LIFE FIELD Notes vol. 6
Joyful ADVICE Chatting with the voice for the next generation of relationships By Chelsea Batten
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t’s said that brevity is the soul of wit. And after five volumes of Field Notes sourced exclusively from my own experience, I felt I owed it to everyone to pass the microphone to someone else. But it was a good excuse to connect with the radiant Joy Eggerichs, who runs Love and Respect (Now). After years of helping out at marriage conferences taught by her pastor parents, Joy had heard countless couples utter the phrase “I wish I’d known this 20 years ago!” She decided to empower her generation with the same information taught at marriage conferences, tailored to help them in their single lives. Joy has spent even more time than I have examining the foibles of opposite sex relationships; it was refreshing to hear her well-considered opinion, while silently admiring her music video-worthy hair.
Do singles our age know that they need this information? Or is it a hard sell? I tell my dad “I have a tougher job than you.” He’s coming from academia, plus 30 years of being a pastor. Whereas I’m just a girl who finds male-female relationships interesting. My mom always says “God didn’t make us husband and wife, he made us male and female.” I think learning to relate as male and female makes you a better person. There’s bad people out there, but for the most part, I think we just get mean to each other. We get impolite. You get comfortable with somebody in a relationship, and stop being polite; you just react out of your wounds. Starting to think about how we are, as a male or a female, actually is going to benefit the person we date.
I feel like that does speak to a bigger theological question that I wrestle with. I definitely would not be doing what I’m doing with the same amount of love and empathy. I was not a naturally empathetic person. There recently was a guy that I liked, and I projected onto him craziness! Sheer craziness! [Laughs.] I can see it as a direct tie to that other relationship. Those wounds have left scars that affect me. Could I have gotten here without going to that extreme? I can say in hindsight, I know that I’m healing and that I will heal, but that larger question of “Is it really worth it?” I don’t know. I think the bigger thing is what do we do with our pain? What’s our choice? How are we going to respond to God in light of that?
How do you respond to people who say things like "It’s great that you’re doing this while you can," meaning "before you get married and settle down"? The fear is what if I do all this preparing under the veil of “this
Fair enough. But what about the single person who never ends up getting married?
Photo courtesy of Love and Respect (Now)
is for marriage,” and it doesn’t happen? I think that’s a huge reason why so many people our age that grew up in the church are walking away from their faith. There were things they were promised — you will get married, you will have a great sex life if you wait until marriage. We wrap all that up in our belief system, then we literally cannot keep believing in God if it doesn’t happen. That’s where I see a lot of people are at. Or they keep believing, but they stop making their requests known, because they don’t want to make God a fool. Because if I make my requests known, and he doesn’t do it, that’s going to rock my theology.
You’ve been very open about the fact that your gnarly breakup a few years ago was a catalyst for starting Love and Respect (Now). Would you say that all the heartache you experienced was "worth it?"
That’s so stupid! That’s what makes us so paranoid when we date. It’s the same thing as, “You’re not married yet because God’s got some work to do.” We have made marriage all about someone who makes us happy. Ultimately, I want to find a partnership with purpose. I feel like if we had more people who go into dating with purpose, marriages and families would have such a different trajectory, beyond me and how I feel. I don’t think my passion for wanting to help people with relationships will or should change, when I get married.
Joy, you’re awesome. Thank you. This was fun. Now I have to go answer emails from 20-yearolds about “Why is my boyfriend being so lame?” For more from Joy, visit her website loveandrespectnow.com convergemagazine.com
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