As most of you know, I have been in a courtship with my boyfriend Matt for more than a year and a half now. As big of a part of my life as that is, I do not write often about it. "Why?" you might ask.
I fell in love with courtship and emotional chastity when they were introduced to me. I looked up reading material and learned as much as I could. Emotional chastity did wonders for maturing my faith life and making it something more relational than a head knowledge kind of belief after high school. Many of my conversations with my girlfriends centered around Sarah Swafford's "emoto-coaster", our failures in our pasts, and our hopes for our futures to become better women of God.
When Matt and I began our courtship, I suppose I had the naive notion that I was somehow proficient at the whole courtship thing and keeping emotions under control 100% of the time (ha!). But then, being an hour and 20 minutes away from each other, the distance acted as a "safe zone" for a long time for me...the distance meant that I was not tempted often in letting my emotions run off at a million miles an hour. Sure, there were a lot of phone calls where we admitted that we missed each other, yada yada yada mushy stuff, but it was still a safe enough distance that my emotions stayed in check most of the time.
This summer Matt was blessed with an internship in the same city where I was staying the summer to work. I knew from the beginning that it was prime opportunity for us to be in a close proximity, being a mile away from each other, and discern whether marriage was really the path to which God has been leading us. Living in the same city was going to give us time to be around each other and learn each other's habits, both good and bad...those we could handle and those we wished we could change. As much as I knew that we got along on an intellectual level, I honestly couldn't tell you at the beginning of the summer if we could get along on a day-to-day basis.
Ninety percent of the summer I utterly failed at discerning with him. Wait, what? Yes, utterly failed. The more that discernment became real, the more I wanted to push it away. On top of being moody from homesickness, Matt got the raw end of the deal this summer. Only since the beginning of August has communication finally opened up again and discernment and prayer been able to flourish. When I was finally able to acknowledge that my moodiness towards him was a result of my own homesickness and not anything he had done, I could see the relationship in a clearer light.
So why haven't I written about courtship up till now? Well, because I'm not perfect at it. I remember when I first had my mom read "Arms of Love", the book that first introduced me to courtship. I remember her telling me that something like that was a nice story, but that it wasn't possible. I wanted to go out of my way to prove to her that it was possible for people to live like that...in control of emotions, with strong convictions and God-centered, purposeful romance. Do I still think it's possible? Yes. Do I still think it's possible for me? Yes. Am I good at it? Heck no. This summer, even though I recognized the danger, my heart went on the "emoto-coaster" several times. I spill my emotions easily given the prompt. I still have a long ways to go in learning about courtship, even if I am a year and a half into a courtship of my own. The blessing of living near Matt this summer was having a more realistic idea of my boundaries (emotionally, spiritually, physically). Setting boundaries when you're an hour and a half away from each other is a nice thought, but rather arbitrary. You never know how you push each other's buttons until you spend the time.
As much as I wish I could portray courtship to make it have some radiant glow around it in your mind's eye, dear reader, the fact of the matter is that I'm me and I stumble and fall. And I will continue to do so. But with the support of prayer, friends, mentors, and continual conversion, Matt and I will make our way through finding God's will in this path of courtship.
