On Dating

I have had a lot of different thoughts over the years on this issue. Interestingly enough, I have landed nowhere near my original thoughts on the subject. When my girls were smaller I really grasped the whole "courtship" model, and while I still think that parts of it are valid and beautiful, I know that purity and chastity are not externals. While the physical manifestations or lack thereof can be enforced from the outside, it can produce no fruit within. I was one of those who said, "my girls will never date." I have had to reevaluate those words.
Someone on the radical unschooler's list that I belong to asked if we would "allow" dating. I want to be clear that in the same way we wouldn't want our kids to get into a vehicle with someone we didn't know - male or female, drop them off in an unfamiliar area, or hang out in unfamiliar company - we would want to know the person that wanted to take them out. It isn't a "dating specific" standard. We share our thoughts, express our opinions and we listen to them too. We have found that this give and take relationship causes our kids to live in a relationship where they trust us. We don't have to enforce a regulation because they are often asking us what they should do in a given situation.
Casual dating is a bit of a foreign concept. We tend to be a family of wide open hearts that take people we care about all the way in. We have tried but find it virtually impossible to maintain fairly casual relationships. We're either all in or we're out. The young men that have come around thus far are no exception, not because of our daughters, but because our family develops relationships alongside them.
I am sure I have said this here before, but I realized when my girls were younger that forbidding something didn't make it go away. When I told Kendra that she was too young to like boys, I later found out that she still liked them, she just no longer shared that information with me. I don't know about you, but I want to stay in the loop with my kids. I want open relationships. Here's a newsflash for parents of teens: they are attracted to the opposite sex. Often before they are teens they start to model the boy-girl thing. It gets blamed on our culture, public schools, the oversexualization of our children. Maybe it's time we started to realize that God made us this way and all the control we try to exert over it has led us down a bad road. May I suggest that this denial of normal attraction is the cause of so many of the perversions we see in society today.
The concern about sex. I think we need to get over it. We have talked about sex with our kids specifically. Sometimes more specifically than they are comfortable with, but we want to leave no stone unturned. We want them to know that God has a plan for this beautiful relationship to develop between a husband and wife and all the possibilities for it to be corrupted along the way. However, the old mindset of "if they get pregnant as a teenager it will ruin their lives" has dissolved into the background. I had my first child before I was married - and I believe it was the catalyst for the changes needed to save mine. I wouldn't recommend that course of action only because marriage is harder when it is done in reverse of this plan, but Papa is right in the middle of it all, redeeming, working, mending.
Fear about these things has been replaced with liberating freedom. I don't have to choose for them. I can give them all the tools, cheer them on, help them make decisions and allow them to make their own choices for their lives. As much as I love my kids, their relationship with Papa is their own. In that drama, I am supporting cast only.

Open Door

Yesterday I heard of a teen pregnancy that is within our extended circle of friends. It doesn't surprise me, not because of the person or their character, or because of the acceptance in our society, but because I know what it is like to possess a sinful nature. My first reaction because of the age of the couple was that this is something, a very permanent thing that they may have to deal with the rest of their lives. I see the possibility of things like finishing high school, going to college, and growing up and maturing before making the decision to commit yourself to a relationship permanently slipping away from them.
I know that regardless of the obstacles faced, God can still redeem the situation. I shared a bit of my personal testimony here, and I still say that my oldest daughter, born before her dad and I were married is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. In so saying, I am not condoning the sin - but recognizing her life as precious to Father God, and never a mistake in His heart. He redeemed her life - and she lives and breathes for Him which is just how Father works. He is amazing.
I woke up this morning with this young expectant couple on my heart. I was thinking about the challenges they face, and some other teen couples were on my heart, to pray for them that they can hold to the commitments they have made to remaining pure until their wedding night. If they can't or don't, I personally won't love them any less, but I will be sad in the way I would be if they traded in diamonds and gold for a cheap bubble gum ring out of a vending machine. I want them to reap the blessings of waiting for God's best.
A few years ago as I was exploring this subject with the youth group, we were discussing purity. A lot of emphasis is placed now on even waiting to share your first kiss at the altar, or not even holding hands - and while I think this is precious, I am not sure that it is Biblical. (I don't think it is un-Biblical either, I am just not sure it can be backed up scripturally - feel free to show me otherwise) However, when we were discussing these things, I know that the Lord showed me this example to share with them. We had a door in the corner of the room, and I had one of the kids shut the door completely. I then instructed them to take their hand and push on the center of the door to see if it could be opened that way - and it could not. Then we opened the door just a crack, using the door knob which represented a choice to open the door. It wasn't opened enough for a person to walk through, and in fact not really even cracked enough to let light pass through. I then instructed them to push on the center of the door that was cracked open. One firm push, and the door flew all the way open. The point is that each of these steps is cracking open a door that once you pass through, you cannot enter again.
I have also had discussions with teenagers that thought anything aside from actual intercourse (can I say that in the bloggy world?) was acceptable. I won't go into detail making a list here - but while I don't think the simple affections of hand holding or innocent kisses are necessarily wrong, I will say for the record that anything you can't do in front of others, that has to be done in secret or darkness should be clearly recognized as sin. "The list" as I said isn't mine to make. The truth of the matter is that purity starts in the heart and mind.
For some young people, the door has been wide open for a long time. God can still redeem and use their lives. As believers, can we stand in the gap for these young people - and hold up a standard of purity, help those that are caught in the consequences of their own sin so that fewer babies will be aborted, and help redeem those Christ loves and bought with a price as precious, and of whom He says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

Trusted Adviser

My friend Carol and I were talking about the things that teens say. She had an incident where a young man, a friend of her daughter's used a phrase that took her by surprise. It wasn't crude necessarily - he stated how so many guys just want to "get in a girls pants". It sounds like he was being sincere, and although using a phrase which at first seems crude, he was sharing his thoughts on the overtly sexual culture we live in and the inappropriate nature of most male-female relationships. I will admit, like many adults, I get uncomfortable when the subject of sex comes up with teenagers, but I have chosen to take the path of being their trusted adviser. If they are speaking about such things in front of me, or with me, then they are inviting me into a sacred part of their lives. When we make sex a taboo subject, and are unwilling to have open and frank discussions with our kids about a topic that is very forefront in their minds, we can encourage it to become a private and secretive part of their lives. I have always talked very openly with my own children about God's plan for the family and the role that sex plays in that plan. I never pass up an opportunity to help teenagers shape their thinking as well. Years ago, as a new youth leader, I knew God wanted me to focus on what He has to say about sex with the group. I asked several parents that I trusted what their thinking was on the subject. My friend Kate told me that the kids need to hear from other Christians, other adults that they trust what God has to say on the subject. It confirms what their parents are telling them at home. I have taken the role of trusted adviser. Sometimes it means I hear things from them that other adults would blush at or shy away from. There are times when I feel awkward and grasp for words, but I never take it lightly that they trust me. Are you a trusted adviser?