Hannah's Heartstrings

Let me start out by clarifying a few things.

With all my heart, I believe that marriage is a wonderful, beautiful and God-ordained institution. I believe it should be treasured, protected and fought for at all costs. I believe that relationships leading up to marriage should be held with a high level of importance, and that those who are not ready to enter into a marriage should really not be involving themselves in romantic relationships.

So yes. I have some high standards.

But something I’ve noticed keeps bugging me.

The courtship versus dating battle keeps on raging, although it seems with not quite as much rage as in years past. The conservative Christian community insists that courtship is the Biblical alternative to dating, and in many ways, they are still right. For all of the reasons I stated before, courtship appears, on the outside, to be what every Christian should be striving for in their romantic conquests. At its basic definition, courtship is the way to go. No doubt.

But like so many other things that we conservative Christian people, especially in the home school community, have taken and run with…we’ve messed it up. So badly that many of our peers are turning away from it with a holy vengeance, swearing that it ruined their lives. Why?

I think its because of how courtship is presented nowadays, and how we’ve got it stuck in our minds.

What I’ve noticed is that there is far too much hype over courtship. Someone who is adamant about courtship and preaches it faithfully, when they finally do enter into it themselves, make the biggest deal out of it. A celebration is called for! Blessings abound! Pictures are taken! Oh, but don’t get too close cause you’re not married yet, even though with all the fluff and fuss, you’d think they were! And so begins your time of getting to know each other, odds are with complete parental supervision (including all messages and conversations), and so much rejoicing over this wonderful relationship.

And then…something happens.

Maybe it’s a truth that comes out, a reality that sinks in, or a personality trait that one didn’t see before. Maybe it’s a belief system, or an opinion about child rearing. Whatever the reason, the relationship goes south, and subsequently ends.

Everyone, but especially the girl in this party, is brokenhearted. Here’s just hoping it didn’t end badly and that the couple can still be friends afterward. All in all, there are still hurt feelings and place in your heart that you pray will be healed so you can move on. Everyone is so surprised. They never saw it coming. Heck, your parents and siblings probably had their wedding outfits picked out already, and were wondering what you were going to name your kids. And odds are, if more than a couple months had passed, you were already wondering the same thing…when and how is he gonna propose?!?

Hold on.

I think this is where we messed it up.

This is COURTSHIP, people. Not a wedding.

Courtship is time when two people who are actively pursuing a marriage relationship can get to know each other on a personal basis to determine whether they are a good fit for each other or not. They can discuss beliefs, opinions, desires, dreams, and ultimately learn as much as they can about each other before taking the step into getting married.

That’s what courtship is.

Courtship is NOT a guarantee for an engagement ring.

Courtship is NOT an assurance that you’ve found the one with whom you want to be with for the rest of your life.

Courtship is NOT a free ticket to a wedding.

But we sure do treat it like it is!

Yes, I do believe that entering a relationship with someone should be taken seriously. I mean, this is someone’s life you are messing with, so you want to be sure that, if everything checks out, this relationship could be something that you would be willing to consummate. It is an exciting time. I mean, its not every day that you find someone whom you genuinely admire and can see yourself (ohmygosh) marrying! And the falling in love part is a-stinkin-mazing, just for the record.

But I think we would do well to tone down the excitement and hype just a tad, so that we are not so shocked and devastated when these things end.

Being in a relationship with someone does not instantly mean that you are going to be planning a wedding in a year or two. We females, especially, have this stuck in our brains. Its no surprise since it is ingrained in our very nature to be relational beings, to crave that sort of relationship and long so deeply for a man to fall in love with us. Its not a bad thing. Really. Its just bad when we make such a big deal about it.

You know what would be really great? To see a meshing of two worlds. To see the serious and the chill coming together. What do you think would happen if we placed the seriousness of courtship with the relaxed, at ease attitude of dating? Probably a culture clash that would result in a full-scale war carried out in vehement Facebook comments and blog posts. But I think you get what I’m saying here.

People in the dating realm spend so much time getting to know each other with very little commitment and a relationship that can easily be broken off. People in the courtship realm spend far less time getting to know each other, but in a setting that demands full commitment and reaps horrid heart consequences if ends without a wedding.

It would just be kinda neat to see a little bit of both.

