WELCOME! To Ethical Christian Dating's New Blog!

Hi! Welcome to my new blog. I am brand new to this blogging site, and just today figuring out how it works, so please bear with any mistakes over the next few days. I'm starting it because friends requested it due to commentary on topic getting lost on their Facebook walls. You can post responses to my blog, or email me personally.  I would love to hear your stories, good and bad, on how you are handling being a mature Christian single participating in the dating scene. I will edit and publish suitable stories in the blog for sharing and commentary, if you send them via email with permission. You may email me privately if you wish prayer, or wish to share something you don't want public. Please be discriminating about what you email, though, as the time I am able to spend on this is rather limited. I am in the middle of a JOB HUNT, and that is paramount in order for me to pay my bills!! My email is consecrated.for.christ@gmail.com

Writing has been a favorite hobby of mine since I was  6 years old. For the past 16 years, I've been in the technical writing profession. There wasn't much license there to exercise my high level of creativity, but it brought home my bread and butter. I grew up in the home of a Baptist minister. My formative years were spent attending his small country church in the Ozarks. Watching him shepherd his little flock was a real, live education!

You might ask WHAT QUALIFIES ME TO BLOG ABOUT ETHICAL CHRISTIAN DATING! Excellent question! First off, I've lived as a Christian most of my life. I was "born again" at age 12. I don't have a degree in psychology, but I do have a MULTITUDE of stories and lessons gleaned from spending 15 years as a mature Christian single on the dating scene, which I am ITCHING to share with you! Some experiences are personal, but many were observed first-hand via friends or personally shared with me. My spiritual gifts are mercy and encouragement. At least one of my many personality tests lists me as Intuitive/Feeling/Perceptive. As you might guess, these traits often encourage people to share their hearts with me. My father taught me that one of the most important things you can do to help a hurting person is to simply listen while they share their heart.

I can calmly listen without judgment, extend compassion and understanding, empathize, discern, and whenever required, allow people to cry on my shoulder. However, the School of Hard Knocks taught me to be nobody's fool. I'll take my personal expertise over a yellowing degree stuck a dusty black frame any day of the week, it's more useful.

I married disastrously at the tender age of 19. By the time I was 24, I had 3 small children, and I desperately wanted out of my intolerable marriage. My husband was an extremely abusive alcoholic who seldom worked. We lived in excruciating poverty, and my life morphed into an earthly hell. However, I followed the advice of some misinformed Christians, and made the dire mistake of attending a Bill Gothard seminar. Per misdirected peer advice and related Gothardly teachings, I became persuaded I was personally responsible for my husband's salvation. If I divorced him, I'd cause him to be an adulterer (although he had been unfaithful to me numerous times). I'd also be an adulteress forever, should I remarry in my lifetime. I'd also be responsible if he ever ended up in hell due to his sins, since I hadn't won him over to the cause of Christ with my submissive, compliant example.(Hogwash!)

Thus, I wrestled my miserable situation until I was 29, at which point I really had no choice but to leave for the safety and well-being of myself and my children. My life had been threatened and endangered many times, and my children were suffering from the horrible environment. Bill Gothard did not live in that house, but we did. At that point, I'd become so enraged over my husband's chronic physical and emotional abuse toward me and his gross financial irresponsibility, I'd have rejoiced with reckless abandon if he'd spontaneously combusted and split the gates of Hell wide open directly in front of my eyes.  Had he died during those years , which I often prayed he would, I’d have danced gleefully upon his grave. (Yes, boys and girls, I had to do EXTENSIVE "forgiveness work" later......) That's another story.

I have since prayed and studied my Bible at length for many years regarding the whole divorce issue (which many fundamental, protestant churches are grossly and judgmentally mistaken about, in my personal opinion). As you might imagine, I have MUCH to share on that topic at another time.

After I divorced, I was a single mother for 9 years. I received a grand total of $300 in child support from the children's father during that time. He had minimal, but disruptive involvement in their lives. I participated in local Christian singles church groups, where I experienced life as a Christian single until I was 38. At one point, I became so disgusted with the dating scene that I stopped altogether for over two years.  I decided the best thing to do was to let God find me a match, if He wanted me to have one.

When I was 38, I married a kind, sensitive Christian man who wasn't fazed by my 3 fractious teenagers. They were doing just about everything except stealing cars and robbing banks. That's another story I will  share another day. God certainly placed that man into my life, and we lived very happily together for 9 years. Life wasn't perfect. We had blended family issues and the usual domestic challenges. However, our personalities and our faith levels were very compatible. It also helped matters that he totally adored me. After our very first date, I later learned that he informed everyone in his office he'd met the woman he planned to marry.  In 2005, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In spring of 2007, after a long and painful battle with the disease, he went home to be with the Lord. I was devastated.

I joined a great widow’s support group at my church, where I made a couple of really good friends. After about a year, I began occasionally attending the Christian Singles Group at a local mega-church with my new friends. As time passed, my enthusiasm waned over their singles group.

I've seen a lot negative behaviors and heard stories that made my blood run cold. I experienced a disturbing situation myself, a couple of years ago, where a man in this singles group, an ex- minister, tried to romance, then con me, and one of my other widow friends at the same time. He tried to play his game behind our backs, because he suspected each of us had inherited nice nest eggs from our late husbands, and he wanted to speedily take advantage of whichever one of us would bite. I quickly wised up to his game and escaped unscathed (I told you I was nobody's fool!), but my friend was hurt and conned, even though I tried very hard to warn her. She was so desperate for love and attention, she got angry with me and chose to ignore the warning. That man is still behaving as a predator in that group.

The un-Christian behavior I often overheard and saw first-hand made me realize that there is often a lack of practical leadership and accountability within singles groups. It is necessary for Christian singles to be cognizant of how their behaviors affect others, especially unbelievers. Christians should make an effort to practice ETHICAL Christian behaviors when dating within a Christian singles group to avoid hurting fellow believers. Otherwise they should consider practicing their dating via the cocktail lounge venue.

After visiting several singles groups over the years, I see a large gap between what is needed to support this community versus what is actually in place to support them, even within the groups sponsored by mega-churches.  For quite some time, I’ve felt led to share the stories, anecdotes, opinions, and personal observations gained after several years of living the single life.  I’ve learned a lot through personal prayer and study, as well as through my own life lessons.  I felt I should establish MY OWN PLATFORM to support, edify, and perhaps inspire or guide others walking this challenging road of mature singleness. Singles have a very unique set of issues to deal with, which married people simply don’t understand because they don’t encounter the same issues. 

I was asked by several friends to begin a blog on this topic.  I consider this BLOG to be the start of my personal ministry for encouraging others. People can take it or leave it, as they like. I will share stories, advice, opinions, anecdotes, etc. I hope you'll participate, comment, and refer your friends to my page, both single and married. I’ll share insights on how to treat everyone with love and respect, although singles are my primary audience.  I hope my readers will find our sharing helpful, and that GOD will touch every visitor in some special way.