Our Courtship Story

(By Brandon Louden)

The first time I sensed any desire to one day get married was when I was 14 years old. At such a young age I wasn’t thinking so much of one day having kids but rather more along the lines of simply having a wife. My parents had modeled a Godly marriage and this formed a proper foundation for me and a desire for something similar one day. At around 18 years of age I started thinking more seriously of relationships and marriage. As with most guys I found it way too easy to dreamily think of different young ladies and the possibility of starting a relationship. By the Lord’s grace I came to the very helpful conclusion that whenever a potential lady of interest would come to my mind I would simply commit it to prayer. This enabled me to minimize the amount of mental energy and wasted thoughts thinking about ‘what could be.’ I soon discovered that I could receive clear direction from the Lord simply by giving even the prospect of a relationship to Him. For the next year or two the relationship possibilities that I brought to the Lord were all met with a clear ‘no.’ I found genuine peace in this and I didn’t find myself contesting the Lord in any of His direction in this area. My heart truly wanted His clear speaking; I did not wish to manipulate situations just to get my way for a while. I began to understand that to do otherwise would just be exhausting and unprofitable long term.

I first recall really noticing my future wife, Rosy, at an informal soccer game where I was playing goalie and she was a forward on the other team. Her attractiveness and good character definitely stood out to me at that time but my only peace then was to give it to the Lord. Over the next few months I saw her at other group activities and I felt myself drawn to her in a deeper way. I gave this to the Lord and at some point during those months I told my dad about my feelings towards her. He gave me some good practical advice — “Wait for a bit.” Now these aren’t the words that a young man really likes to hear in any area of life but my dad was right. Rosy wasn’t quite 18 and I was 20. My dad also told me to pray about it, which I was already committed to do. After around four months of waiting and praying I told my dad again about my still-growing desire towards Rosy. At this time he was comfortable that I could proceed to the next step. The next step in my mind was to talk with Rosy’s dad. I was committed to receiving her father’s advice and blessing before starting any relationship with her. This approach may seem old-fashioned but I truly believe that the Lord grows and blesses us when we willfully submit to the authorities in our lives. At this point I emailed Rosy’s dad telling him that I was interested in his daughter. I wrote that I wanted to know what his thoughts were on this and what the next steps might look like in developing a relationship with her. Her dad told me that Rosy was too young yet to start a relationship but that I had permission to get to know her in larger group settings. Perhaps you may be thinking right now, “Wow, this seems so formal and restrictive!” but I found this route to be one that granted me much peace, direction, and freedom from making fleshly mistakes. Rosy’s parents were the ones who spent years investing into her and they knew what was best at that time for her. I felt a safety in this. After several more months of waiting and dealing with other issues in my life I re-contacted Rosy’s dad about my desire for a relationship. So one day we spent four hours over coffee fellowshipping about this and other life issues. A week or so after this time together Rosy’s father contacted me and told me that I had his blessing to proceed with getting to know Rosy more one on one. I was expecting to have to wait even longer for this step so this was an unexpected surprise and blessing! It turns out that the Lord had also been working on Rosy all along as well. Unknown to me at the time, she was slowly having her heart drawn towards me. When her parents told her about my desire to court her she was quite sold on the prospect! I was beginning to see how amazingly the Lord works when we commit our steps to Him.

I want to say something now about the words ‘courtship’ and ‘dating.’ As our relationship started I intentionally used the word ‘courtship’ to describe our intentions. We were only going to begin a relationship if the intention was to pursue marriage. This to me is courtship. In today’s culture, the word ‘dating’ often applies to relationships that aren’t serious at all. Our hook-up culture focuses more on pleasure and short-term satisfaction rather than on a long-term goal of true commitment and marriage. I realize that there are many Godly couples that have used the term ‘dating’ to describe their relationship and I am not trying to critique those situations. But for me, I needed to describe our relationship and intentions with clarity and I felt that ‘courtship’ did a really good job of that. At this point, the Lord gave me such a heart for Rosy’s future wellbeing that I found myself praying to the Lord that He would give her the husband best suited for her even if I wasn’t the one!

