Dating

God made me with a mind that thinks outside the box. My growing up years groomed me to see things that caused me to think differently. My life, my work, my views of dating, my thoughts about marriage . . . all stem from the unique upbringing I had and the many issues I was surrounded by as a child.

Divorce has wreaked havoc on my family and devastated it. My mom's parents divorced, my biological fathers's parents divorced, my parents divorced, my step father divorced and I went through a difficult divorce. Yet, in my heart I've always known there is a totally different plan that God has in mind when it comes to marriage. I have a strong faith and believe God can do anything.

I strongly believe if we rely on God He will give us the spouse He wants us to have. This begins with prayer. So often I see people jumping in. They see someone they like or someone attractive and they say I want to date that person and I see a lot of misery happen. People do what they want to do when they want to do it. But this is not the way God wants this process to happen. It begins with prayer. This is what happened for me when I met Larry. I prayed. It was as simple as that. There was a prayer I prayed and God answered it. But the other part of that was that I wasn't looking for anyone, I was simply praying and asking God to lead in my life. Then I waited and in time God answered my prayer. Larry was a very special person someone I will always be thankful I met.

I think so often we pray but we forget to wait or we become impatient and get upset that it's taking so long and then we give up on God and take things into our own hands. But marriage is something that we must really pray and seek God's will about. What I have seen in my family is pain and suffering from bad marriages and it has created all kinds of problems. When we take our time wait on God, pray, fast and seek God's will, then miracles happen.

I have a friend whose husband did this. At first he was a friend of her brother's but he eventually became interested in my friend and he began to pray and sought God's will as to whether she was the one for him. He prayed for a year about it and eventually they began dating. They've been happily married for over twenty years now.

We get the dating process all wrong. There is a self gratification in dating. There is someone out there that we admire and we want that person immediately. We don't take the time to pray and wait for God. What if we waited for a year to pray and sought God's will on the matter before we ever stepped out and dated the person we admire? What if we fasted about the matter? What if we waited for God's perfect timing? Would we see less divorces? I really truly think we would. It worked marvelously for my friend and her husband.

I strongly believe that God will lead us to the person He wants us to marry. He will impress on our minds who that person is when the time is right. In the mean time we need to pray to God, get close to Him, grow in our relationship with Him and seek His will for our lives. When we seek God first and follow His lead, our life will fall into place and we will be happier. God knows exactly what we need and exactly when we need it. He is the master of the universe. If He can create this world and make a spouse for Adam don't you think He can do the same for us? May we learn to seek His will for our lives. May we learn to wait until He gives us the direction to proceed.