Our Story

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to write out Colin's and my "story" for a lady to share in her Bible Study. I thought that is might be nice to put it up here as well, for anyone interested. This is not a "look at how great we are" post, I really just hope it is an encouragement to others. Please note that it is written mostly from my perspective. Also, if you have any questions, please put them up as a comment and we will do our best to answer them.


Doing Things Differently


My decision to do things differently in the area of dating was not that hard to make. I didn’t have any choice in the matter, my parents said no dating and that was it. This was not something that was hard for me to accept or something that I struggled against. As a matter of fact, and to be perfectly honest with you, I liked being able to say that I didn’t date and then see the look of shock and amazement on peoples faces. For me the struggle came into play when the Lord showed me what He wanted me to do, and I had to take the steps that He required.

The first serious thought that I had on the subject of marriage came one night when I was 12, while I was lying in bed. It was an overwhelming sense of fear that I might marry the wrong person. I will confess that I did not dwell on the problem a whole lot for a couple of years. I was after all, only twelve, and more interested in pitching a softball game, than in the pursual of a husband. However, there was always a little nagging in the back of my mind saying that one day I would have to have an answer to the problem, and it never went away. This was the beginning of all of my thoughts, opinions, ideas, and readings on how to avoid making such a terrible mistake as marrying the wrong man.
By the time I was fourteen I was really wanting some answers to my questions (and, even more so, to the questions of others). So, if I don’t date, what do I do? How will I know when/if someone likes me? What if I like someone, and then find out they don’t like me? And the ever present fear of messing up and marrying the wrong person. Over the next several years I started doing a lot of reading, talking with others who didn’t date, and watching people that were in "non-dating" relationships. The problem was that every time I thought I had an answer, it would fail me. Dating, defined as "an intimate romantic relationship with little or no commitment" was in my opinion, a vicious cycle of hurt, and a good set up for failure in marriage. It was easy for me to see the pitfalls it held, and I had no problem setting dating aside as not an option. The next most logical step was Courtship, a term that is being used and brought up more and more often as the alternative to dating. At first I was sure that this was the answer that I was looking for. Defined as "a serious relationship with the intent of marriage" it seemed like the answer to avoid being hurt and more likely to get you the right person, the first time. But, as I looked into it more and watched people that were "courting", I saw more and more flaws, and still a lot of hurt. Perhaps even more hurt than in dating, because the relationship is on a deeper level right from the beginning, so that if separation occurs it is even more painful. After seeing some friends go through this process, I decided that courtship was not the answer, I did not want to be hurt like that. So I kept looking and found my next answer in Betrothal, "total commitment before the forming of a relationship". In other words, you are engaged from the very beginning, so there is even less chance of separation and hurt. But here again I watched as a dear friend took this route and then was shattered as the relationship fell apart and she was left with a broken heart.
I was now at a dead end in my hunting for the "right" answer on how to find the "right" man, and was forced to admit the only way, was God’s way. For me that meant bending my will to His. I confess that I knew, almost from that very first night, what God wanted of me. All He asked was that I give this area of my life over to Him and my Dad. This is where things got really hard for me. I knew what the answer to my "dilemma" was, but it was a step that I was not willing to take because, I did not have enough faith in the Lord and in my parents to make the right decision (what if they picked the wrong person??!!!). And, I felt that I could find a better answer than the one that I had been given. However, with the failure of each of my "answers", I was forced to take a better look at what God wanted of me. I was sixteen when I decided that God’s way was the right way, and gave the whole process over to Him. I settled in my heart that my Dad would be picking out my husband, and that the Lord would enable him to make the right decision. The peace that I had was wonderful. I no longer had to worry about making a mistake, and I knew that God would not make one.
I am not going to pretend that everything was peaches and cream from here on out. There were still days when I struggled with this fear, or that fear, and with the courage necessary to stand by my convictions. I did not share my decision with anyone, not even my Dad, for about a year. When I did start telling people that my dad was going to choose my husband, I got a lot of questions and even some "it will never work" comments. Most people wanted to know why I had chosen this way over Courtship or Betrothal, and why one of those wouldn’t work just as well. Aside form the fact that the Lord wanted something different for me I began to see that the biggest downfall of the other two options was that emotions were given and taken, just like in dating, and then when separation occurred, there was pain. The more I looked into this, the more I saw that while churches, parents, peers, and more books than I care to count are working for physical purity before marriage, there are very few that say anything about the deeper issue, emotional purity. Each time someone is emotionally attached to someone else, wether it be in dating, courtship, or betrothal, there is potential for hurt. I knew that for my emotions to become attached it would take little more than someone saying they liked me, regardless of what level of commitment they had (I mean, lets face it girls, when it comes to making something out of nothing, we are the champs. How many of us have turned a wave good-bye into an engagement ring and are naming the kids before he is out of the parking lot? :). Therefore, for me to give my future husband a heart full of love that no one else had ever touched, I did not even want to know that someone liked me until they were ready to marry me. I told my dad not to send anyone to me unless he knew that they were who I was going to marry, and to wait until the young man was ready for full commitment to marriage. If this looks very similar to betrothal, that’s because it is. The biggest difference between what I wanted to do, and what I had seen others do, is that rather than be asked "do you like so-and-so, would you like to be betrothed/engaged to him?" (thus opening the door for my emotions to be drawn to this person without knowing that he is who I would marry), I would be told "here is the man you will marry, now love him with all your heart". By giving the authority of the decision making process back to the person that it really belonged to in the first place, my dad, I hoped to sidestep the emotional pitfalls that are set up all around us and start my marriage on a strong foundation.
Now, I am sure that to some people this whole way of going about things seems insane, and to others it looks good on paper, but does not seem applicable to "real life". I am also certain that there are many others who have doubts and questions. As I finish "my story", let me begin by saying that I am no longer single. I was married on March 29th, 2008. The most exciting thing however, is not that I got married, but the story leading up to marriage.
I met Colin seven years ago, when he joined the homeschool orchestra that I was part of. I will not mislead you by pretending that I knew at once that he was who I would one day marry. There were no fireworks, beatings of the heart, or sudden flashes of deep understanding. As a matter of fact, although I knew of him, I didn’t really know him at all. It was about a year later, when I was 15 and he was 18, that we were both invited to a mutual friend’s birthday party. For me it was just a fun evening and not much else, but for Colin it would become much more.
For the next two years Colin was gone most of the time. He took three extended trips to Slovakia to work with some missionaries there. Meanwhile I graduated high school, and started wondering what it was that the Lord wanted me to do with my life. I did not want to go to collage, and really wanted more than anything to be a missionary. In 2004 when I was seventeen, I spent the summer in Romania, and came home with an even greater desire to serve in a foreign country. The biggest problem that I faced then, was waiting on the Lord to show me where, when, and how. From then until the spring of 2006 I worked at home, and then started an office job, but mostly I waited. This was not an easy time for me. I wanted to "move on" with my life, which to me meant getting married and going into missions. As I went to work every morning, and back home each evening, neither of these seemed to be getting any nearer. But, just because I have limited vision, does not mean that God has stopped working.
In the spring of ‘06 Colin left for his forth trip to Slovakia. Shortly thereafter I had a dream from the Lord, in which He told me that I would marry Colin. I didn’t know what to do with this. Here I was, determined not to give my emotions away to anyone and the Lord gives me a dream so real, powerful, and moving, that I didn’t know how to not attach my emotions. I also did not know that the day before he left, Colin met with my dad in his office parking lot to get a question asked that he couldn’t leave without having an answer to.
For many months I tried to keep my emotions under control and to forget about the dream. When I finally realized that I could not win this battle alone, I wrote the dream out and gave it to my parents. It was not until latter that I learned what their real reaction to it was. At the time, they only told me to give it to the Lord, and if it was His will, He would work it out, but now was not the time. What they did not tell me was that my Dad and Colin had been e-mailing since Colin had left in the spring, and that for them, this dream was confirmation that things were headed in the right direction. For me, it was a time of much learning. I learned to trust my parents even more. I learned that just because you give a problem over to God, it does not necessarily remove it forever. Each time I found my thoughts and emotions going the wrong direction, I had to turn it all over to Him again. I also learned a lot about having grace for others. For the first time I had to practice what I had been preaching. Here again I learned that, while it is easy to talk about remaining emotionally pure, it can sometimes be a daily battle to actually live it out.
Colin came back to the states in February of 2007. He got a job and started working a lot of hours. As I was still working full time, we did not see much of each-other. When we did happen to be at the same event or function, we could usually be found in separate corners, as far away from the other as possible. Remember, I did not know what direction his thoughts were going in, and he was working to keep it that way. In the fall of ‘07 I quit my job and began part time tutoring for a homeschool family. For me this was an answer to prayer, for Colin it was another step in the "right" direction. That November, the day before Thanksgiving, my mom casually mentioned that Colin was coming out to our house for dinner. Although this was slightly unusual, I assumed that it was nothing more than what she said. However, when he got to the house, he only came in as far as the back door, and then he asked my dad if he could take me for a walk. I thought I would faint from pure amazement, and then from excitement and nerves! We went out and walked in the woods and he told me some of what had been going on over the past year and a half, and then he asked me to marry him! Once I knew that he had all of my dad’s blessing, I was only too happy to say yes. We have now been married for almost a year, and I am fully convinced that choosing the Lord’s way, was the best way!

