at times it rushes couples to marriage without them getting to know each other.
Take time to go out on dates and no they don't have to be expensive, you can go out for picnics, walks,ice cream dates and just talk, ask each other questions openly, go out and do activities together and get to see the other person for who they are. Go on group dates to see how the person handles people, his friends, his family etc......
By ALL means, get to learn the other person, create an atmosphere for friendship to blossom and for it be the foundation of your relationship.
I have seen people who have been able to wait for 4 years to have their first kiss at the altar, people who have courted for 6 months and still waited to have their first kiss at the alter and both have happy marriages...thing is...it is not a ONE piece fits all scenario.....
Story #4 We courted for 2 and a half years and God enabled us to wait till marriage to have our first kiss, to be honest I was always afraid to share this bit about our relationship because I always thought we would fall . I actually shared it after we got engaged and we had a whole year to go before we would get to the altar but God led me to it and told me that He would sustain us. During this time, I took every possible opportunity to learn the hobbies Grey loved, how he is around His friends, family, how he reacts when he is angry, etc...I put him under an invisible microscope as I did not want to miss a thing, after all my aim was to get to know him in order to make a sober decision when it comes to marriage
5. HAVE FUN!!!!!
I know right! Yes have fun, go out and do what you two consider as fun (not alone trips out of town-we already talked about boundaries).....good clean fun! Let it be an exciting time for the two of you, and it is said that usually when two people get to do fun activities together their bond becomes stronger......its an opportunity to create memories and learn even more about the person e.g. if its a competitive sport you might learn a thing or two about the other person on how they act when they lose/win or how they work in a team.....by ALL means have fun and enjoy the ride...
Story#5 One of the things we have in common is the love for outdoor adventures, we would go hiking, bike riding etc...it gave us an opportunity to see each other for who we are by how we would overcome challenges we faced,....we even spent one of our valentine's day out hiking with a group of friends. We created a lot of memories and this gave us more stories to share when we would sit down on dates....we did have fun! and we did not spend much...so look for ways to have fun without breaking the bank, look for deals or just create your own fun.....
You will be blown away by how much God will honor you if you honor Him in courtship...
1st Samuel 2:30: "Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: 'I promised that members of your family would minister before me forever.' But now the LORD declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.
P..S You probably think this is only for people considering marriage, and not for you who is dating for the fun of it...thing is if a relationship is not leading to marriage there is no point of being in one.......
