My Journey from being Matchmade to Courtship to Betrothal
I am a single mother not by choice. I grew up as a Jewish gal TO in Messiah. Nonetheless, this faith never felt like it belonged completely to me and more of my parents faith. Seeing how Abba has been calling so many families lately is truly amazing because I did not have a lot of friends in this faith growing up except for one and she moved away by the time I was 10.
I strongly urge that as you all learn and grow in your faith, never forget about your children's need to make this faith theirs as well and not just their parents faith. Find friends for them in this faith, so they can grow up together with support and like minded families and companions around them. Get them penpals if no one is in the area.
I made a huge mistake out of impatience to be married and married someone outside of this faith. Oy!, did Abba teach me a big lesson! I didn't know it but I ended up marrying a real life biblical sociopath. Yes they exist...
I won't go into yucky details but let's just say I have a permanent restraining order for life and he will never be able to see my son who is now 3 1/2 years old without a qualified supervisor. (He barely does anyway) and he may never see him on Shabbat either. Thru this trial I really learned and grew a lot. I learned to never ever open a door and push something (being in the flesh and not in spirit) without YHWH's hand in it. You can set yourself back, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. And the adversary will now have a legal right to use that against you.
Pre-Courtship
Moving on, almost 2 years ago a dear family came to our home fellowship right here in South Florida and I'd never imagine why they would be placed in our life. They are from OKC, As our friendship grew, a joke started to emerge. You see Stephanie has a secret passion for matchmaking. I would always say, Please! NO! I never want to marry again! NO Thank you!!! and she would say, one day I will match you and I of course would laugh it off. One day as I was giving some of our members in our little group titles. I decided to call her our "Official Matchmaker" and I made it "official" over a year ago on our meetup website link... You can see that here.
I really had been dead set against remarriage. I knew I biblically could because the guy I married was a con artist and it was fraud on his end but I really couldn't even think of it. It's been over 4 years now since my separation, which was 3 months after marriage, and in early 2014 Abba started opening my heart to the idea of it. I was led to see the testimony of Aaron & Tricia Leu.. She and her husband have a book out called Love Awakened. After watching their videos, I immediately bought their book about their love story.
After reading the book, was the first glimpse of "possibility" I had about marriage. If definitely helped open my eyes to the possibility of it. I was still more in the "I don't think so" mind frame. I searched about betrothal and courtship and arranged marriage. And I wanted to know what that all meant and how it worked. I came across Erinia's testimony and website at Messianic Singles.
The second document is titled "Jewish Betrothal" I highly recommend you all read this especially with children nearing the courting age. This PPT. was big for me. I knew nothing of this and thought it was a lost tradition and I had no idea that people in our faith were returning back to these traditions of a biblical marriage. All I knew was about dating and well that doesn't work very well.
This ppt. hit home for me because it explained how to mimic our Messiah and how our Spiritual bridegroom chooses his Bride and how the earthly male bridegroom should do the same and the bride must choose to accept his Torah/earthly marriage.
I also came across a new book the Duggar girls wrote called "Growing up Duggar". Wow, these young girls had insight for me as a mom with raising children! Added plus! There was also a section on courtship. And if anyone is following 19 Kids and Counting, you know that it is the season of courtship in their house right now in 2014. I learned tremendously about physical boundaries, like no kissing before marriage and the process of courtship. Great read by the way!
A couple months went by and one day I woke up and said ok I think I may be ready to open myself up to the idea of it. I went straight to my parents and asked for prayer. I had heard a teaching on courtship that Erinia interviewed Jim Staley on. When I heard him say this short paragraph, I now knew this is what I should live by... and if I never got there then I would be ok with that too. My focus was to be solely on Yahweh, be a mom and raise a gentleman in Messiah.
Jim Staley: "First rule in finding a mate... Don't look for one because you will be looking with your eyes open when you should be looking with your eyes closed. As you begin to pray Abba will do the work and have you run into the one that he wants. He will open your eyes and you will go wow! That's the person! How did you get here? I don't know but will you be mine?"
Once I realized this, I immediately sat down and wrote a list out. I would like to go ahead and share it with you all...
Here is my Grand list! Everyones list will look a bit different and thats ok too.
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Absolutely NO Speaking in Tongues!
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TO in Messiah
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At least 5'11
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Keeps Shabbat and Feast Days
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Keeps Kosher
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Uses the Father's Name YHWH
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Be financially stable to provide for a family
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Be ok that I am a single mom and WILL LOVE my son as HIS OWN.
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Have a sense of self control...( If he can't before marriage then he won't afterwards)
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High Moral, Strong character qualities
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Be ok with dancing even if he has 2 left feet. (here comes in the sense of humor)
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Who agrees with no vaccines, and a more natural approach, attachment parenting.
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Wants as many children as YHWH will give us.
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Has an involved happy TO family members in his life.
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Maybe someone who would like a small manageable farm life, with chickens and a garden.
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Someone who is a leader, maybe even speaks a couple of languages like including Hebrew. ( I now would probably change this statement to say, a man doesn't have to be a leader elsewhere, all he needs to be is the leader of my home, (advice given by a wise friend of mine).
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Someone with no previous children.
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Is excited about Homeschooling!
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Who Loves me and I can respect him.
Two weeks after I went to my parents on the 1st day of the week July 20, 2014, I got a surprise text message from Stephanie. (She had no clue I had even changed my mind about courtship/marriage. It read "found a gentleman for you to talk with... he's 30 and his family has been torah observant for about 7 years. I know his parents more than I know him but I already talked to his mom about you all conversing via email or phone. Let me know your thoughts". "They attend Bet Ami regularly. He has blonde hair blue eyes. So not Mediterranean but I think he's a nice guy." My response was "Wow! I have been kind of praying more fervently about this. Interesting." And I gave her the ok to send him my email and pictures of me.
