Pinterest is Planning My Wedding... All I Need is the Groom

Girls... you ALL know what I'm talking about! The tendency to open up that Pinterest page and immediately be looking at the wedding boards. For those of you who do not have a Pinterest.... I say to you both good job and I'm sorry! 

I got my Pinterest account when I was a freshman in college and didn't realize the commitment I was making upon receiving an invitation to officially "sign up". This was a commitment to procrastination, crafty ideas, and also loads upon loads of pins planning my future wedding. A wedding I was no where close to having. Don't get me wrong! Pinterest is awesome for valuable information towards 'do it yourself' crafts, recipes, fashion trends, and many more. But something I struggle with greatly is making sure that as I pin, especially in regards to looking at the wedding boards, that I keep my heart open to God's will.

Near the beginning of when my sweet boyfriend and I started dating he just happened to get on my Pinterest account and to his dismay he found my wedding board. I was a little embarrassed and tried to hide it from him, but it was of no use. The kid is smart. Both astonished at the number of pins and extremely nervous because we had only been dating for a month or so I reassured him that I made that board a long time ago. Some reassurance huh? This probably made him feel more uncomfortable. I found that as our relationship grew and started to become more serious and marriage got brought up it seemed to have a stigma that it was something that I wanted from him merely to get all the glitz, glam, and romance to have my perfect 'Pinterest wedding'. I needed the groom to fit into my cookie cutter wedding. This made me so sad because the last thing I wanted him to feel, especially as we started to realize God's plan for us together, was that he was just a 'fill in' and it didn't matter who it was as long as I could get married in the near future. The thing was? I gave him a completely valid reason to thinking this because of my obsession over weddings on my Pinterest. In reality I knew he wasn't just a 'fill in' but because of my lack of emotional chastity on Pinterest I could have been at serious risk of losing the one thing (or person) I had been praying for most. This is when I really began to reevaluate my own emotional chastity in regards to Pinterest.

First, let me explain emotional chastity and why it's so hard for girls. Chastity is a virtue that involves becoming a master over your own desires or wants for the sake of Heaven. Chastity is heavily regarded and mostly looked at in the physical nature but the reality is that it involves our mind and imagination just as much as it involves our body. Men are visual creatures and tend to struggle with physical chastity more, whereas women are more sensual and struggle with emotional chastity. Emotional chastity can be wanting to share the entire depths of your heart or planning your wedding with a guy you've just met. Both of these things apply. The reason why women struggle with emotional chastity is because we are naturally a lot more in tune  to our emotions than guys and desire love... not as much sex. Girls still struggle with physical chastity too but as Father John Nepil said when he was talking about emotional chastity, "Girls give sex in order to have love and guys give love in order to have sex." It's the reality of how we were made and these aren't bad things! We just have to place them in the right context of marriage. 

Pinterest in it of itself is a good thing! It isn't bad! But when we take it and use it to make all the planning for God before we truly know the plan ourselves we get into some trouble. For the sake of the person that you are with (or will be with) always remember that they are more than a cookie cutter piece that fits in your plan! They are gift that God has sent you to reach Heaven because marriage is supposed to lead the two people to Our Lord. Trust me, as a girl who struggled (and continues to struggle) with this aspect of emotional chastity I can say that my future spouse is absolutely worth it! Just as the male in the relationship sacrifices and dies to himself physically we cannot be short of making sacrifices as well. 

A few pins here and there isn't a bad thing but when it consumes your time and thoughts then it's time to take a step back from pinning and maybe have a Pinterest fast for a few weeks. Another suggestion is to create a board that puts things in preparing your heart for your husband. It can include pictures of couples, quotes, or steps into creating a stable relationship with a center focused on God. That can be a fun way to involve your relationship in the Pinterest world. 

Have fun! But keep your heart open to the will of God because He will give you the desires of your heart... and has a plan far greater than the one we plan for ourselves.... Just trust in His goodness. 

"Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm 51:10