Who have you court?

Marmaduke stared into her deep, brown eyes, his love for her reflected in his own. He offered her his hand, helped her from the carriage, and escorted her up the steps to her front door.
There he smiled warmly, bid her farewell, turned, and left.
She floated on a cloud for the rest of the day, remembering the look, the touch, and the smile.

Courting, eh?

Good old fashioned word.

It always seems to remind be a bit of the Pride-and-Predujice era that girls like so much (yes, I have seen P&P, although I haven't read the books). I quite like it too.

Call me weird, but courting has a nice feel to it, that modern dating with its kiss-me-quick attitude seems to miss. I don't like the word itself, it has that out-of-touch-with-reality feel to it, but the essence of it is good.

For example, nowadays people seem so quick to jump into the physical aspects of a relationship, and worry about how to physically please each other before they've even finished learning each others names.

'Courting' or whatever you call it, spends a lot more time building up the friendship between people, without the urgency of rushing into each others arms.

I also believe (and will stand by) the courting (and Christian) principle of not sleeping with anyone until you are married. When you sleep with someone, you are sharing with them on a more deeply emotional and spiritual level than any other possible act. If you don't end up with that person, you will have opened your soul to them for no reason. So many people are jumping from one bed to another, and feeling empty and worthless inside. I don't want that to happen to me.

Why all this about courting? Well, I've started, although we don't call it courting. We are sticking with the principles of taking it slow. In fact, for 40 weeks this year we simply worked on our friendship, without even 'dating'. Now we've just taken the step of trying to work out how we can date without damaging our friendship, and trying to keep ourselves pure while looking towards the possibility of marriage.

Its only the second time I have ever 'dated' and its her first.

I pray that God will uphold us and support us as we work on this relationship.