A strong benefit of our courtship at this time was that it pushed me into the Word of God. I realized that I needed to become a spiritual leader. I spent a lot of time reading Scripture and praying. I realized that I really needed to grow up, spiritually speaking. At the time I was apprenticing in carpentry at Red River College in Winnipeg, MB. I would spend a lot of time pacing the college halls and praying. I really got my steps in! Aggressively pursuing the Lord’s will during this season of my life definitely set a firm foundation for myself and our relationship. Rosy and I also spent time going through Scripture together — shorter books like Ephesians and Galatians. This was a tremendous blessing as we discussed what we believed and what we were hearing from the Lord via our readings. This time also allowed us to fellowship around some doctrinal differences. It gave us an opportunity to practice resolving differences and disagreements. It was a precious time. At this time, our fellowship in the Word together was primarily occurring over the phone and via email since Rosy and her family were doing months of missionary work at an orphanage in Mexico. Although long distance relationships present unique challenges we found that we were better able to focus as we concentrated more on each other’s spiritual wellbeing and the Bible rather than just on ‘hanging out.’

I think it’s helpful to discuss the physical boundaries that Rosy and I settled upon early in our courtship. Although Scripture does not give definitive instructions concerning certain limitations on physical touch during courtship I knew that Scripture clearly teaches against lust and that adultery begins in the heart. “But I [Jesus] say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in her heart.” (Matthew 5:28) I didn’t want to open myself to physical touch that would feed fleshly lusts in me or Rosy. Over the years I had observed other not-yet-married Christian couples enter into very public displays of physical affection. I often wondered how couples could be so ‘free’ in public without compromising themselves much further in private. I also asked my dad for advice regarding guidelines in this area. He was a bit hesitant to give ultimatums but he did say something that stuck with me. He said something like, “Well, how near to the cliff of temptation do you want to go?” This statement, accompanied with the Lord’s direction, caused me to determine very early on in our courtship to not touch Rosy. The only time I touched Rosy before our wedding day was when I put the engagement ring onto her finger. Even at our wedding ceremony we reserved our first kiss to be out of the public eye. I realize that we may have disappointed a few people at the wedding by not publicly kissing after we were pronounced husband and wife. But I didn’t really mind. Instead we slipped away briefly from the wedding gathering and shared a few moments in private for a kiss. It just seemed much more meaningful for us to do it this way after being so committed in purity towards each other. I do want to say again, however, that this was the specific route from the Lord for us. I am not trying to place expectations or rules on other couples to simply follow. It would be a wrong motivation for another couple to commit to a path like ours just because they wanted ‘to be like Brandon and Rosy.’ In any life decision we need to ask ourselves “What does the Lord desire in this situation? What honors Him the most?” Through the Word, prayer, and fellowship with other believers His Spirit will direct you. The Lord’s guidance is not obtained via mere principles or conservatism. As believers we all need to learn to hear the Lord’s voice speaking to our spirit.

Looking back a bit now, Rosy and I were fairly young when we got married. She was 19 and I was 22. I believe that our desire to commit each step of our blossoming relationship to the Lord enabled us to overcome the immaturities that youth brings. The advice that we received from our parents and the Lord positioned us to have a much more solid start than we could have ever had via our natural thinking. For this we are very grateful. We have made mistakes along the way but the Lord is gracious to correct us and to show us more mature ways of handling issues as they arise. We have been married now for five years and have been blessed with three young, healthy, and energetic boys. In addition to this I have started a carpentry business. Some of these new responsibilities have presented us with sharp learning curves. We have really needed to lean into the Lord on a number of occasions. Life is busy but extremely rewarding when Rosy and I walk together in unity and commit our steps to the Lord. We are learning that in every season of our lives, He is faithful.