Delay Dating Until 20s
Delay Dating Until 20s by Michael Farris Last Saturday, a 14-year-old boy lay brain-dead in a Mississippi hospital waiting only for his organs to be removed for transplanting. The cause of his death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The cause of his despair had been a romantic breakup with his girlfriend. In the initial news reports of another tragedy - in Jonesboro, Ark., in which four students and a teacher were killed outside Westside Middle School - it was widely reported that 13-year-old suspect Mitch Johnson may have acted in revenge for a romantic breakup with a 12-year-old girl.
The public soul-searching that has followed in the wake of Jonesboro has been dominated by discussions about the danger of children playing with guns. Not one voice has been raised highlighting the danger of children playing with romance. The Mississippi boy who took his own life and the Arkansas boy who is accused of taking the lives of others were both playing an emotional game that is simply inappropriate for children of these ages. Many home-schooling families agree that a great advantage to their educational methodology is that it removes our children from the pressures and dangers of immature dating. Home-schoolers have trained their children in "courtship," which takes a completely different tack on romance from the practices that dominate U.
S. culture. Under the philosophy of courtship, all romantic relationships are reserved until the season of life when a person is ready to be married. There also is a strong view that a young man is not ready to be married until he is ready to support a family. That normally delays any kind of pairing off until the early 20s for young men and the late teens for young women.
The second major operating principle of courtship is that there is no such thing as casual dating. Any "date" is undertaken with an understanding between the young people and their parents that the two are checking each other out with a serious belief that their relationship may lead to marriage. Pro-family conservatives have long preached that young people should abstain from sexual intercourse before marriage. Liberals have scoffed at such advice as unrealistic platitudes. Homeschoolers who have bought into the idea of courtship believe the liberals have a point.
It is unrealistic to expect that children who have been "falling in love" since age 12 and "messing around" since age 13 will remain virgins until they marry a decade or so later. The solution is not found in issuing condoms in elementary schools and birth-control pills in middle schools. Rather, parents need to understand that their teenagers are simply too young to handle either the physical or emotional side of a romantic relationship. Sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, depression, academic decline, suicide and murder are among the progeny of premature romance. When love and marriage remain linked, many of these problems are reduced substantially or eliminated.
Two of my grown daughters will get married this year to the only boyfriends they have ever had. They have known dozens of guys because we have encouraged all kinds of group activities with a mixture of the sexes. Pairing off has been off-limits unless the couple was prepared to declare themselves ready for marriage and headed on that path with each other. Brides and grooms tell their marriage partners implicitly, at least in the beginning, that they love each other with all their hearts. For those who have dated, in reality, they can only say that they love their intended with the shreds of their heart that remain.
* Little pieces of one's heart are given away each time a romance of any magnitude has blossomed. But when my oldest daughter, Christy, and her fianc�, Rich, walk the aisle in August, their promise to love with all their hearts will be true because neither has ever had another love. I know the idea sounds terribly old-fashioned and perhaps radical to a culture addicted to premature and illicit sex. But aren't Jonesboro and the sad experience of a young boy in Mississippi enough of an impetus for all of us to think a little differently? - Michael Farris is the father of 10 children and president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. *Comment from NLCC: Michael Farris' statement about being able to "love their intended with the shreds of their heart" should not be read as underestimating the mercy of the Lord Jesus and the sacrifice that He made on the cross for sin.
If you are a believer, Christ has entered into the throne room of God and offered His blood as a complete atonement for your sins. God the Father has accepted Christ's blood and said, "It is completely sufficient." As a Christian you can walk into your Father's throne room with head held high knowing you are His son or daughter. Nevertheless, it is also true that sin leaves marks, i.e.
consequences. Sometimes in Christ's grace, our Lord totally removes those consequences. We truly hope this is your experience. But for some of us who were sexually impure, physical, consequences of heart, mind, or body remain. The marks of sexual disease or pregnancy or thoughts have not been removed.
A piece of us has been given away and, in some cases, there is something missing for our spouse that should have been there. Sin is never good and that is the point that the author is making here. If you are pure, remain pure. You have something worth holding on to. It is ridiculous to throw away your purity.
On the other side, if you are a believer and have sinned, our precious Lord promises to use even these sinful encounters for our good and His glory. So don't grovel or be obsessed with regret. You are royalty, so act as a son or daughter of the King. His sacrificial love has made all of us into pure virgins who eagerly wait to be presented to our bridegroom, Jesus.