Dating or Waiting?

Just found this draft from 3 years ago. Good stuff. Enjoy!

I used to think about dating like something that everybody did for fun. Dating for a couple months here and there to hang out with somebody, kiss and hug them, share your life with them. I had my first “boyfriend” in eighth grade. His name was Zach and he was two inches shorter than me. We sat together on the bus on the way to field trips and he took me to the eighth grade semi-formal dance. We met up at an ice-cream social one time and played freeze-tag with some people. His parents picked me up on July 3rd, 2006 to take me to see some fireworks in the next town over. On the way home I kissed him on the lips. I was thirteen. It was not a kiss to write home about. I broke up with him two weeks later because he hadn’t called and didn’t have a cell phone to text me on.

I dated my second boyfriend two years later. His name was Andrew and he played the guitar. I broke up with him after one month because I met someone else who I shook hands with and left me with an electric feeling.

It was my first “real” relationship, classified as such both by the length of time we were “together”, two and a half years, and the fact that we were in love <3 <3 <3

🙂

I broke up with him two weeks after we both started at the same college. I was seventeen turning eighteen several weeks later.

🙁

Y me pregunto, cual es el punto?! </3 And I ask myself, what’s the point?

As a kingdom-builder, I can no longer justify dating to myself. Dating, without the intention of marriage, is like having a monthly payment for an apartment. It’s sending your money up in smoke without investing in a long-term home that you can profit off of and build upon.

Dating is pouring time and energy into a relationship that doesn’t promise long-lasting results. “We’ll see how things go” is the attitude that most people have. Play it by ear. Take things one day at a time.

Modern dating can be defined as having a relationship with someone that resembles marriage but doesn’t require commitment. Boyfriends and girlfriends often share their families, bodies, money, time, friendships and other aspects of their lives with each other. But they do such things on absolutely no time-line, with no purposeful direction, and with no promised intent of marriage.

As a kingdom-builder, I’ma have to call out dating as NON-PROFITABLE.

God created sex, love and marriage for us, as His children, to enjoy. But it’s allllllll about the timing. There’s a time-line for each of our lives with perfect places for these beautiful creations…. Sex, love and marriage will serve us the best, and allow us to thrive within these roles if we engage in them at the right time.

There’s nothing worse than bad timing.

Did I need to have a boyfriend at age 13?

Age fifteen?

17?

This isn’t about making anyone feel bad who is dating without the intent of marriage. This is me, a 24 (almost 26 now!)(almost 27 now actually 😀 ) year old woman, sharing with y’all my life and the choices I would’ve made if I knew better.

If you are in a relationship, ask yourself and your s/o these questions:

Is our time and energy with each other going up in smoke or are we investing in building a life-long kingdom together
Are we ready to be in a relationship together or should we wait until a more appropriate time
Are we becoming better or worse versions of ourselves with this relationship
What about our relationship helps us grow emotionally and spiritually
What do we have to show for the kingdom of our relationship so far
What foundation are we building our kingdom on
Are we on the same page about where this relationship is going
Do we have a direction that the relationship is moving in
What determines how serious our relationship is; sex or commitment to be married

waiting

If you aren’t in a relationship, consider this:

When it comes to love and comes to dating

the true magic lies in the waiting

Why practice short term relationships?

when things in life that mean the most to us

are built o v e r t i m e