We have joyful news to share with you from our Trinity family! Our two sixth grade teachers, Ben Moore and Sara Iseri, have gotten engaged. This may be a Trinity first--two people who met, dated and got engaged at our school! As you might imagine, this has caused great excitement among our students and staff. However, it also affords us a great opportunity to address the topic of love and marriage with students.
Our culture does not share God’s view of marriage. In fact, what our young people see around them is so opposed to God’s view that it is often shocking for them to find out what God really thinks. We tell them first that God invented marriage; it was His idea from the very beginning to illustrate His love and permanence for His people. With love and marriage, we do not just celebrate the joy and excitement, but also the commitment, service, and sacrifice that marriage represents. Given God’s design, we do not want to treat relationships as casually as our culture does.
I once shared with my teenage son that if God has already chosen our spouse, and we date someone before we are really ready to get married, we are dating someone else’s husband or wife. Does that make us think about how we
should be relating to that person? Of course; that gives us a different perspective entirely of the appropriate character of our relationships with the opposite sex before the age of marriage. God has a wonderful plan for our lives
and blesses us with good friendships on the way, but today’s hook-up culture pressures us into romance before its time, marring God’s good design and robbing us of joy. With how many others are you comfortable sharing yourself? With how many others are you comfortable sharing your spouse?
Maybe you think this is unrealistic, and you are right—holiness is quite unrealistic. Does that mean that we should therefore not endeavor to live holy lives? Of course not. We are called to live in accordance with God’s law, and when we fall short, we are asked to repent and turn from our sin, trusting in Jesus to bring us the rest of the way. Is it unrealistic to expect our young people to refrain from following the example of our culture, with its emphasis on cheap and transitory encounters? Of course not.
Our students have had the privilege of witnessing a counter-cultural example. Two people waited on God, trusted in His plan for their lives, and conducted each stage of their relationship in a way that has honored Him. And look how He has blessed them. We pray that God will continue his faithfulness to them by granting them a long and wondrous
marriage.
Jennifer Cable
Elementary Principal