Love, Dating, Marriage, and everything in between!

It absolutely breaks my heart the amount of divorce our world and culture has. I have a lot of thoughts on a lot of different things so I'm going to be rambling to the MAX in this blog but stick with me!! Hopefully you have some thought you agree with! :) Okay well first off here are my views about dating someone who is not a Christian. One of my favorite analogies that my mentor Adam told me was that if you run towards the cross and keep going towards the cross God will place someone in your life that is running towards the cross at the same speed and right next to you and then you can hold hands and run together towards the cross! I know its super cheesy but I love it!! I believe that if they don't love their master they won't be able to love you.

Another thing I believe is that LUST is a feeling, LOVE is a commitment. I think they get sooo mixed up in our world!! I think that hollywood is telling us that love is a feeling! Hollywood couples divorce because the "love feeling disappears!" Whenever those butterfly feelings disappear they decide to get divorced! and they are rubbing off on us!! The divorce rate of Christians is just as high as the secular world.. how sad is that?? we are supposed to  be examples to the rest of the world! I seriously think that our nation is plagued with divorce. We are basing our love off of Hollywood, off of songs and movies. When you get married that butterfly feeling isn't going to always be there, but from what I've heard from wise counselors I turn to - they love their spouses more and more EVERY DAY, because they have a commitment to love them. A lot of people disagree with me about love, but personally I've decided not to tell a boy I love them in an intimate way until he is down on one knee. What if Christ only felt lust for us? do you think he felt like hiking up Calvary, being spit on, mocked, and accused. But why did He do it? He did it because He made a commitment to us. Proverbs 4:23 - above all else guard your heart, for it is the WELLSPRING of life. guard your heart!! don't give it away!! 

The more focus we become on chasing a relationship, the less focused we become on chasing Christ. Relationships are meant to INCREASE your relationship with the Lord, not decrease. If you are in a relationship that's hindering your relationship with the Lord, break up with them! God wants you WHOLLY His - when your wholly His God will give you someone amazing!!  One of my favorite quotes is if you dance with the Lord, He'll let the right guy cut in! DANCE with the Lord!! Here is for the girls-- As women, we are naturally drawn to give our hearts over to man quickly and easily. It is our curse. "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” genesis 3. Our hearts want to be loved with physical, immediate love.  loving a God that is not tangible and for the most part not even audible is not an easy thing to do, especially when we are asked to be fully satisfied and wanting nothing else with an invisible God.  You might be saying, Great... now what...

But it is just like God to have everything under control and according to his purpose.  He purposefully designed it this way so that we couldn't rely on ourselves to love him. WHAT A CONCEPT! :)It is easy to look at a boy we like and say, yep I like him. you cant give any credit to the boy, he didn't do anything... for some reason our self is just attracted to his self.  But God compels our hearts and then requires it so we invite all of Him in (Holy Spirit for strength, Jesus Christ for forgiveness, and God the father for power and confidence) and provides the strength and reliance we need to love him that way he deserves to be loved. It is so easy to let my mind slip off God and onto someone else. when you are not in a relationship, then we need to be extra careful that we dont let out minds wander.  

Recently I thought this guy was going to pursue me and I really liked him. but then he stopped. I was fine and prayed a lot about it to guard my heart and focus on Jesus.  But I saw him again recently and this time I wasnt in constant prayer and I would catch myself thinking things were going to work out when he gave me absolutely no indication that he was even remotely interested.  That is the danger. We day dream and let our minds wander out of reality and into our own fantasy world. It is in God's character to want us to live in the present. to be sharp and aware (which is why he asks us not to be drunk, or worry, or be anxious..) so I take that and feel as it would be in God's character to ask us not to fixate on boys and create our own fantasy land (no matter how small and innocent it is)  .. anyway, he recently got a girlfriend, and surprisingly I was so relieved. I knew I was sinning by giving my heart to this boy when he had no intention of ever pursing it. so when I found out he was dating someone else it shattered my little hopes that he would still like me and freed me to see my sin and repent before the Lord. I had to humble myself before Jesus and acknowledge that I was thinking of someone else before him. I had to acknowledge that I was cheating on the Lord for I was giving myself over (even in the slightest most innocent way) before I was married.  

Now I dont want to be extreme with the purpose of setting a whole set of rules. I do not believe everyone has to take the same exact steps to guard their heart. and I do not agree with women telling other women they are not allowed to kiss before marriage etc.  but i do believe that you must be honest with your heart and see where you are struggling and where you stumble the most and step one repent. step two ask fall back head over heels in love with Jesus. step three ask for strength to truly be satisfied with whatever plan he has for you.

Ask jesus for a heart that would be satisfied if a boy is in your future and also a heart that would be satisfied if he is not.  ask for a heart that will love Jesus no matter the circumstances that lay ahead. We could love, we may never. We could marry this person, we could marry another. we may be married and have our spouse taken from us.  we could marry and not be loved the way we should. I pray with my whole heart that you find someone who loves you because he loves God more. I pray you find someone who attempts to treat you the way Jesus treats you and attempts to love you like Jesus loves the church. I pray all these things but I pray more that you will love back BECAUSE and only because Jesus first loved you and you first loved Jesus.  

In order to get over a boy, give your heart to jesus.  We must do this each and every day.  Give you heart soul and mind over to our loving God because he will transform your heart and will transform your desires to the point that you will look at a boy and say, "I am a daughter of the king... I may be with you I may not but I will stand unwavering in the mean time. I am already in love, you (if you are lucky) are just supplementary. " now dont say that in a spiteful way.  say it in a loving, genuine way speaking truth over yourself!

