Should my middle schooler be dating?  This is a question I often hear floating around.  What does that even mean?  Middle schoolers can’t drive, so are the parents chaffering them around on an actual date?  More than likely, what this really means is that they are “talking”.  Meaning, a middle school boy and a middle school girl both have a phone, they have both decided to “talk”, and now they are texting each other.  As we all know, teens feel way more comfortable texting thoughts and feelings (and even sharing pictures), than they do actually talking with another teen. I can tell you from my experience with parents in crisis, this “freedom” to text is a slippery slope leading teens much further down a path they didn’t intend to go down.   

I ran across an article this week from Pastor Matt McCauley of The VIllage Church.  Please take a minute to read his blog posting—> click here.  

Below is my favorite portion of Pastor McCauley’s thoughts…

Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem: 
   Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, 
   until the time is right.

After explicitly (have you read this book?!) describing the passion and emotion associated with love, marriage, romance and sex, the Shulamite woman (Solomon’s wife) gathers her younger sisters and gives this stern warning. Why? What’s the harm? I’m sure daughters of Jerusalem asked this, and so will your middle schooler. If we continue reading, we find the answer in verses 6 and 7.

…for love is strong as death,
    jealousy is fierce as the grave. 
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   the very flame of the LORD.
Many waters cannot quench love,
   neither can floods drown it.

It’s as if the Shulamite woman is saying this:

“Girls, I can’t tell you how powerful and overwhelming these affections that I now have for Solomon, my husband, are. Things have been awakened and stirred in me that I never could have imagined. And they are good. They are meant to be. God created them for this purpose: that my husband and I my share an intimacy and closeness that strengthens our covenantal bond until death parts us. So with that, understand that these feelings are dangerous in the wrong context. Don’t excite them or awaken them before the time is right. Don’t arouse love until it pleases.”

I’d love to know your thoughts in the comment section.  Are we encouraging our teens to wait?  Not just for sex, but for all of the feelings, desires, thoughts, passions that come along with sex?  

My love,