BEING A CHRISTIAN IS TOO HARD DANGIT!!! GAH!

[hot_foot_steph]

So I read this advice column from my magazine, Brio & Beyond:

Dear Susie:

I've been told that it's inappropriate to pray together in a dating relationship. I want to be reverent to God, and I don't want to develop an overly intimate spiritual relationship before I get married. My question is: How can I keep my boyfriend accountable and encourage him to grow in Christ without showing too much spiritual intimacy?
Wanting To Do What's Right

Dear Wanting:

I admire you for wanting to do what's right. While praying together is a wonderful idea, it does tend to promote intimacy very quickly. I encourage you not to spend long amounts of time praying together as a couple until you're about to be engaged to one another.
But by saying this, I'm not encouraging you to forget prayer! Prayer is an essential ingredient in any Christian couple's relationship. So I hope you and your boyfriend are praying before meals and perhaps praying before or after each date. But there's a huge difference in offering a quick prayer of thanks for a great date and a long prayer that includes holding hands or arms around each other as you're praying about intimate things.
Back to your question about keeping your boyfriend accountable. I don't think it's appropriate for you to feel the responsibility to hold him accountable. Pray for him to find another male to take on that position. And hopefully, you have a female who's holding you accountable.
When you're married, a husband and wife will hold each other accountable and pray together consistently. But even then, men still need other men and women still need other females to hold each other accountable.

?!?!?!?!? WHAT?! I am so confused right now. SO confused. Jared and I are close to each other, what's wrong with holding hands and praying a long prayer? No, we aren't engaged, but we're MORE than just some cliche boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. We DO have a strong spiritual relationship and are best friends. Is this WRONG to do? Are we being too intimate? Gah. I just want to...drown myself right now or something. I hate always doing things wrong. Kristy...what do you think of this? Please comment here and let me know. I truly do value your opinion, especially since you're getting married in 4 weeks. I am so confused. I don't have an accountability partner...personally I dont' think I need one. I'm perfectly aware when I'm doing something I shouldn't...and besides, there's nobody here to be my accountability partner anyway! And I KNOW Jared doesn't have a male accountability partner. He doesn't HAVE anybody there TO be a fit accountability partner. We hold each other accountable...is that WRONG? Gah! It's not like we don't have our OWN individual spiritual intimacy with just ourselves and God. Now I feel all bad and stuff. I don't UNDERSTAND intimacy and what's okay and what's too much. I just thought it had to do with sexual intimacy...but spiritual intimacy? What's wrong with being spiritually intimate with Jared? What IS intimacy anyway? I mean...gah. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I'm really stressed out. And I hate this magazine. It's WAY too strict for me and there is NO WAY ANYBODY can live up to it's standards. I swear. Exhaustion.

:( :( :( GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

God, just...take it all. Take Jared. Take our mistakes and/or lack thereof. Just tell us both what to do and guide us both individually and togetherly. Please...just take it and do whatever you want to do with it. If we're being too intimate, then help us to stop it or something. Just...whatever. Show us.

:(

Comments

it's okay....

[iamemotoday.livejournal.com]

Steph, don't worry. You're right, it IS all very difficult....and you're right, Brio IS very strict. I used to think their standards were WAY too high. I don't read it often any more, though.

But...I kind of agree with Susie on this one. Praying reveals the innermost truth about a person....his struggles, fears, hopes and dreams. To pray with someone can be really, really intimate - i agree with Brio on that. Is it wrong to do that before marriage or engagement? I don't know if it's wrong. I think what they are trying to say is that while it's not necessarily sinful, it can lead to hurt if you develop that level of spiritual intimacy with a person whom you end up breaking up with. You have this bond that you cannot break....the bond of having laid your souls bare to God together.

I think it's VERY necessary to pray for each other, and to pray together when you're in a relationship. However, I think they're just saying to wait until engagement for the really soul-searching, lay-it-all-out-before-God type of prayers. And I agree that this is a good idea. I don't think it's a sin if you don't wait; I just think it could lead to hurt if you break up.

This is just my opinion. :)

Love ya,
Kristy

Re: it's okay....

[peacefulmisery.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Kristy. I guess it's just...I don't know what to do. I mean...Jared and I are very close. When he was here, we talked about everything. Marriage, family values, God, everything. Our main reason for meeting was to see where God wanted this relationship to go. And the time he was here was great. It DIDN'T go awful. It went better than we even imagined it would. So our question is, what are we supposed to do now? I'm going to college for 4 years, he's moving to TX with his dad and is going to go to college as well. We both are pretty sure we want to get married one day. And we're both holding to the truth that if it's God's will, it'll happen. If I happen to meet somebody ELSE in college who God wants me to marry, then so be it...we've already discussed those possibilities. And I mean...I HAVE been troubled at the thought that maybe we ARE moving too fast...maybe we DO know too much about each other. But I don't know what to do! And I'm pretty sure HE doesn't. I'm not even sure, Kristy, if we ARE doing anything wrong. I've told him over and over again that I don't want to mess up anything in this relationship and do it all according to God's will. And here I am messing up big time, perhaps. I mean...I HAVE thought before that we already seem to know everything about each other, everything we NEED to know about each other before getting married, and have already been through the process it takes for two people to decide if they want to spend the rest of their lives together or not. We've already been through that. It seems that it's happened pretty fast, and maybe it IS because we knew each other for a year and a half before we met...and all we DID was talk. I guess that's how we began to know so much about each other. But it seems a bit odd that we've seemingly gotten through the whole "Is this the one?" process pretty quickly. And I'm not saying I want to marry him now. I DO want to go through 4 years of college before getting married. I DO want to experience living independently and serving God individually. I WANT to make friends and all that stuff. But I guess it's just as if this 4 years will only be a hiatus...and not a "getting to know" process for Jared and I since we already seem to know everything we need to know. I realize I'm probably very ignorant right now about a lot of things and perhaps I will learn them later...but I'm just so stressed right now to think we've been doing this all wrong. I just...I don't know. :( I just...don't...know. But thanks, Kristy, for your comment.

Love,
Stephanie