My dear friend, Tracy, over at Lines from the Vine has posted a very thought provoking post on finding a mate for our children. I, too, have been mulling over this very thing lately. A while back I purchased and listened to "How to Evaluate a Suitor" from Vision Forum. This is an excellent CD and I encourage you to listen to it if you can! Flibby and Miss Poppins are listening to it again right now, as providence would have it.
With a 16 year old and a 13 year old daughter, the reality of the 'shortness' of their time in our home has hit me square between the eyes and has done so for the past several years. That, of course, encourages me to think of their futures and what they may hold. Both Mr. Potato Head and I come from broken homes. Mr. Potato Head and I started out our married lives as self-centered, immature, and - frankly - spoiled children! We did not walk with the Lord back then. Only one of all our siblings combined walks with the Lord today. Not a rich Christian heritage, unfortunately. So, we are really blazing a new trail... a new trail where we know virtually nothing of what we are doing! Scary stuff!!
The beauty of this place where we find ourselves is that we must rely on the Lord for the answers and depend on Him to show us the way. He has given us some fine examples to follow! Scott Brown is one such example. His daughter, Kelly, was recently married in a Christ centered, covenant marriage. It was something to behold! An example to follow!! Doug Phillips has several resources on the subject of courtship and betrothal that have really inspired and encouraged us. Also, Little Bear Wheeler did some wonderful things at the marriage of his daughter several years ago. All of these men are our long distance mentors and we thank the Lord for their godly examples to us!
With all that said, let me talk about dating. There won't be any. That was easy, wasn't it? I'll elaborate to point out that dating is simply practice for divorce and the Lord hates divorce so we don't want any practice for it.
How then will our daughters and son find a spouse? I'm glad you asked. This is how the Lord designed these things to work and we intend to follow the biblical model in this and all areas of life. First of all, the Bible tells us that a woman's heart is easily deceived. We don't want our daughters' hearts to be won by the deceptions of a slick talking man, so we have safeguards in place. Our oldest two daughters, so far, have pledged their hearts to their daddy until such a time as HE gives it to that worthy young man the Lord has chosen before the foundation of the earth. The girls trust their daddy's judgement and the Lord to guide and direct him. They are patient and content to wait on the Lord. How will their daddy do this weighty choosing? With much prayer! It's a very heavy responsibility for a father to shoulder, but shoulder it he must! It is commanded of him. In the Bible, the Lord reveals to the man whom he shall take for a wife. It's never shown first to the woman. We will then wait... not attempting to run ahead of the Lord with purposing after a young man, drawing a young man's attention to ourselves, flirting, acting silly, hugging, acting in a 'familiar' way, or 'being buddies' with young men. Young men should have deference to a young lady. It wasn't so long ago where it was unheard of for young men to engage in coarse talking and rough play around a young lady. They were to be on their best behavior so as not to offend a young lady's delicate sensibilities. Oh, to return to those days! Young men are to save that sort of rough behavior for their buddies. It is very common, in fact quite normal, for boys and girls to run up to each other for casual hugs, joking, horsing around and all such activities. There is rarely a difference in how a young man treats a young lady vs. one of his buddies. There is an air of familiarity that ought not be.
For our family we are looking for that young man that knows the difference between a young lady and his buddy. He respects that difference and defers, protects, and seeks to honor all young ladies as his sisters in Christ. That's first. Secondly, if a young man should feel the Lord leading him to pursue marriage with one of our daughters, he must come to her father and state his intentions. If he were to go straight to our daughter, we would know immediately that he's not the one! He would not understand biblical headship and to whom our dear girl belongs! Nix him on the spot! But, should he truly understand these things, he would approach Mr. Potato Head (with much fear and trembling ~wink~... we don't intend it to be easy!) and at that point, Mr. Potato Head, completely outside the knowledge of our intended daughter, will begin to mentor this young man. This will be a long and intense time period where we will get to know this man inside and out. We, especially Mr. Potato Head, will know him and we will know him well. There will be talks, questions, times of study, discussions between families and on and on. Once this first test is passed, then and only then will Mr. Potato Head go to the intended daughter and make this boy's intentions known to her. She can then say she would like to pursue a relationship leading to marriage or she would not. If she would not, Mr. Potato Head will go and break the news to the young man and send him on his way. This will keep our daughters from any embarrassing or awkward situations in thwarting the attentions of a suitor. Mr. Potato Head will have no trouble with this task... in fact, I well think he might enjoy it!
Some of the criteria but certainly not all... and these things are still developing in our hearts and minds... will be a deep and committed walk with the Lord and a strong belief in the supremacy of Scripture! That's a no brainer, I know, but you never know when you need to make such a thing plain. Some other issues which are of paramount importance to our girls and to us are allowing the Lord to determine family size, homeschooling their children, the biblical role of a husband and father/wife and mother, doctrinal issues, the discipleship and mentoring of the children, among many others. Of course, he must be able to support our daughter and all the children the Lord intends to give him, he needs to be and intend to remain debt free, he must be mature, having a home and prepared for marriage. He must show himself worthy of the greatest gift we will ever give... and we won't give it lightly! If he has a nice llama farm, that would be a plus! (just kidding!)
Once we have agreement from both families and from both the young man and our intended and much beloved daughter, let the celebration begin! There will be a courtship and marriage preparation! Our daughters' and son's wedding will be Christ honoring and covenant keeping! We have lots of ideas that I'm sure the Lord will flesh out when the time comes. Little Bear Wheeler gave a sword to his son-in-law on the marriage altar and told him to hang it on his mantle to remind him of the covenant he made on that day and to tell his children and his grandchildren '... from whence cometh this sword.' We love that idea! Also, Kelly Brown and Peter Bradrick wrote their vows straight from Scripture! Our daughters printed them and put them in their hope chests. I think that one will definitely be incorporated.
There are many other little details that are beautiful, symbolic and Christ honoring. But, we have LOTS of time before we have to get down to really planning! Until then, I continue to pray for the young men and young lady who are, no doubt, being reared in Christ honoring, like-minded homes even today. They are my future children and the future parents of my grandchildren... our prodigy and our heritage. May we guard it fervently and seek the Lord in every important step of the process.