Call it dating, call it courtship. Call it betrothal for all I care. Whatever label you put on it, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing (did ya get that? That was one of the many things my husband told me during our pre-marriage phase). Relationships are important, so make sure you are doing it for the right reason. If you’re doing it for fun and cause you’re attracted to someone, then maybe you need to step back and grow up some more. But if you are doing it because you genuinely desire to find out if this person is the one you want to marry, then my suggestion would be to just…

…CHILL.

Some time ago (over two and a half years ago, in fact), I posted about saving my first kiss for marriage. This post came about three months before I met the man who would become my husband and ultimately change my life forever. It is very interesting to now step back and see just how much I have changed since then…and how my personal experiences have played out compared to how I planned them as a teenager.

At the time of that posting, my friend Jason challenged me that people who made such a declaration were being prideful. In a bad way. I’ll admit I was a little more than a bit offended and came back with a cunning explanation that my declaration of saving my first kiss for my wedding day was a matter of conviction, not pride.

Mmm-hmm.

A year prior to my kissing post, I wrote a very poignant article on the subject of avoiding certain popular books and movies due to their content. It was mostly about Twilight, but I touched on others such as Harry Potter and High School Musical. I must admit…I was brilliant. It was a really good article. This part in particular hit me when I went back to read it again:
“…The last point I mentioned is one particular reason that I refuse to be a part of any Twilight camp. It’s the same reason I’ve never watched High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Harry Potter, or any of the other popular secular infatuations. Obsession with anything but God is wrong. Passion about anything that does not somehow bring glory to God is dangerous. And indulging in something so demonic and so far from God as Twilight is sickening.
“I believe this with my whole heart, and am cautioning my dear brothers and sisters in Christ to think and pray very hard, and to examine the true motives of their hearts before reading or watching Twilight. We are called to be lights in this world and reflections of our Savior. Is Twilight so beneficial to this calling? Is it so necessary to fill our hearts with such a vile concoction, merely for the ability to discredit it or argue about it?”
Wow. I know, right? For a twenty year old, I really had it going! I’m only being just slightly sarcastic here, because in truth, you gotta at least give me the credit of being firm in what I believed, standing my ground, and speaking out for what I thought was right.

I’m not here to bash my past self and say how stupid I was and how my eyes have been opened to the real world and all that blah-blah that usually happens when a homeschooled, Christian kid gets out into life and has a taste of (dare I say?) rebellion.

I am here to say that I’ve learned a lot over the past 3-4 years.

I’m also here to say that the reasons behind my convictions at those points in the past are still the same.

I did get kissed. By my fiancee. Before we were married. Only my brother and his dad knew about it until after the wedding, and it was the sweetest thing in the entire world. Its literally how we got engaged. We had been talking about getting engaged, and when the night finally came that we made the decision, Kyle whispered to me, “If I kiss you, you’ll know its official.” You see, our kiss was important. It was so important that we wanted it to be between us, and only us. We were adults, and we had already gone through a lot as a couple. Most importantly, we wanted to be together. So we made it official with our first kiss. No fanfare or public display. It was just so perfectly us.

The reason behind that kiss was no different than if we had done it for the first time on our wedding day. The specialness and importance was still so evidently there. The timing and experience was all that was different.

I have watched Harry Potter, and am planning on reading the books. I have also watched High School Musical. The latter was simply for fun, and I have to admit I enjoyed the trilogy a whole lot. I have a weird weakness for that type of music. I still have not watched Twilight, and currently have no desire to, simply because I have better things to watch and it just doesn’t interest me right now. But I have a few things to say about Harry Potter.

I was just a little more than super impressed.

The story was brilliant, if a little strange at times. The characters were unique and lovable, and portrayed traits that we could all do well to learn from. They were courageous, undying loyal to those close to them, with real emotions, hopes and dreams. They stood up for what was right, and knew that some things were more important than even their own lives. They were admirable. And unforgettable. Just like a story should be.

And yet again…my reasoning is the same, though perhaps a little more well thought out than before. And perhaps some will call me a hypocrite for this, and for the kissing thing, but it wouldn’t be the first time, so it is what it is. I watched Harry Potter and High School Musical at a point in my life where I could handle it. I still don’t think young kids and even early teenagers should be allowed to pour over such fandoms, because it is too easy to get sucked in. I remembering being 12 years old and so obsessed with Anne of Green Gables that I could hardly think straight. Talk about being impressionable! The thing I liked most about being introduced to them at a later age was the fact that my days of mooning over and dreaming about such stories are over. Sure I will get emotional over stories…(like who didn’t cry when the Doctor says goodbye to Rose? Or what about that feeling when Ron and Hermoine FINALLY kiss? Or when Flynn Rider saves Rapunzel by cutting off her hair?!?!)…but I will cry over them like a normal girl, mop up my face and move on. The end. I’ve enjoyed it and appreciated it, and now there are other stories.

