Submitted by Joshua Chang
When I was 24 I decided that I was done with dating. The problem for me? Dating led to more dating. I work in advertising and we sometimes create new emotions or convince people to chase new and shiny things.
Dating felt just like that: I kept creating new emotions and trying to position myself as a shiny object.
And if it was a Christian I was dating, we would get to know each other, talk about how far is too far, fall into a place of ambiguity, and then it would fall apart because I never wanted to commit. So I would replace them with someone new. It would be rinse and repeat.
And I was tired of this.
And I told God that I was tired of this and that I wanted a new perspective on relationships. And he said, "Yes, Josh, that's why I created marriage." So as I looked at God's word and his design for marriage, the first thing I had to understand was that I was valuable to him. That I was worth something. And I deserved better.
During this time, I met a girl named Amber. Before I could even ask her to obligatory coffee, I saw that she knew her value. I realized that if I wanted access to her, I would have to be responsible for what was behind it. And vice versa, if I wanted to grant her access to my life, I needed her to be responsible for what I offered as well.
This was different. I was different, Amber was different. And because we valued our worth and each other, my old ways of chaos and heartbreak and rinse and repeat were gone.
I designed this poster as a rallying cry to remind all of us that we don't need to sell our shiny-selves. We've already been bought at a high price from the one who created us and He called us good.
We should know this and embrace this and act on this.
