Asking THE Question and the RIGHT questions

 How we ask people to marry us has changed dramatically over the years. When I think of proposals, the first thing that comes to mind, without fail is the proposals from cheesy rom-coms where they are at a baseball game and suddenly "Will you marry me?" flashes across the jumbo tron. Or a couple is walking through a random field, or on a beach or in a park and the man drops to one knee and pops the question to the absolute surprise of the woman. Then of course we have all heard stories of people who made the unfortunate mistake of putting the ring in the other person's food… I don't know why that has ever been thought of as a good idea, but to each their own.

What makes a good proposal? Does it even matter? Nowadays, the element of surprise seems to have been completely lost, at least for my generation. Instead of legitimate surprise, most engagements occur in a staged manner, with groups of people there to photograph and document the entire event, nails done, everything picture perfect. The couple has already bought the ring together, the official "engagement" of getting down on one knee only for the show instead of being a what it used to be. Now, I am not saying that this is a bad thing, solely that it is different from the way that my parents or that my grandparents got engaged. Time and society has changed the way that we look at moving from dating to courtship, to engagement, as I talked a little about last week. That in turn has changed a lot of the traditions that we associate with those things as well. Traditions such as getting the fathers' permission beforehand, surprise proposals, etc. seem to be going by the wayside.

One thing that I will say for certain is that a proposal should be a sign of complete commitment to the other person. Before popping the question, that person had better be sure that they are completely willing to commit the rest of their lives to the other individual that they are proposing to. That is the beginning of the time that they will seriously begin creating a life together or at least laying the solid foundation of a life together. They will begin to make decisions together as they organize the wedding, plan what their lives will look like together, and create the boundaries that they would like to have in their married life together.

You may want to think of it in this way: Imagine you want to build a fence. This fence is the boundary for you and your future spouse, boundaries that will keep you united in the face of outside forces. This goes along with the idea of Genesis 2:24 – "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." During dating and courtship, you may begin to mark where you would like the fence posts of your boundaries to be. These may come from asking questions like "What do you think life would look like if we were married?" or "Could you help me understand why you reacted the way that you did? I don't feel comfortable with the way you handled that." During engagement, you are starting to put the actual posts into the ground, getting the fence started. This could look like making decisions about the wedding with your future spouse and not letting the parents or in-laws take over the whole affair. This is your first opportunity to make decisions, serious and big decisions together as a couple. Don't waste the opportunity!

Heaven knows that I am no expert when it comes to marriage or engagements or anything that really goes along with things like that. I do know this though … God intends for all of his children to enjoy the blessings that come from a faith-filled, covenant keeping relationship with another individual. There are going to be so many difficult parts about marriage or any kind of relationship, because, after all, we are silly, professionals at making mistakes, fallen human beings. Despite that, I do know that when two individuals, different in their own ways, strive to make a life together while coming closer to Jesus Christ, ultimately that will be a successful marriage. It does take complete commitment on both parts and a willingness to work even when the going gets tough… but ultimately the blessings of that kind of marriage will far outnumber the perks that could ever come from going through this life alone.

Until next week,

Grace