That’s called maturity people. Ok, well maybe sobbing over a Disney movie isn’t maturity. But knowing how to enjoy a story for what it is, pick out the good stuff and leave the rest…that’s maturity.

I’m still naïve. I will still continue to stick my foot in my mouth about seemingly everything that ever comes out of it. But by golly I will defend what I say to the death until something comes along that proves me otherwise! Oh the burden of being a stubborn little know-it-all. I may not know a thing about what I’m talking about, but at least I think I do and I will hold that stance till kingdom come. And there lies my biggest fault. Now you know.

And yet…maybe its not a fault. Maybe I’m just overly passionate. Maybe I just say things about what I believe and about my preferences in life that I should just keep to myself. For instance, just recently I got into a big Facebook married-women-group argument over a post I made about how I irritated I was with mothers who let their kids run rampant around stores and gave their kids a three-count option of obedience. Oh man…did I take some flack for that! A-hundred-and-sixty-some comments later, I was still the bad, judgmental, childless woman that had no idea what I was talking about and should learn to be more humble. Yeah…maybe I should have just kept that one to myself and spared myself the trouble.

The bottom line is this: I learn, but I learn slowly. So odds are I’ll keep saying things that I later will have to revisit because my experiences have given me a better perspective. Just bear with me.

I’ll get it eventually.

Life is always interesting.

I ended up crashing with a cold that has been circulating Kyle's family since July. Took its good old time getting to me, but alas it caught up to me and thankfully I had the weekend off to fight the worst of it.

I do have a point to saying this, other than just complaining. I have noticed over the past few months that I have the tendency to bruise easily. Like, really easily. Doesn't take much of a bump to give me a nasty looking bruise. So I read up on that, and it turns out that one of the main causes of bruising easily is a lack of Vitamin C. Which explains a lot since, with my diet the way it is, I eat very little fruit. I try to drink lots of lemon water and eat plenty of carrots and other veggies, but I guess maybe its just hard to take the place of stuff like apples and oranges?

Well, over the weekend I started taking a powdered Vitamin C supplement. I really upped my intake of it to try to kill the bad sicky germ in me. It helped that cause, but I also noticed that within about 48 hours of upping my Vitamin C intake by supplement, two good sized bruises on my leg had completely disappeared.

So that proves that theory! Now the challenge will be how to get more Vitamin C in me without always taking a supplement. Hmm...

This weekend was made even more interesting by my husband breaking his collar bone on Sunday. Yep. snapped it clean in two. Makes my stomach turn every time I think about it. So after a quick trip to the ER, he will be spending the next six weeks in a back/shoulder sling and learning how to do almost everything with his left arm.

Being the health nut that I am, I instantly got him started him two homeopathic remedies, rubbed him with arnica gel and even got him to let put French Green Clay on the spot where its broken once so far to help with inflammation and to try to draw the bones back together. My mom reminded me that homeopathic remedies are the only natural medicines that do not interfere with conventional medication, since the doctor gave him some Motrin and Vicodin to help with the pain. I'm not sure yet if what I'm doing is helping any, but its neat to try and I'm thankful he's willing to let me experiment on him!

And now for the best part. I've reinvented Dandy Candy.

Dandy Candy originally came from the La Leche League's "Whole Foods for the Whole Family" cookbook. The old one. I don't believe its in the new one. But its one of the best, easiest treats and kids always love making it. It basically consists of peanut butter, powdered milk and honey, and then you could roll it into balls and add whatever sort of additions you liked. stick them in the fridge and BANG. Dessert. Or breakfast. Or lunch.

But lately I've been missing such delicacies. Since honey and powdered milk are out of the question, I decided to come up with something better. And boy, did I ever! I have created the best possible treat in the whole world.

100% vegan, gluten free, soy free, sugar free, grain free, non-chocolate, no caffeine, dairy or eggs. What more could you want?