In closing, I would like to say a couple of things. Colin and I do not think that "our way" of doing things, is the only way to do them. We do believe that strong marriages need strong foundations, and that strong foundations are best built when there is no past hurt to overcome, scars to heal, and walls to tear down. We would encourage everyone to stand firmly on their convictions, and not to fear taking a different route, be it courtship, betrothal, or ........... (you fill in the blank). God’s plan for each of us is unique, and it is the best plan possible, no matter how strange it may seem to others!
I would also like to take a moment to answer two questions that were almost always the first ones I got asked, in hopes that they might be an encouragement to you. They were, "How will you know that he is the right one?" and, "What if you don’t like him?"
The answer to the first question, is faith. Faith is easy to talk about, and hard to apply. For me it came down to this: If I am willing to trust God with my eternal life, how dare I not trust Him to bring me the right husband! God did not say, "come to Me and be saved, and then spend the rest of your days fighting out life alone". No! He wants to be in every part of our lives, and every decision that "we" make should really just be the carrying out of one that He has already made for us. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that living in fear that God would make a mistake, was just about the ultimate form of foolishness.
The answer to the second is this: My God is the God of Love. He is not going to be looking around for a man who is unsuited to me, has a bad temper, doesn’t love Him. God desires only the best for me, and if I trust Him, that is what I will get.

I hope that our story has been an encouragement to you, and pray that each of you will find the Lord’s will for your life.

May God bless you,

Rachel