Can it also be said, "With great freedom comes great responsibility!"???

 People are always demanding freedoms ...but, often it involves shirking responsibility.

It is of my opinion that people too easily degrade themselves; therefore how much easier is it to degrade another??

Most people like to have the freedom to make their own choices.

My parents were teasing me one time.  I was in college ...as it was expected that I would go to college.  I had a financial aid package put together with small scholarship amounts, supplemented by my eager earnings, savings, and a Work Study program. It would work, and everything was set to work as I was accepted to go to Michigan State University.

I had avoided activities in High School.  In my mind, relationships were important, and I didn't want my emotions to get ahead of a very difficult schedule ...with college approximately 425 miles from my home.

I also sort of thought of college in much the same way, as how difficult it would be to consider a relationship while I was incurring a small debt with a college loan, which I'd have to pay back with the money I'd make from a job I didn't even have yet.  And I didn't know where I'd have to go to get that job either.

I thought of how Hollywood actors and actresses often had a difficult time keeping relationships solid with all that travel and extended time apart.  And musicians may even have it worse.  How was I going to have it any better??  At least they had an income (yet, I know many of them struggled with having nothing at the start), and I didn't have a clue where I was going to be.

I couldn't get a job in my major, as the economy was not doing well ...but, it was during the time where government felt they had adequate money to spend, even if most people weren't doing that well.  So, I got a job with the State of Michigan.

Now, I was soon able to pay my small loan off ...and move out of my one room rental, and into an apartment.  I saved up for a car ...buying my supervisor's Grandma's car, advertised by my supervisor as one of those Grandmas who drove the car only to church every Sunday, and to the hairdresser once a month.

It was a good car, and I kind of believed that in this case the Grandma story might have been true. 

I had saved up, so I was now debt free ...and I thought I might be able to afford to go on a date now.

But, dating was a stress for me.  I was brought up to be responsible, and these young single women were at times fun to be around, they just didn't seem like the kind of person I thought I was, or wanted to be. 

I tried to get together with some hometown girls who were now in college, but the timing wasn't right.  And though I know there are good city girls, I guess the timing wasn't right there either ...because I was connecting with a few of the ones who didn't appear to me to be too responsible.

I knew that a lot of people from my work were 'sleeping around' ...but, I didn't know how many, or which ones.  Some of them gave hints, and one called me a 'Jesus freak' ...and I hadn't even mentioned Him, but that's the way it is with expectations and relationships.  You often don't readily know what others want out of a relationship.

How can a person trust someone with such loose values? 

The abortion debate was making its rounds, like it was a political volleyball to be hit back-and-forth.  I knew that when most women who got pregnant, it was not because they had been with someone who had abused them, or who they didn't like.  They liked the man they were with, and would have loved to have a child with him, but the relationship didn't last ...and then, out of feeling so much intense hurt, they angrily demanded their rights, mostly because he had abdicated on his responsibilities.  And they didn't want a child that reminded them of that hurt.  

You may say I am way off (and what do I know), but I'm open to what you have to say about why you'd involve yourself with someone in a seemingly intimate way, and then go have a violent operation to have that very life ripped or crushed to death ..the very life you two began together during your intimate encounter.  I can't believe a woman would say there was no intimacy ...it was just enjoying the moment, so she could later have a doctor get even more invasive in a very cruel and violent impersonal fashion.

I don't know what one's mind set is, but I also couldn't imagine a girl would give herself to a guy for the soul purpose of his lack of intimacy ...that would potentially end up having her face committing a violent act, a very big step in searing the conscience and destroying that wonderful union that should have been, if it had been approached properly (hopefully through marriage).

Bottom line ...I wasn't going to allow myself anywhere near having to deal with such a sad outcome.  As strange and outdated as it seemed, I kind of felt courtship perhaps should be the way to go.

