What if she only dates?  After all, it’s only a date.  It starts with an interest in a boy . . . a little harmless flirting.  But we all know girls, when those hormones are raging . . . the control they like to have, so eventually the flirting looks more like chasing.  But it’s only a date she’s after.  Nothing more.  Eventually she corners one . . . the one she likes the most, the one she chases after the hardest.  He is all she thinks about night and day.  She awakens with him on her mind, watches carefully how she acts when he’s around, smiles a little more when she thinks of him (seems like she smiles most of the time nowadays), then goes to bed thinking of him, hoping to dream of him.

Eventually she gets the date.  She carefully grooms herself for it, hoping to be irresistible.  So the blouse is a little low-cut, the make-up a little too heavy.  She doesn’t look completely like the rest of the girls.  She’d never go that far.  But there is a little competition for his affections, so she must use what she has.  He arrives and she greets him.  All night she giggles at his jokes, even the off-color ones, talks of mindless things, and carries herself like a television ad, hoping to make the sale.  It’s only a date, but in the back of her mind, she is really hoping for more—a promise, protection, the feeling of being wanted and pretty.  All from a date.

At the end of the night, she lingers, talking just a little longer in his car, hoping he’ll make a move.  If he walks her to the door, she leans a little toward him, hoping for a kiss.  She also wants another date.  This date was just not enough.  He is so dreamy.  This scene replays itself again and again.  Sometimes there are repeated dates, often kisses given away.  On occasion, more is given, and it is a little frightening because each time it is harder to restrain herself.  It’s not only a date anymore.  With each successive relationship, she is looking for the commitment . . . for the happily ever after.  It never seems to come.  Every date eventually ends in heartbreak, betrayal, and scars.  She has to watch every boy chase after another, feeling like she wasn’t enough.  And where is her heart that she gave to him?  She’s beginning to look much more like all the other girls.

Little does she know that the day will come when she will finally find all she has been searching for all those long years.  He will look on her as the beauty that she was when she dreamed of that first date.  And yet, when she looks in the mirror, she will see the effects of a hard life of chasing one lover after another, and of giving away parts of her heart that were really meant only for Him.  If only she had let her heart sleep!  She will have great difficulty trusting Him, yielding to His authority, because of all the times she has been hurt, broken, wounded.  Still He will treat her like the treasure that she is to Him.  He will woo her, and treat her like a lady from the very beginning.  He will ask nothing of her, yet give her everything.  He will stay by her as she shows Him all the scars and sins, and failures, pursuing her again and again as she pulls away in her feelings of unworthiness.  In spite of everything, He will still love her, all the while moving toward His ultimate plan. 

One day, He will marry her.  He will dress her in white, having cleansed her from her filth and raised her to a place of honor.  He will lead her to the marriage supper, where he looks at her longingly.  And eventually, He will consummate the marriage with her, and none of the kisses she gave away, none of the times she went too far with another, none of the times she tried to satisfy the periods of loneliness and rejection with her own means—none of these things will have brought her the pleasure that His touch will.  And she will wish she had waited, had not wasted her time, her energy, her youth on things that never satisfied.  Yet still she will get happily ever after. . . the church will be His bride . . . for eternity.

Note:  Lately the Lord has really been instructing me on His most important purpose of marriage.  Marriage was given to illustrate the love and relationship between Christ and the Church.  Every attack on marriage is an attack on that picture.  As I lay fighting the loneliness of being single again, the Lord gave me a sweet reminder last night of how important it is to stay faithful to your spouse, even BEFORE you marry.