Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Wedding Bells
Around 36 hours from now, I will be heading to my brother's wedding! I was talking about marriage tonight with my roommate, and how significant events change our perspective, passions and purpose in life. Marriage is one of those events for sure, and having kids. I can't imagine the sacrifice that goes into preparing for and being a parent. You're always a parent, forever. Irreversible life change that brings sacrifice and blessings and challenges and memories. I'm so excited to celebrate my brother's marriage to a great gal this weekend. (And, I finally get a sister after 25 years of only brothers!)
Monday, November 16, 2009
for all my single ladies
Just friends. Oh, what a great label ((sarcasm)). I don't know any woman who hasn't had at least one friendship in which either she or the guy was hoping for more than just friends. I'll be honest. When this happens to me, I tend to blame it on the guy.
Boundless.org, a ministry of Focus on the Family, has tons of articles on dating, relationships and marriage, among many other topics like college, singleness, time, money and sex. I've been ready a series on biblical dating and happened upon an article about being 'just friends.'
Author Scott Croft has this to say about deep emotional commitments between Christians (or non-Christians) of the opposite sex:
Just a quick shout-out to my single friends here. Regardless of whose 'fault' it is when two people are too emotionally invested, both sides are called to be responsible for appropriate levels of emotional and physical involvement.
How would your future husband feel if he knew you were emotionally invested in one of your guy friends? Croft goes on to encourage women who want to get married to think about the way their actions might affect their brothers in Christ. Are we single women satisfying the intermediate needs of our guy friends so they see or feel no particular compulsion to pursue marriage?
But that's not to say single Christian men and women can't be friends at all, and Croft makes that very clear in his article. Claiming biblical backing from I Timothy 5, Croft gives a laundry list of appropriate advice. (Finally! Some practical words for the single segment of the Body of Christ!)
Croft says "Single men and women can and should serve in ministry together, study the word together, and hang out together socially. They should go out together, gather around meals, watch movies. In my view, however, these activities should be done, for the most part, in groups rather than one-on-one. Men can initiate group get-togethers, and so can women. In fact, single brothers and sisters in Christ, like the rest of Christ's body, are positively called to care for one another. Men can (and should) give women rides home rather than have them walk alone at night. Men can come over and move couches. Women can cook a meal for a group of guys in danger of developing scurvy from a near total lack of vegetables. Knock yourselves out."
So, all my single ladies, the body of Christ is a natural place to make friends with Christian men and can often result in two people becoming more than friends down the road. It's not uncommon (or a bad thing!) for a guy to express interest in a girl before they spend a significant amount of time alone...and we certainly don't need to create situations that have a high level of intimacy with a Christian man to lead him to that point.
Boundless.org, a ministry of Focus on the Family, has tons of articles on dating, relationships and marriage, among many other topics like college, singleness, time, money and sex. I've been ready a series on biblical dating and happened upon an article about being 'just friends.'
Author Scott Croft has this to say about deep emotional commitments between Christians (or non-Christians) of the opposite sex:
"By offering a taste of the companionship and interactions that make marriage so satisfying, with none of the accompanying commitments or responsibilities entailed in marriage, intimate friendships discourage the pursuit of the grown-up, God-intended outlet for marital desires — marriage."
Just a quick shout-out to my single friends here. Regardless of whose 'fault' it is when two people are too emotionally invested, both sides are called to be responsible for appropriate levels of emotional and physical involvement.
How would your future husband feel if he knew you were emotionally invested in one of your guy friends? Croft goes on to encourage women who want to get married to think about the way their actions might affect their brothers in Christ. Are we single women satisfying the intermediate needs of our guy friends so they see or feel no particular compulsion to pursue marriage?
But that's not to say single Christian men and women can't be friends at all, and Croft makes that very clear in his article. Claiming biblical backing from I Timothy 5, Croft gives a laundry list of appropriate advice. (Finally! Some practical words for the single segment of the Body of Christ!)
Croft says "Single men and women can and should serve in ministry together, study the word together, and hang out together socially. They should go out together, gather around meals, watch movies. In my view, however, these activities should be done, for the most part, in groups rather than one-on-one. Men can initiate group get-togethers, and so can women. In fact, single brothers and sisters in Christ, like the rest of Christ's body, are positively called to care for one another. Men can (and should) give women rides home rather than have them walk alone at night. Men can come over and move couches. Women can cook a meal for a group of guys in danger of developing scurvy from a near total lack of vegetables. Knock yourselves out."
So, all my single ladies, the body of Christ is a natural place to make friends with Christian men and can often result in two people becoming more than friends down the road. It's not uncommon (or a bad thing!) for a guy to express interest in a girl before they spend a significant amount of time alone...and we certainly don't need to create situations that have a high level of intimacy with a Christian man to lead him to that point.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
quotable!
Success in marriage is not finding the right person, but being the right person in the power of the one perfect Person. -John Piper
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Waiting.
Waiting doesn't always mean not doing.
We wait for a lot of things in this life. We wait for the tooth fairy, presents at Christmas, the homecoming dance, the first kiss, senior year in high school, college graduation, falling in love, the first real job, the wedding day, the first promotion, the first child. And on and on and on.
I'm not good at waiting. Unless I can watch TV until it happens. And I think watching TV constitutes as doing nothing (productive).
While we wait for things, we cannot let life pass us by. We must work diligently at the tasks at hand. God has put us on this earth to work for his glory. And He enjoys when we take delight in Him, and wants to give us the desires of our heart.
But, as Chad would say, God is God and we are not. He's the Sovereign one, in control of our present and future. And sometimes we must wait for our true desires. We must trust that we will receive them in God's timing, which is always good.
I really want to get married someday. But I have to trust that this will happen in God's timing, if at all. I don't doubt that I can glorify and serve God in marriage. At this point in my life, I think I could, and I'd like to. It is going to be a bigger challenge than I realize right now, that's for sure. But God knows what's best for me, and I trust that. And, I have to trust it may not happen at all. If it doesn't happen, it's for God's glory. It's not because I am flawed or unfit, and it doesn't matter to me what others think about it, only what I think about it. If God decides to be glorified more in my life through my service to Him in singleness than in marriage, then so it will be.
We wait for a lot of things in this life. We wait for the tooth fairy, presents at Christmas, the homecoming dance, the first kiss, senior year in high school, college graduation, falling in love, the first real job, the wedding day, the first promotion, the first child. And on and on and on.
I'm not good at waiting. Unless I can watch TV until it happens. And I think watching TV constitutes as doing nothing (productive).
While we wait for things, we cannot let life pass us by. We must work diligently at the tasks at hand. God has put us on this earth to work for his glory. And He enjoys when we take delight in Him, and wants to give us the desires of our heart.
But, as Chad would say, God is God and we are not. He's the Sovereign one, in control of our present and future. And sometimes we must wait for our true desires. We must trust that we will receive them in God's timing, which is always good.
I really want to get married someday. But I have to trust that this will happen in God's timing, if at all. I don't doubt that I can glorify and serve God in marriage. At this point in my life, I think I could, and I'd like to. It is going to be a bigger challenge than I realize right now, that's for sure. But God knows what's best for me, and I trust that. And, I have to trust it may not happen at all. If it doesn't happen, it's for God's glory. It's not because I am flawed or unfit, and it doesn't matter to me what others think about it, only what I think about it. If God decides to be glorified more in my life through my service to Him in singleness than in marriage, then so it will be.