I went to visit my parents as I accrued two weeks vacation ...and I wanted to clear my head.  Dad said he was taking me and Mom for a ride, so I got in the car with them. Dad likes to tease, but I didn't know always when he was teasing.  He said he was taking me to the home of a friend who had a daughter around my age.  And I panicked ...sweat sending off warnings out of every pore, before I realized he was kidding.

If courtship was going to be my path, it was going to be of my choosing ...and I was not at all going to allow it to be arranged for me.

Courtship had to be something (though I really had no experience and didn't really know anything about it) that I felt was going to be known. The next step wasn't my doing, but her Mom didn't take long at all to ask of my intentions.  This was shortly after I explained my faith, and went to church with them a couple times.  It seemed like the entire extended family liked me, and I didn't think this was a bad thing, but I didn't realize at the time that it may not necessarily be a good thing.  I had then heard that her parents had just very recently gotten a divorce, and I didn't realize the toll it could take on a daughter ...and more specifically, the one I was interested in. 

I felt the courtship, if that was in fact what it was, was going okay ...and like I said, I felt the family liked me. Though I began to question really how much the one I wanted to like me, actually liked me.  Though I thought that if a courtship was in some way more of a commitment than other relationship beginnings, it was not good if the pressure of expectations be a burden to either of us ....especially if she perhaps didn't feel it was any more than a friendship, and one that was possibly more friendly to her family than to her.

Yet, I felt that commitments, however they may seem to be, shouldn't be abandoned quickly without giving a chance for things to develop (perhaps in God's timing, not mine), and I didn't want to think of an end to something that God was perhaps developing.  I know not everyone's emotions progress the same, or at the same rate.  I felt she was worth it, to give it more time. 

And I gave it about ten years.

There were times when I felt really discouraged, but then she would reach out to me again.  And just like Hollywood, it was difficult because she was in Florida, one of the Carolinas, and in Arizona during various times. But, I felt God had built some sort of friendship, and it should not be taken lightly.

After a time, I realized that the kind of relationship we had was a friendship that appeared rather odd, but friendships are important.  I kind of felt it was the kind of friendship I'd have in Heaven.  But, of course, we were not in Heaven ...and life here on earth is filled with goals and expectations. My youngest brother's friend would always say he'd get the death knell signal of 'Just friends'.  And we can't say that isn't important, as there will be no such things as 'just friends' in Heaven ...because all friendships will so blessed.  But, like I said, this isn't Heaven ...this is still earth.

And if one thinks they would enjoy having a family ...well, that doesn't work with 'just friends'.   And I feel God had those ten years set aside to have me grow in my faith, and prepare me to meet the one I did marry and have children with.

My wife-to-be had a young girl that she had conceived during an intimate relationship she had with a guy ...yet, he didn't prove to be too responsible, nor loyal to the one he was bringing a child into the world with.  Yet, there was no bitter consequences, and that child would not be denied the love we all deserve ...as it should be with every Mom, to cling onto that love, whether the man does, or not.

We married, then had four more children.

And something is to be said for having children that we both agree upon.  We did all we could to meet our children's needs.  And of course, we differentiated between needs and desires as they got older, but as a baby ...hunger, tiredness, and any sort of discomfort or confusion could be easily remedied.  Mom was the best.

There were friends who promoted books that appeared to focus on not letting your children control you, but we thought that was absurd ...how could a tiny child (mostly helpless) control us.  They look to us for their every need.  Don't we aspire to looking to God to meet our needs??  Does God think we are controlling Him?? 

I think that is absurd ...and I don't really think our idea was different than God's plan.  God created a very adequate way ...and breastfeeding solves so many of the stresses, providing intimacy and nourishment, as well as a stronger immune system for the baby.  (For Mom, it promotes faster weigh loss after birth, less postpartum bleeding, fewer infections, and lower the risk of cancer ...to name a few.) 

My parents used to have cloth diapers, with safety pins.  A safety pin could be sticking into the baby, and some parent would say it was a fussy baby.  I guess we are fussy babies too ...as we have the dentist numb the area before he sticks us.