Sometimes my husband has to have a good chuckle, our children are 5 and 2, and yet, I am quite interested and indeed concerned that they are able to find and choose a marriage partner that will allow them to have God honouring marriages. And we often pray for them in this regard, that God would lead them to spouses who fear the Lord and honour Him with their lives. If you have been reading our blog for awhile, you’ll know that neither my husband nor I were raised in Christian homes. - Jesus saved us in the Fall of 2006, and our lives have never been so exciting :)! I will have to post our testimonies in upcoming blog posts.

Due to the fact that neither of us knew Christ, the time period leading up to our marriage was very typical of the sorts of relationships you find in the world. Neither of us were virgins, neither were physically or emotionally pure. I had even co-habitated with a young man on an extended basis. We had a very intense dating period, knowing each other physically after a couple of weeks, Larry proposing after 3.5 weeks, and marrying after 3 months total (Larry would have liked it sooner, but I needed to find a replacement at work etc.) No, I wasn’t pregnant, we used barrier methods of contraception until we conceived our first daughter 9 months later. In any case, now that we are saved, we both want a better way for our children - one that is honouring to Jesus, and will prayerfully result in a Godly partner for them. We long to guard their hearts from emotional entanglements, and guard their physical purity as well. As a result, we are VERY interested in courtship and betrothal, and love to read on the subject. Though of course, we don’t have all the details and plans worked out, I’m certain that God will see to that when the time comes and we seek His will prayerfully, we do tend towards a hands-off, platonic relationship until marriage is agreed upon.

A recent article online (April 11th) explored betrothal: They Plight Their Troth — And Mean It that you may be interested in reading, a very brief overview that doesn’t really do justice to this biblical concept. There are a couple of areas that can be easily misunderstood until you look into betrothal in depth, such as the misconception that it is similar to an arranged marriage.

So, I would like to share some further resources that are either betrothal or courtship related for you to glean more insight from. My favourite speaker on the topic is Jonathan Lindvall, mentioned in the article. He has written a series of articles available online, as well as recorded some teachings on the subject. He has also recorded the testimony of Matthew and Marantha Chapman’s betrothal that is mentioned in the above article, you really must listen to it, it is just such a beautiful picture of the Love that Jesus has for His bride, the church.

Charity Tape Ministries also has some recordings that are more courtship focused, that have also inspired us - particularly The Overtaking Blessings of the Second Generation, where the fruit of raising children for Christ and the advantages it gives to them are explored. I cried with the beautiful vision presented in this message.

They also have a category of courtship messages that you can download and listen to, lots of courtship testimonies too! I love testimonies!

I pray that these resources will be an encouragement to you in your walk with Christ, and I hope to publish some reviews of courtship books in the future.