Saving yourselves for marriage

I recently attended a wedding where I witnessed one of my best friends in the world marry the man of her dreams.  Like other weddings I had attended, this one was no different – romantic flowers, historic stone church, tears of joy, cute flower kids, hundreds of cameras and a beautiful newly-wedded couple – all very stunning, but none as moving as their kiss that sealed their union, and more importantly, the reason behind that kiss that’s been four years in the making.

Don’t get me wrong, this was not the couple’s first kiss, ever.  Their romance began five years ago, and after the first year together, a year full of ups and downs, both of them, as Christians, made the decision to use their relationship to glorify God and so began their challenging next four years of purely getting to know each other and resisting the endless amounts of sexual temptations.

In a time where sexual pleasure saturates our daily lives thanks to racy advertisements to films to conversations at work to the accessibility of porn on the internet, this couple’s commitment to one another through saving their sexual experiences for after marriage is not only commendable, but admirable.

If you’re spiritual, you will see this as a quest to remain “pure” until marriage; and if you’re not, you will understand this couple’s decision as the ultimate commitment to their relationship – growing it, getting to know each other at the core without being sidetracked by their sexual wants, building their trust in their bond, and truly testing their loyalty to each other – all necessary for a successful marriage, one that will stand the test of time and “until death do [them] part.”

Not every couple can go without kissing or being intimate with one another for four years, and not every couple would want to.  I’m not saying that the act of saving a kiss or sexual intimacy is the ultimate way of showing how committed someone may be to another, but the simple fact that this couple took time to find a way to show and test their commitment, is what’s worthy of appreciating.

If it were not for this commitment, I doubt my friend would have been able to uproot her comfortable life in Canada to make a move to another country, to start a new life, to find a new job, to get use to another culture, all for the sake of a man and their relationship.  Imagine you had to leave everything you knew for someone else without any proven commitment to each other, where would you find the confidence to go through it blindly?

When the Reverend finally declared that the Groom could kiss the Bride, that kiss was not only just another kiss, but one that the couple had been waiting for, a seal that symbolized the end of their relationship and the beginning of a new one, where their commitment and love for each other is unwavering.

 

Capital Lifestyle asks: In this day and age of the ever-changing dating scene where boyfriends and girlfriends change as often as new films at the cinema, how would you show your commitment to your relationships during the dating phase.  What steps can you take to make a relationship run the extra mile?

 

 

 

 

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