Last year, one of my adult children has had more than one “steady” relationship this past year while at college. It has been a roller coaster of emotions for me as I first hear about the person my child is dating as the “one” and then later I find out that the person is “not the one.” I have been relieved that a wedding event that was looming in front of me faded away, as emotionally and financially I was not ready to put on a wedding. One of these “ones” turned out to have major problems. Another “one” was not a good personality match for my adult child. Arranged marriage is looking really good to me so I don’t have to ride a roller coaster. Where is Yenta when I need her?
Is there any way we can increase the chances that our children will marry someone who won’t turn out to have major problems (i.e. self-harm/addictive behaviors)? I have done my best to encourage my children to live the For the Strength of Youth standards and then have let them fly from the nest as I hope for the best. As much as I love the Duggars standards of dating and courtship, you can’t really enforce those rules when your children leave the nest and go away to college.
How do we prepare our youth to have Zion-based courtship and marriage (especially when they are living away from home)? What can we do to encourage them to have high standards without meddling?
I want to discuss this! My girlfriend Shauna and I have been talking about it a bit and we want to invite other like-minded women to contribute to the discussion!
So… we are having
an online discussion about the topic of
Zion-like Dating and Courtship!
Wednesday January 27th at 7pm MT
If you would like to participate in this discussion please RSVP by making a comment below, in order
to reserve your space in my Zoom Class Room. (20 couples maximum). Yes, husbands are invited! My Zoom classroom can only handle 20 household participants.
You must RSVP to get the link to come to the classroom! If we have more than 20 couples RSVP I will consider holding a repeat event another night to accommodate all the respondents
Here are some words from Shauna:
My motivation for putting this together is to help myself and others come to a better understanding of how parents can and should guide their teenage and young adult aged children through the dating and courtship years to yield a good match in marriage. I’ve been studying the Hebrew custom of courtship and betrothal. It is very different than our current mode of operations. The Hebrew model is something that deserves our study and implementation however comfortable you would feel doing so.
In order to be prepared for this discussion please read the following articles.
Hannah Stoddards Article on Courtship and Dating: http://www.guardiansofanaltar.org/to-date-or-not-to-date-that-is-the-question/ 10 minutes of reading
Beloved Bridegroom, Donna Nielsen’s book: Pages 11-23. (15 minutes of reading)
Looking forward to your input to shape a new understanding and culture of Zion-like dating and courtship . . . I hope to see all of you who want to talk about it there!
Tree of Life Mothering 