Ok this one will be short too and… I was sick, I’m sorry! I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was delightful, because mine kind of was… I fell ill. Coughing, sneezing, wrapped in three blankets, running two space heaters in my bedroom, with the heat going in full pajamas (bonnet) and socks! Fuzzy socks! I was sick sick… like *supa sick!* So, I missed last week’s posting, therefore, I am posting today, next week, and the week after. We’ll break for Christmas, and pump out one more article to close the year. Are you ready? Let’s get it!!!!!

Women Come From Men

One thing I mentioned last time we were together, I mentioned that women were literally a part of men, and it’s the truth.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Gen 2:21-22

We all remember this scripture, about the woman being taken out of the man and fashioned as his “kind”. If we look above this scripture, we see that there were no kinds like Adam. He didn’t identify with anything in the garden because they weren’t like him… are you following?

We have to be with our kind, people like us. Your kind isn’t limited to your spouse, this is in all things. Do you know why the Israelites couldn’t mingle with the Egyptians? They weren’t the same. God didn’t want Solomon to marry those Egyptian women because they did not believe like him. So, that’s something we need to think about as we begin this new part of the journey to marriage.

Ok, so back to the woman being part of the man. We, women, are flesh and bone of our husbands, we are a part of him. So, when it comes to dating, or rather, finding a spouse… or receiving a spouse from God, we should understand that there are roles in a relationship… yes… there are roles.

Pipe down, we’re still talking about ‘dating.’ We won’t get into gender roles in a marriage until we talk about marriage. For now, I just want to mention briefly that a man is a protector, and a woman is the recipient of the man’s protection. This is revealed to us by Christ being the protection of the church (His bride). Just leave it at that for now, we need this bit of information to look at modern dating.

Courting:

Previously, we also mentioned courting. We talked about the difference of dating and coutring, and how the end goal is the difference: dating has no end goal, but courting does. A friend of mine always tries to tell me that it’s okay to date around, but I strongly disagree. I don’t think you should date around as a believer, however, this is MY opinion. It’s not Biblical, it’s not law, it’s not something said by a pastor. Just a girl blogging about loveeee.

Why shouldn’t I date around, Beanie?

Because dating is an emotional rollercoaster.

You shouldn’t put yourself in an unstable situation. I truly see dating the same as shacking; there’s no end goal. Without marriage, why date? What is the point? I have never believed in just dating to have someone to do things with. If you’re lonely, you really shouldn’t be with anyone… but that’s a totally different discussion.

Courting, or really, preparing for marriage is the better option to me. Because for me, I believe in waiting on God to send me a spouse. So, when the man God has prepared for me comes along, we can share in a courtship. Doing activities to gain affections, to learn to love one another. If I know this is who I’m going to marry, I want to begin to get to know him and move forward from there to marriage. In dating you don’t really do that.

When people date, they get to know each other and that’s kind of it. They just end up sticking with that person for a while. That’s why people can break up so easily after years. There was no goal for furthering the relationship. Alot of people just ‘end up together’, meaning they met, liked each other, and just stick around each other for a long time.

Closing

Alright, we discussed a few things today, but truly this was more of my own opinion. And, I’ll give you a heads up: next week will be very heavily built around my opinion again. We’ll be talking about modern dating and modesty! And then, we’ll move onto marriage, the final segment. Are you guys excited to be almost done? We’ve been doing this for so long (like since September!), so I can’t wait to blog about new things… like sex! Sex has always been a favorite topic of mine because people are so afraid to talk about it… but everyone wants to do it. We’ll get into a little of that next week and in the marriage portion.

We’ll talk soon, okay?