Okay moving on! here is some more of my rambling! I think we often drown out God's voice with the voice of those we are infatuated with. I think that when a girl is with a boy cuddling on the couch watching a movie, and he wants to do something.. we will drown out Gods voice to the voice of the boy saying its okay! Another thing I think is a major deal is praying with the opposite sex before your married - don't do it!! While sex is the most intimate thing you can do with someone physically, prayer is the most intimate thing you can do with someone spiritually and emotionally. I'm not saying praying with a group of people that has the opposite sex involved is bad!! I'm saying don't pray with the person you are dating. It leaves girls emotionally unguarded, and boys can manipulate girls through it unknowingly. So often I hear of stories of girls saying "well I did this with him because I was afraid he would leave me" or "I decided to date him because he has waited like six months!!" Girls! Jacob waited FOURTEEN years!!! Guys don't date a girl because she has been waiting for a couple months and girls don't give into boys because you are afraid they won't wait. If Jacob waited, so can they!

Something else to keep in mind is that the Bible says above ALL things the heart is deceitful... take that in. above all things MY heart is deceitful. Our hearts will make us want things that we shouldn't wnat! It takes courage and honesty to truly invite God to examine your heart but I encourage you to soo much!  Guard your heart in all areas, not just when you are in a relationship by not using the words "I love you".  You can start to guard your heart now, even from getting too "emotionally attached" to your boyfriends(girlfriends), crushes, or even guy(girl) friends.  It is important as humans to be cautious with our hearts because even crushes can start to consume our minds and take over our day dream life, and ultimately take away from our walk with the Lord and our time spent with him.  Now it is not bad to crush.. but it is dangerous to dwell on crushes, to be "boy crazy" in a sense.

As a children of God we need to make sure that we are independently in love with Jesus and our strength comes from the Lord and not our community, our friends, or boys.  To help with that we need to truly check our heart and see if our satisfaction or value or confidence or mood come from whether we are getting attention or not.  If we are truly satisfied in the Lord and putting our whole value and confidence in him then we can not "chase after boys" and be able to patiently and contently wait as the Lord's plans unfold and wait for a man to pursue us.. not having to flirt or strategically put ourselves in position to get noticed.  I also want to add though that this is very hard! and I am soo not perfect at it. and even as much as I want to say I find my whole 100% value in HIM, in all honesty I don't all the time :(


But theoretically, if we can, then how much peace will we be able to have in not chasing after boys, knowing and understanding that the Lord has someone picked out just for you and he will notice you as a diamond in the rough and he will love you for the Godly woman you are, not as an attention seeker.. I love that picture! and it frees us women up to be 100% focused on him, because the men do all the work! and it frees us up to have unity with our sisters because we are not competing for attention! and it frees us up to love our sisters as more precious than ourselves because we are secure in the Lord and dont need worldly praise! but the ONLY ONLY ONLY way our sinful hearts can reach that state is truly through prayer and lots and lots of abiding in the Lord and spending time with him!

Something that I am SO passionate about is this think called link year..  I am praying day by day that I get in because I just feel soo called to do it! its like a gap year and its pretty much the coolest thing ever.. check it out! www.kanakuklinkyear.com

they only are taking about 22 girls and 22 boys, because they want a tight community and I pray that God chooses me to be one of those 22 girls! Anyways I'm sharing this because they have some really strict rules but some really awesome rules (to me anyways) I think that after living with these rules for a year it will teach me discipline for when I go off to college. Anyways some of the rules are 

• Curfew is 11p.m. on weeknights and 12:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Students must be in dorms at these times.
• No one is allowed to tour the dorms of the opposite gender at any time other than arrival and departure day.
• Any substance such as alcohol, drugs, cigarettes or anything that alters your ability to control your body is strictly prohibited. This includes abuse of any prescribed medications or over the counter drugs.
• No sexual contact of any kind during the course of the entire year, on or off campus.
• To protect the commitment to purity and renewing the mind, students choose to set aside secular television and secular music, as well as refrain from watching rated R movies.

Will link-year students be allowed to enter into dating relationships?

Students will not be penalized for dating while at the Link Year. We would prefer our students to participate in-group dating and hanging out in groups rather than one on one situations where temptation may occur. However, we will not prohibit dating. We think this is an opportune environment where young men and women can learn to accurately and Biblically pursue relationships with integrity. Rules at the Kanakuk Link Year are guidelines set up to help students focus completely on God and avoid distractions in their pursuit of growth.


how cool is that?? like guys cant come into girls dorm rooms and vice-versa. you cant drink, watch bad tv shows, listen to bad music, or watch bad movies. you have a curfew. Like most these things would drive people crazy!! but they make me SOO much more excited and wanting to get in!! I think that these rules for 8 months will change my life! I think they will give me a break from this world. They will teach me how to be in this world not of this world. I know this is pretty random I just want to go there soo bad and so I wanted to share the rules about relationships!  Anyways if anybody wants to know more about it let me know!! I LOVE talking about it!! Oh my word I have rambled so much :) I hope I've done this blog how I was supposed to Coach Rodden.. I tried :)


ps.. if you want to know my view on purity check out my blog from September called "Gods Purpose- WORTH READING!"

Your love is extravagant, your friendship, it is intimate. I feel I'm moving to the rhythm of your grace. Your fragrance is intoxicating in a secret place, cause your love is extravagant. <3