A Promise of Love

 What happens when two people fall in love and they know they are going to get married and yet marriage is still over a year away? It's to early for engagement cause you just started dating less than two months ago and yet you want to make this permanent.  What can someone in this situation do?   This was the situation Sarah and I found ourselves in not to long ago.  If you've been here before you know that Sarah and I started courting on Christmas day.  We both entered this relationship certain that we were meant for each other.  That confidence has never wavered even once! We also wanted to make sure the Lord remained at the forefront of our relationship.  Once we officially became boyfriend/girlfriend our relationship took off!  We couldn't wait to see each other (we still can't but we can control ourselves a little better now) and each and every time we were together became more and more special.  I knew that we were going to need something more than sheer will power if we were going to make it a whole year and a half till marriage!  We prayed about this and came up with our "Promise of Love" it is as follow.

We commit...
   to always wait on the Lord's perfect timing;
   to remain physically pure, both in thoughts and actions;
   to be spiritually pure, keeping the Lord our first love;
   to remain exclusively each others
...Forever!!!

As a physical reminder we bought each other promise rings. These are with us at all times reminding us of the promise we have made.  For me it reminds me of the responsibility I have as the man in the relationship to guide us spiritually as we look forward to marriage. It also means that I've got someone who is trusting me to remain pure for marriage.  For both of us though it provides security knowing that we are committed to this ending in marriage . When I asked Sarah what our "Promise of Love" meant to her she put it this way.  "It provides security for me. I know that you are not plying around with my heart. You are committed to this being a serious relationship and I don't have to be worried that you will break my heart and break up with me for some random reason. You mean for this to end in marriage...and to have the promise ring just helps me know you really mean that! And in turn, you will not trample me physically, because you have promised to remain pure.  Knowing that in the near future will be marriage, and you have intentions for such, it helps me want even more to stay pure. Just knowing that you will not leave me brings me great security!"  As you can see we take this very seriously.  We didn't jump into this.  Sarah and I thought it through and prayed about it.  We each have a framed document which we signed and wrote the reference of our theme verse, Psalm 25:21 "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for you"  Please continue to pray for us as we continue to seek God's will each and every day.