There was a time when we had researched and considered a form of betrothal for my three daughters. Yes, that was past tense because back then we were steeped heavily in legalism. The idea of betrothal is huge among legalists and since legalism is a form of feeding the flesh I can’t help but to wonder if betrothal is also of the flesh.
There hadn’t been many books on the topic of courtship until this last decade. I spent about a year studying the history of courtship and sought the advice of many pastors about this topic. Over the past few years I have come to the conclusion that courtship is defined differently by each family, but it most often veers into betrothal.
Betrothal is a controlled appointment of a spouse under the authority of the parents.
This removes the freedom from the men and women who are to be wed.
When Jesus came to be our High Priest he gave us a New Covenant where He is our individual authority.
Any amount of total control we would have over our adult children getting wed would be usurping the Divine Authority of Christ in their lives.
I am not opposed to adult children seeking their parent’s advice for wisdom when it comes to relationships. I am in full support of that kind of wisdom within a family and between two families who would be joined by their children’s marriage.
{photo credit by Ellen}
I believe an adult child would be wise to consider the parent’s beliefs when choosing to continue in a relationship that appears to be growing. When a son of a grace filled couple chooses to court a woman whose parents are strict legalists, there is bound to be division later in life when grandchildren enter the picture.
Just because someone goes to church doesn’t mean they are an ideal future spouse. Ideas and beliefs in church traditions can change drastically as each individual in a relationship grows and their beliefs change somewhat.
Many times I have had conversations with friends who walked away from a one congregation as they discovered something in different interpretations of another denomination. The heartache the couple goes through when the In-Laws shun them over choosing a different church can be incredibly difficult.
When my husband and I ventured out of our former church, we were so blessed that both our sets of parents were in total support of any decision we make about where we choose to grow our faith.
Not every couple has this kind of freedom to really grow as a couple.
Some parents try to divide their married adult children when they try to usurp the marriage relationship between a husband and wife. Parents who insist on their own religion on a couple who is independent from them and under the Headship of Christ is causing division of the union between man and wife and their Lord.
When one of our daughters told my husband and I that a young guy was interested in getting to know her we took a step back to consider how we were going to embrace this growing process in our daughter’s life.
Since our daughter met this young man at a church we sought out the youth leaders for advice about this friendship. We got to know the parents of this young guy and began scheduling opportunities for us all to get together so we could get to know each other.
As parents we all agreed that this would be a friendship that we all wanted to supervise and watch closely. It was a relief to know they believed a lot of the same things we believed, but more important than theology was the wisdom in which we all had come to know through our own heartaches growing up.
Neither of us couples wanted to be controlling or legalisitic with the friendship between our teens.
It was so important that we all agree to walk with them through this time in their lives.
During this time we continued to cultivate our own relationship with our daughter and it gave us the opportunity to watch her grow and learn under supervision and guidance of us as her parents.
As with any new relationship, especially between a guy and a girl, there are bound to be difficult times in which the parents are to step in. These other parents were so open to all four of us being involved in the growth our two teens were taking in their friendship and a mutual agreement between all of us, including the teens, was made to have a time of rest in the friendship for reflection on the few months they had to get to know one another.
It was a difficult time, yet it brought my daughter and I so much closer than we had been before.
She appreciated that while we gave her the freedom to have this friendship, she also appreciated that both sets of parents stepped in to give them this time to contemplate the relationship.
It was during this time, which was one month of no contact, she decided that this friendship was not going to continue to grow in the direction she had once hoped for.
She made this decision on her own after many nights of prayer.
She experienced a lot of crying. The decision was extremely difficult for her, but as a parent I have to say that I am very proud of her for making the decision without us having to insist.
But not only was this hard for her and the young man, it was hard on all of us as parents. We had come to really care deeply for each other’s teens. We became friends with the parents and genuinely love them.
Although the break up was incredibly difficult for them both, we walked with them through it. All four parents. We were all involved with helping each other’s teens heal from this new direction and help them continue to grow forward as individual families seeking the Lord every step of the way.
It’s been quite a journey and we have no regrets over the decisions we all made.
Even though there were some difficult feelings to get through it was well worth it to glean more wisdom from God and from each other as parents.
We want our daughters to wisely grow in their friendships and give them supervised freedom to grow as individuals and remain close with us during that process.
My daughter said that because we gave her some healthy boundaries and freedom within those boundaries to explore life, friendship, and love, it gave her room to breathe and grow dependent upon the Lord for the decisions she needed to make.
We gently pursued our daughter’s heart through that time and continue to do so today.
But more important was the nurturing of her dependence upon Christ and encouraging her to seek Him as her Lord and the Voice of guidance in her life above our own.
We want our daughters to fall in love without forcing our control over them. They need to develop a good solid listening relationship with Jesus and we don’t want to insist that we have that Voice in their lives. We choose not to usurp Christ’s authority over our children, but instead we seek Him in all their friendships and listen to him telling us to give Him room to work in their lives without us trying to control His work in their hearts.
It’s been a wonderful experience for our family and we are thankful for the difficulties that came with it.
We grew as a family, as parents, and our daughter grew in her relationship with Christ.
We chose to allow the Spirit to guide us, instead of the Law. It was by faith that we all grew closer to God and to one another in love.
This is my response to the wonderful article, ‘Bondage of Betrothal‘ by Eric M. Pazdziora published at Quivering Daughters.
{photo credit by Sisterlisa My Wedding Day 1992}
Sisterlisa
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