On July 22, I received my first email from him, his name is Christopher. For 3 weeks straight, we conversed daily thru email. I wasn't in the mood to have superficial talk. I wanted to know him spiritually and morally first. Then I would ask what do you like to do for fun. I asked him tough, serious and not so easy questions... I was really tough on him and I prayed that if he wasn't for me then he would not take my tough questions and walk away. But! He didn't. He embraced all of my grueling questions and answered them. All of them! It was extremely nerve wrecking for me. At the 3 week mark, he made a comment about assuming we were in a courtship! I said oh no buddy, no we are not. You need to go thru my parents first. (poor guy I think he was nervous and didn't know how to ask). Another great piece of advice from my wise friend, "Amanda, during the pre-courtship and courtship process the woman is who leads... Yes you can hold my hand, no you can't. Yes we can dance, no we can't... etc..., once you have established that you can follow him blindly, that means you are ready for marriage and you can now let him lead and be in that biblical leadership role as a family." Great advice by the way!
I said, hey lets speak on phone first! So we did and have moved on to Skype and it has been 7 weeks now since we first started communicating and he decided to come to S. FL, to meet me, my son, family and fellowship. We have neighbors who are like family to us and are a part of our fellowship. Two weeks prior my mother and I went to the wife to ask if it would be ok if Christopher stayed with them. Before I could even ask my question, she started laughing and said I already know what you are going to ask me. (She didnt know anything about the situation other than Stephanie put me in communication with a guy from Bet Ami. She said "YHWH told me last night that you were going to come and ask me if Christopher can come and stay in my house. "Of course he can!" she said. Wow! what a confirmation that this man is supposed to come and meet Eliad and I!
Fast forward 2 weeks later, Things went amazingly well, and my son's reaction to him is what was the most heart touching of the entire visit. I can't even begin to describe how my son took to him. He hogged him the entire time, wanted to hold his hand, play with him. It was truly amazing and spiritual to see. My heart was in my throat the entire time. I think part of that was I was being so stubborn about marriage and thinking I could do it all alone. Watching him with Christopher that weekend made me realize how much he yearned, wants and needs a father. It was apparent to everyone in our fellowship. Below I will post a video of one of their interactions.
Christopher this weekend told me he loves me and absolutely loves Eliad and doesn't want to be his "stepdad" but his Daddy. And he wants to take that responsibility of being our covering real soon and is going move to S. FL to make that happen. Seeing both of them interact with each other was truly a blessing and orchestrated from above. It was natural and so strange because it was so natural seeing them both together like that. When we took him back to the airport to say goodbye and as Christopher walked away, my son started crying. Like the shaking of his chin type cry. My son said he doesn't want him to leave and that he is really sad. Of course, I started crying. I have not explained to him who this man is. I have not said, this is my friend or your future father or anything. I have not said anything and yet my son knows. Amazing...
My father had a 2 hour conversation alone with him that weekend and gave him permission to officially court me. Yet he did not ask me to court him that weekend...
I wanted to share this with you all. I know it's still in the beginning stages, and there is much still to unfold. But I wanted to share this new journey with everyone and to share an amazing miracle in my life and that it can happen to everyone out there who believes in Him.
Courtship
The next time I saw him was right after Sukkot. Him and his parents drove 5 hours to come get me and my son from a feast site we were at and to meet my parents as well. They were only there for one night. It was the 8th day of Sukkot and I baked homemade pizzas for everyone. As the night started to end, his parents decided it was time to leave and he had not yet asked me to court him "officially". I thought to myself, well ok, I guess its not the time then. As his parents got up, he stopped them and stood up and said he had something important to say. I honestly can not remember a single word he said, I was so nervous. Something about him loving me and Eliad and wanting to court me and taking it a step further to Betrothal. As he spoke he pulled out a ring box, for a moment I almost thought he was proposing to me, which I thought was strange because we had said we would follow a traditional betrothal model without engagement. As he handed me the box and opened it, inside was a beautiful ring with the tree of life and 3 little precious rubies on each branch. On the side it says in Hebrew "Woman of Valor, Who can Find?". I was so excited and filled with joy. As he placed the ring on my finger, he said this ring was a promise to me and Eliad that he will betroth me and marry me and adopt my son as his own.
He waited until both parents were present to ask me officially. In courtship and betrothal, both parents should be very much involved. We set the boundries to holding hands and hello hugs.
Since we are older, our parents felt like we should be held to a higher standard of holding ourselves accountable for our actions. I really had wanted a chaperone at all times and no touching, except for maybe side hugs. I caved a little on it but I am still comfortable with the boundries.
Usually the Courtship is a short process maybe 3-6 months and it will move on into Betrothal. In Ancient times, once betrothed, the couple would separate for a year and the suitor would then go and prepare a place to live and then he would then call for her and she would not know the day or the hour, except to have her dress ready. He would come blowing the Shofars saying "The Bridegroom is Coming!". Everyone would join together and the marriage ceremony (Nisuin) would take place and that night the marriage would be consumated.
The beautiful thing about an Israelite wedding is that the Bridegroom takes care of all preparations for the wedding ceremony. In contrast, in a western wedding the Bride handles all the wedding details and preparations which leaves her in a state of stress on her very wedding day. How beautiful is it that the Bridgegroom starts off his responsibilities as a Husband leading the way.
As of now, I am still in the courtship stage and will come back soon with more details to a Betrothal that otherwise should have never happened.