Before I write any more I want to say that this young lady and her family are not stupid people. These are intelligent people who have chosen to live life differently than I do and in that I want to explain why I have made the choices I have.
When I was thirteen years old, I read the book "I Kissed Dating Good-bye" like my peers and also like my peers I vowed that I would also not be tossed about in a dating relationship because they were pointless and would only break my heart and blah-buh-blah-buh-blah. Naive. Can you smell the acne medicine? And to be quite honest with you, I had a major crush at the time on this young man four years older than me and he had read the book and made the vow and I thought that if I did the same, he might like me more and want to "court" me. Yes. I was thirteen and he was seventeen and I wanted to be in a relationship with someone to see if we should one day get married. Shocking, I know, but I felt the need to be totally transparent with you, the internet.
The opportunity didn't arise to date anyone in high school (we had all kissed it good-bye), so in college I really was interested in being in a relationship with someone to see if we could one day get married. This is where I can get irritable--labels. Just because a person is not technically in a relationship with someone does not mean that there is nothing to fear about hearts being broken or lines being crossed. Conservatives, I'm talking to you. I didn't date in college either, but only because there was a string of us each completely in love with someone who did not reciprocate our feelings because he or she was in love with someone else. Seriously. (George loved Ilsa who loved Brandon who loved me who loved Jack who loved another girl with my same first name, but was blonde and had bigger boobs. Drama much?)
I will get back to my friend now. She met a young man and primarily corresponded with him during their pre-marriage relationship. I believe she had met with this young man in person somewhere in the neighborhood of less than ten times in person before they got married. They had courted, though, and she seemed confident that their story was a triumphant example to all those who would follow. I was skeptical about it, but shrugged it off since I wasn't her mother or best friend and I didn't have a place to say anything to her (especially since she had gotten married by the time I heard her story).
The relationship went through the ringer almost right away. She unexpectedly became pregnant and had a honeymoon baby (a wonderful blessing, but a HUGE change in a short amount of time and thus a lot of stress), he had difficulty keeping jobs and thus they moved a lot, including far away from her family. It has been exceptionally difficult and she has needed to spend some time away from him in order to sort through some difficulties. I am not writing this in order to drag her down or say that she was stupid. Y'all, she did was she thought was best and wisest for her and other than getting married really fast, I can't fault her for any of her choices. My point is that being conservative is not a guarantee that you will be blessed. Sure, there are certain consequences for stupidity that a person won't have to face if they aren't stupid, but living life in a way that glorifies God does not mean that you will never face difficulties, even in the realm of male/female relationships.
I think this is something my fellow homeschooled peers and I are discovering. We can look at our lives and some of the difficulties we've faced and I'm sure at some point in time, we've turned to God and said, "I don't understand. I followed Your principles. I obeyed, not perfectly, but I didn't disobey enough to deserve THIS." Somewhere in there we understood that if we lived in obedience we were promised certain specific blessings we had planned out. "If I homeschool my kids, they'll grow up to be good kids." "If I court instead of date, I'll have a great marriage." "If I kiss dating good-bye, I'll never have a broken heart."
Lies. God is not obligated to us. Just as there are bad consequences for disobedience, there can be good consequences for obedience, but this is not a promise that you will never face brokenness because you have been obedient. God is still good. Sometimes He needs to teach us that we have made idols out of blessings instead of the Blesser. Sometimes He needs to teach us that we need to trust Him and not a formula. It's a tough lesson to learn, but it's one we need to have drilled into our minds.
