I’m a missionary, I’ve spent days worth of time in training to engage in other countries' cultures; I know how to dress, speak and even shake hands with people all over the world without being offensive or standing out. By most peoples' definition, I am fully capable of “engaging in a diverse world,” but in all my training and studying, I was not prepared for one social environment, the Christen dating world. In high school, I read every book I could get my hands on about dating. I read about courtship and group dates, I read all about the way a man should pursue my heart, I read about putting myself so deep in God's will that no man could pursue me and not also be actively running after God's heart. Beyond just reading, I also found myself seeking wise council from trusted leaders in my church who gave me countless accounts of advise and stories in order to aid me in becoming the “perfect Christian date.” However, it wasn’t until I moved into my tiny baptist school in the middle of a small town in Oklahoma that I realized that being informed and being ready are two completely different things. It didn’t take me long to realize that all the jokes people made about small baptist schools and their dating culture is a reality. All around me, people were quickly getting into relationships and even quicker than that professing love!
The casual getting to know someone phase I’d become comfortable with seemed to be completely off the table for most people and they were looking for “the one”—suddenly we were all playing for keeps! I still vividly remember the jokes made about ring by spring during welcome week; I remember thinking, “Ya right, we just got to college, no one is going to give up this freedom and get married," and not too long after watching my roommate get engaged to the love of her life. When you go through cross-cultural training, they teach you to really put yourself out there and allow yourself to take on pieces of the people group you are living with. Without noticing it, you can often take on these pieces permanently and they become part of you. This same idea stands for going to a baptist school. Without thinking about it, my desire to just date was overshadowed by my tireless push to get married. In the middle of this crazy adventure, some life-changing words were bestowed on me by a male college freshman (this is rare and I feel it could be celebrated). One day in the middle of a normal lunch, a classmate turned to me and said, “You know the odds are good but the goods are odd,” and after laughing at the stupidity that was that statement I realized just how deep and truthful that statement was. When we were “dating” in high school it seemed that our number one goal was just to find someone else who loved the Lord but now in my private baptist school people with a heart like mine are plentiful, everywhere you turn there is another student open and willing to have a Christ centered conversation with you. It can get easy to get caught up in quantity of options and not the quality. In the world of Christian dating, it’s a must to keep focus on the Lord’s plan rather than forcing our own desire into something He is not ready for us to have.
