The Frog and the Prince

By Paula Marsden


"Do you have a boyfriend yet Paula?" I roll my eyes and
shake my head just thinking of the many times someone has asked me
that question. In our culture today, this is a fairly justifiable
question to ask an 18-year-old girl.  However, this 18-year-old does
not have a standard response.  I say, "No, I don't need
one."  Most girls would say this just after a devastating
breakup and they say it bitterly because they don't want to discuss
it.  Neither is true for me. When I say it it's because at this point
in my life I truly don't need one.

I don't see the point in having countless boyfriends before finally
settling down with "Mr. Right".  This system of finding a
mate is similar to the concept of going to a pond and kissing frog
after frog, hoping that one of them will turn into a prince.  I find
the concept of dating foolish, and so I am going to practice
courtship. 

Courting simply means that you don't get into a serious relationship
with the opposite sex until you are certain that this is the person
you will marry.  This method would be like waiting for the frogs to
turn themselves into princes and then kissing the prince.  Until
then, going out with groups of friends is the best way to find
"Mr. or Mrs. Right."

Until I read the book, I Kissed Dating Good-bye by Joshua Harris, I
was fairly neutral on this subject because I wasn't interested in
having a romantic relationship.  Since reading this book, however, I
am thoroughly convinced that courtship is the wisest and most godly
way to find a husband or wife.

One of the biggest problems with conventional dating is the emotional
roller coaster it creates.  Well, perhaps a more accurate analogy
would be a demolition derby.  When you invest so much of your time,
money, and energies into someone without a serious commitment to
speak of, your heart is bound to get shattered.  Many young people
today get very intimate in their relationships, but what they fail to
realize is that intimacy doesn't mean commitment.

Another fault with dating is that it skips the "neutral"
friendship stage of the relationship.  By doing this, you not only
miss out on a great friendship, but you never really get to know the
person for who they are.  A dating couple tends to show only the
"best" sides of themselves, so you never really get to know
someone for who they truly are.  In a friendship, you often get to
see both the good and the bad of a person and there is nothing to
lose if the person turns out to be a jerk.

True love is often a forgotten concept in American teenage culture
nowadays.  It is commonly understood that love means having a
physical relationship with someone or feeling good when you are with
that person or just thinking about that person.  This
"love", 99% of the time is really a selfish love, which
isn't love at all.  Selfish love is an oxymoron.  The entire concept
of love is about forgetting yourself and your needs and wants to be
concerned about someone else.  In a dating relationship, much of the
focus is on how much fun you had or how you felt while with that
person.  This is certainly not love.  Love is not about feelings.
Love is not about you. Love is sacrificing your own desires so that
the other person can have the best.

One thing that I've decided to do in my life is to guard my heart.  I
have seen too many of my friends open up their heart to a guy only to
have their hearts broken.  I want a full, unbroken heart to offer to
my husband, so I've decided not to even get interested in anyone
unless I know he is the one God has chosen for me -- that is if He
even wants me to marry.

I was praying one night and God gave me this story as a sort of
analogy to what guarding your heart is about:

I'm standing in a room crowded with young men. As I look around, I'm
tempted to pick out which one should be my husband.  I force my eyes
closed and ask God to blindfold me so that I cannot look.  I must
resist the temptation to peek or else I will see one of the young men
and think it's him, my future husband. I must wait for God to lead
one over to me and wait for Him (God) to take my blindfold off when
it's time.  I will see only one man in the room.  He will be all I
could ever want in a husband and I will be absolutely content. This
is how I must guard my heart.  I just have to wait patiently for God
to bring him to me, so that I don't set my heart on a frog instead of
a prince.

God has lead me to the acceptance that I might get married sometime
in my life.  He has also brought me to the realization that I don't
need to do anything right now. I'm not ready to get married by any
means, so I just need to sit back and enjoy the ride.  Eventually God
may bring someone into my life for me to marry.  Until then, I pray
that God will help me to wait so that that I don't kiss any frogs
before my prince arrives.

Paula Marsden
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