Last night, over pizza, we had a fun engaging conversation. My favorite thing about the girls is that they can carry a discussion in creative ways, wherever it may lead. It is always enriching for me, even though I know them so well, their mind is a wonderland of knowledge and personality.

Conrad wants to prepare them for the future  with awareness and says often that one day they will understand the adult life better. They will fall in love, they will want to kiss a boy. Jackie has liked a few boys, but from afar, or she would just compete with them. Never in a conversational, face to face kind. But definitely age appropriate. I told her early on that our heart and mind practices love through infatuation. And that’s ok. To like a boy and then not like him anymore. It can and will happen the other way around. A boy who liked her, after a season to find someone else interesting. 

Then last night I remembered a verse that confused yet guided me as a teen. She rolled her eyes that I quoted the Bible. She used to love and trust my words if I said I quoted God. The ten commandments were brought up in her toddler years to address lying, coveting, respecting parents, honoring  God, observing Sundays and so on.

But last night I told her in Song of Solomon it says many times, “I swear, daughters of Jerusalem, to not awaken love until it comes”. I told her I wouldn’t have recognized Conrad when he came info my life if I had been busy awakening love on my own. Waiting and stocking the pond, and developing oneself, growing, living life, and not pursuing romantic relationships feels countercultural. But swimming against the current is our call in life. I’m not saying to forbid dating. My parents didn’t forbid dating. But I felt so awkward at the thought of dating that even two decades ago, when I wasn’t dating anyone, people questioned my orientation. I just wasn’t interested in romantic friendships. I wanted to discover who I was and what I liked. 

May my girls hear my heart, and accept my guidance. May they be safe, and brave in their decisions. While they are in my care, under my roof, i know I have a big influence on their future, so i might was well use my voice and my own story to show them the way.