"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses & all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again"
I can so relate to poor old Humpty! This heart of mine has fallen in love, been shattered, & clumsily repaired so many times that it nearly looks like a puzzle with all the cracks running through it. One of the great regrets of my life thusfar is in the area of romance & dating. At 13 years old I gave my heart away for the very first time. As a wife to my precious husband, & a mother of 3 little girls, I can now fully appreciate how tender an age that was...but at the time I felt mature & ready for love. I was eager to give my heart away...to find 'the one'. For 4 months that young man & I wrote love letters, made googly eyes at one another, & even held hands...pure bliss...and then it was over. How I mourned the loss of that boy! I physically ached, my heart hurt so badly. I vowed never to love again, & then hypocritically began scouring for the next romance. By the time I was 18, I had been in 6 serious relationships...each progressively more long-lasting, more intensely emotional, more physically involved...each ending with deeper wounds & repercussions that I could not fathom at the time. As a high school senior I strutted down the hallway with an engagement ring on my finger, making wedding plans between classes. My fiance & I called off our engagement 10 months before our wedding day. I was utterly devastated & the epitome of broken. The numerous relationships & subsequent breakups resulted in a Humpty Dumpty Heart & in a young woman who had no idea what true love was or what it was supposed to look like...Deep in my soul I knew what the real problem was...Me. I was the problem. I wasn't good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, sexy enough, exciting enough. I was worthless. I was unlovable. It shames me now to admit that when one of those relationships ended, it nearly took my life with it...so lost was I.
After my final breakup, I knew that I could not endure another love gone wrong...I knew that something had to change...someone had to change...and that someone was me. For the first time I began to seek God's desire & heart about love & dating. I scoured His word for any scripture that might vindicate me or perhaps give me direction for the next time. Do you know what I found? Dating is not in God's vocabulary. Whenever romantic love is mentioned within the scriptures it is described in 1 of 2 contexts: Love within the covenant of marriage & the repercussions of love (mostly physical intimacy) outside of marriage. What I discovered is that Abba, the God of Love, is not a fan of dating...He's all about marriage. When He divinely inspired words about love, He did so with the understanding that real love isn't an immature & casual thing...rather it's an intense, eternal, lifetime commitment, a covenant.
We live in a society that regards love (emotional & physical), that regards intimacy (emotional & physical) as something trivial. I have written before how the nature of women & men alike is to crave love, to yearn for it...Abba designed us that way. Women seem more prone to long for the more emotional side of intimacy, while it's no secret that for men the appeal tends towards the physical aspects. Man & woman were created for intimacy with one another...one man & one woman...set apart for each other, bound in a holy covenant, united as one flesh. Somewhere along the way the focus blurred & no longer was the covenant the goal, but intimacy became the primary desire. Somewhere along the way people began to seek intimacy without commitment. Today adolescents, teens, & sadly enough even tweens begin seeking this intimacy in the form of dating. Girls want love, boys want pleasure, & both wind up giving the essence of themselves away long before they understand the enormity of what they've done.Society has deemed it both appropriate & normal for teenagers to become intimately attached to one another & then to abruptly part ways. Boys & girls trade partners like they trade outfits or baseball cards. Young men & women fall in & out of love so fast it makes my head spin....and it's all considered fine & dandy. Our culture has turned a blind eye to what's really occurring. There are young girls who starve themselves, who cut themselves, who commit suicide or try to...there are young boys who become increasingly more & more perverse in their lust because they've built up an immunity to sexual excitement. There are women who will never know true security or fulfillment because of the wounds still raw deep in their hearts. Women who will smother & nag their husbands to death because they are so desperate to keep his love. There are men who find no pleasure in the marriage bed because 'it's boring' compared to what sex used to be like. Men who despise themselves because of their struggles to remain satisfied & faithful. Am I being explicit? Yes, I am...because it's the truth. These are the cold hard admissions we need to make. Innocent casual dating is not innocent & casual. I would indeed argue that men & women have been 'divorced' (multiple times) before they ever become husbands & wives. The system of dating is no more than practice for the future...practice of how to marry & then divorce. Young men & young women 'go out' & then break up...they emotionally (& physically) marry one another & then divorce without even realizing it. I can say with full disclosure that this is exactly what I experienced. I wholeheartedly committed myself to my boyfriends...I gave them my heart...I meant it when I said I loved them...and I was crushed when things didn't work out. Perhaps some readers will cringe as they read this...perhaps it will force you to re-examine your past. Perhaps you will see that you too were a part of covenant relationships & broken vows without ever realizing it. You see the exchanging of hearts...whether or not we realize it or admit it or not, is the forming of a covenant...the joining & becoming of one flesh (sex, & I would argue any form of physical intimacy) is the forming of a covenant. Covenants are sacred bonds, solemn vows...they are not just broken or undone...there are grave repercussions for ending them. Tweens, Teens, Young Adults...you cannot fully fathom the consequences of 'dating'. I am fully aware that I might sound like an old prude, but as one who bears the scars, please hear me out.
I am writing this in hopes that the upcoming generation, the youth entering this age of adolescence, will read this & determine to stop the nonsense. I am writing this is hopes that young men & women who love the Lord, will determine to honor Him in their pursuit of love. Am I suggesting that you just crawl in a hole & wait for the right one to burrow in with you? Of course not. What I am suggesting is that we, the church, the body of Christ, stop buying into society's casual dating system & embrace Abba's plan of action for how romantic love should come about..that we begin teaching & expecting a new method of discovering Mr & Mrs Right. I am saying that the first step in doing just that is the acknowledgement & admission of the ramifications of entering into intimacy (emotional and/or physical) way too young & way too casually. Dating is practice for future divorce...I know that those of you who even now are in the midst of the dating world will scowl & argue with me, but again, as one who's been burned...that's just the plain truth.
I am ending this post by asking those of you who relate to what I'm saying, who have been where I've been, who know the hurt I am talking about, who have suffered the ramifications to please add a comment below. I desperately want those who read this, who are convicted by this to know that I'm not some prudish, ninny, goody-two-shoes, but a loving sister longing to spare others the hurt I've felt firsthand. I want them to see that I am not the only one who sees the flaws with dating. Your feedback will affirm truth. For those who are bristling & fuming, for those who are scared of where I am going to go next...please read my next post before forming a final opinion. My next post, that I will write as soon as possible, will in depth discuss what God does say about love, finding it, & making it last. It will describe, what I strongly believe, is to be the best way to approach relationships with God's plan in mind. Until then, Be Blessed!
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