October 23, 2010 - the day she said yes!

So, this post is a little late in coming, but things have been joyfully full around here!  As you may have read over on Stephanie's blog, Andrew and Stephanie are engaged!  (If you haven't read it yet, you must! Go. Now. *grin*)

This may come as a little bit of a shock to some, since they only courted for 7 weeks... so I want to address some questions that we've been asked:

1) "Courtship" has many faces, and there is no one set formula to follow - it's going to look different for each and every couple! 

2) The reason that both Andrew and Stephanie chose a "courtship" model over the typical dating model seen today is many-fold; but here are a few of the top reasons:

• By virtue of the fact that marriage is a picture of Christ and His bride, Andrew was very desirous to pursue Stephanie in a way that would guard her purity as well as his own. 
• Both Andrew and Stephanie greatly desired to show the world and those around them something different. They wanted to give Christians an alternative to the way the world "does" love.

3) Despite popular opinion, courtship is not devoid of romance! In fact, after watching Andrew and Stephanie (and Clay and Hannah), I'd have to say that courtship can be much MORE romantic!  A guy has to get creative in the way he woos his gal when he has family members watching, and when there's a  level of physical purity outlined in the relationship. 

4) We would stress that no matter what you call it, the important principles here are:  

• courtship doesn't make people any better or more holy than dating does! Christ and Christ alone makes us holy; we do these things out of love to Him and in an effort to mirror Him to the world.
• waiting to pursue a relationship until a) God shows you the time is right, and b) God shows you the person is right.
• approaching that relationship with a fear of God. We serve the Almighty God, maker of heaven and of earth. He has absolute authority over every area of our lives, and if we fear Him we will turn every area of our lives over TO Him.
• physical purity is a beautiful thing to bring into marriage, but - emotional purity is much overlooked in this day and age. Young men and women who have not striven to keep themselves pure emotionally will have kept themselves pure physically only for the outward appearances of it... this is idolatry and pride. Purity is good, purity is a blessing, but a person's purity or lack thereof from past experiences should not cause us to cast them aside. Our righteousness is as filthy rags before God... even the most emotionally and physically pure person in this world is filthy before God. Christ is our purity. There is so much healing, beauty, and blessedness in this!!  (And as a side note, I would add that as mothers we need to be very careful never to set purity up as an idol for our children.)

5) A Christian approach to pursuing a marriage partner comes at things in a completely different angle. Traditional dating says, "Hey, there's somebody I'm attracted to. Why don't we go out and see if sparks fly? If we get along, why don't we see if we're physically compatible? If all that's the case, then why don't we play at it for a while to make sure it won't go away?" <-- This way of approaching relationships operates out of the Greco-Roman view of love... either you're hit by cupid's arrow or you aren't. IF you fall in love, then you have to make sure it's strong enough that you won't fall out of it.  The problem with this is that we see love defined much differently in scripture... love is an action, not a feeling. Because of this, the Christian approach to marriage, in essence, boils down to two people with a passion for Christ, common goals, a common view, a joint understanding that love is something which must be worked at, and a mutual attraction. Once a couple has gotten these issues resolved, there is no "magic time wand" that must be waved over the relationship to make it ready for the marriage step.

6) Andrew and Stephanie were able to observe each other in church, group, and family settings for over a year; during which they were able to learn much about each others families, worldviews, and observe a mutual dependence on and passion for Christ. Because so many of the little kinks that generally come along with a courtship had been casually talked through in multi-family settings before there was any interest on either side, the actual "I-want-to-get-to-know-you-better-so-I-know-if-we-should-pursue-marriage" phase was quite short. 

7) Due to the slight "long distance" aspect of the relationship (about one and a half hours driving time from house to house), much of the courtship was done for days at a time at one house or the other. Spending days at a time together created an "intense" courtship experience, where everyone was able to get to know much more about each other - they were able to cover stuff much more quickly than if their courtship had taken place over a handful of dinners each week.

Now, for the fun stuff.... on to the pictures of the happy couple!

Mom and Dad's first glimpse of Stephanie after the proposal

Happy sisters... (See Steph sneaking a glance at her man?)

I can't even tell you how happy my brothers are!!

A very happy mother-in-law to be!

Heather

Avie

Hannah

Avie was dear enough to snap this picture of me

Autumn, where were YOU?!?!? Missing you greatly in this lineup!

"The Box"