"Dating is a really hard topic for most Christians to understand how the process works and many of them fail in their attempts of a relationship with the opposite sex."

Hello, my name is Paul Weitzel and I am a 17 year old student at Oxford Area High School. I have been a regular attendee at Ground Zero since I started having a relationship with Jesus Christ, back in September of this year. As for my past dating experiences, well where would you like me to begin?

I guess I can say that I began to interact at a very young age with the opposite sex, all the way back to 4th grade I imagine. You know the giggling and teasing that all kids at that age do to one another when they think their in love. Well yeah, I did that, and was also a full pledged member of the “Lets See How Many Girlfriends I can have at Once Club”

These childish behaviors lasted right up until I entered Penn’s Grove Elementary School (Junior High) when I thought that it was time for me to have a serious girlfriend. The first girl that caught my eye was Denise, and man on man was she hot. Denise and I stuck to one another like Elmer’s Glue for a whole three months, until she moved upstate and left me in Oxford alone and heartbroken. As life went on I eventually got over Denise and found myself in the summer of my eighth grade year I got caught up in the hectic life of a teenage boy

That summer was great I was hanging out with the “cool kids’ and almost everyone liked me. Since everyone at that time had a girlfriend or boyfriend I suppose it was only natural for me to be on the prowl as well. So a friend introduced me to Gabby, a new girl, who had just moved to Oxford from Philadelphia. Over the rest of my eighth grade summer Gabby and I were like peas and carrots, but the romance ended when she cheated on me with another boy at some party.

So in the time span of about three summers I had two heartbreaks and totally gave up on having a girlfriend, but centered much of my interest on hanging out with the “cool kids” and basically being a follower for a good while until I had a friend introduce me to Ground Zero one Friday night.

At first I wasn’t sure of what to make of Mike Akins and his Youth Ministry, but I was a regular attendee for a few months. I was enjoying myself, but wasn’t really sure of what a relationship with god meant and started to lose interest and finally stopped coming. Then I met a girl form work and totally lost interest in the Lord for good.

The girls name was Gabby (kind of weird the whole Gabby name thing but it is true just ask my brother Tyler) and man was she something. Besides looking like a supermodel she also happened to be a senior in high school who moved really fast. I mean Gabby introduced me to alcohol, parties, and others things that I had never experienced before. Thank the Lord that she and I broke up because she was going to college and didn’t want a boyfriend at the time, or I may have done something that I would have regretted for the rest of my life with her.

After my fling with Gabby was over I was feeling really cool because I would still go to the parties and was hanging out with the same bunch of kids. Everything was going great, I thought I was on top of the world, and didn’t have to worry about nothing. I began lying to my friends and family about stuff. I also found that I was getting away with a lot more than I should have been. All this lasted until a few days before my seventeenth birthday. When my parents took a hold of me and gave me a rude awakening back to reality and out of my dream world.

This moment is what I like to refer to as “My Awakening” in which I was forced to make a hard decision. Keep going down this road of impurity or start to wise up. Luckily I wised up and found myself back at ground zero the very next Friday night. That was the first time that god and I had a deep talk about where I was going and what he wanted for me.

So you’re probably wondering right about now why I just revealed most of my past with you. You may also be wondering what all of that has to do with dating. Well I guess I am telling you this stuff about me because I don’t want people to go through and live the life I lived. I want you guys to learn from this testimony because trust me dating someone isn’t what life should be about. I had surrounded my entire life around girls and hanging out with the “cool kids” and look where it got me, no where. See that’s not what being in a relationship is about it is about having love and respect for one another, being able to live without one another and not have to worry whether that person is making the right chooses or not. It is about living a life that involves two people sharing their faith in god.

See I guess the point I am trying to make is that God has someone already planned out who you are to marry and grow old with for each and every one of us. He made every man with a partner in the world. So be honest with yourself right now, and ask yourself is the relationship that I’m in right now what god wants for me? If you have answered “yes” then you better be able to explain why , but if you have answered “no” then think for a second why your in that relationship and get out of it.

The last point I have about dating that if you are a teenager then listen up. God has someone for you already picked out, and he knows when you will meet that person, but really do you honestly believe that the Lord’s plan for you at this present moment is to be with your soul mate at sixteen or seventeen? I doubt it! So be happy with your singleness and live it up for the Lord. Praise his name and don’t worry about looking for that one true love because your only one true love that will never cheat on you or move away right now is Jesus Christ. Finally I am recommending that everyone who has read this testimony to go out and read Joshua Harris’s book on dating called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. If you have not yet read this book read it, if you have read the book, read it again. Joshua Harris does a great job on taking the topic of dating and bringing what God has to say about it together for a very powerful message.