Faith, Hope And Chastity Jessica Lotze Made A Covenant With God That She Would Remain Chaste Until Her Wedding Day; The Strength Of Her Faith And The Love Of Her New Husband Helped Her Keep That Covenant

Jessica Lotze didn’t realize when she made a crucial decision at the age of 15 that she’d one day be a role model for the entire city - in more ways than one.

Three years later, in 1993, the city of Spokane witnessed the coronation of Lotze as Spokane’s first black Lilac Queen. Yet most people were unaware of a private pact she’d made with God, one that set her apart from many of her peers.

“I knew Jessica wore a covenant ring,” recalls Lotze’s Lilac Royalty vice president, Wilma Engstrom, the adult in charge of supervising the queen and her court of 11 princesses. “I had an understanding of what it represented, as my niece and neighbor were also wearing them.”

But even Engstrom, and those closest to the Ferris High Schooler were yet to find out what a deep commitment to abstinence from sex before marriage Lotze’s ring would signify.

“I was called ‘Jessica: the lonely-only’,” says Lotze, remembering her friends’ nickname for her. “After a time, I just shook it off. But in high school especially, you want to be accepted. I was sort of taken aback by the deepness of this covenant I made with God.”

Rather than tippy-toe around the vow she’d made at a 1990 citywide teen abstinence convention sponsored by several local churches, Lotze stepped forward and made her pledge known. She informed her parents, Craig and Monie Lotze, of her decision, and added that she believed so firmly that God had made just one man for her that she wasn’t going to date until she met him.

“I still did things with groups of people. Just never alone with someone of the opposite sex. I didn’t want to give away pieces of my heart,” says the gentle-voiced Lotze, now a South Hill dental assistant.

“This was an answer to our prayers,” explains her father, a pastor who has since incorporated his daughter’s decision into a tape series for the single people of his Victory Faith Fellowship congregation. Lotze’s parents presented her with a covenant ring that she proudly wore on her ring finger.

Across the state, at the same time and in a similar manner, a young Seattle man by the name of Dan Hieronymus was making a decision about his life. He was 22, and beginning to think the deep thoughts of adulthood. “I was tired of hurting girls. I looked at the dating scene and thought there has to be more to life than this. I was beginning to think about my future children and wanted to lead my life the way I would want my children to lead theirs,” he says. Hieronymus also made a vow of abstinence and turned his back on dating.

It would be two more years until Hieronymus was 24 and Lotze was ending her reign as Spokane’s Lilac Queen, and they would meet at a church gathering. Hieronymus observed the ring on Lotze’s finger. “I was drawn to that about her,” he says. “I thought it was awesome. She was what I was looking for in a woman.”

True to the conservative pathways the two young people had chosen, Hieronymus went to Lotze’s father to ask his permission to court his daughter. Lotze said no. “I just didn’t think he was the one for Jessica,” says the 40-year-old pastor, who was wading into the uncharted waters of fatherhood with his oldest daughter.

Rather than give up, the suitor chose to look at the situation positively. “Another reason I was drawn to Jessica,” explains Hieronymus, “was the relationship she had with her family. I knew that how she respected and honored her father was how she would respect and honor me.” Hieronymus waited patiently.

Ten months later, the heart of the father turned. “Do you still want to court my daughter?” the pastor asked his daughter’s admirer. “Fireworks were going off,” says Hieronymus, now a sales rep for Power’s Candy.

With Lotze’s father’s blessing, the two young people devised a plan to keep their goals - and their souls - intact.

“Being physical is what leads people into trouble,” explains Lotze. “We wanted to pursue a friendship first.

“And if at any time either one of us would’ve felt the relationship should be stopped, we wouldn’t have given a piece of ourselves to one another.”

They made rules for their courtship. No physical contact. No hand-holding. No kissing. No being alone together. They went out only with groups of friends. Over the following seven months, the friendship grew. Finally it bloomed into a dozen roses and an on-the-knee proposal.

“I thought I was going to pass out,” Lotze confides happily. Yet the elation of the pending five-month engagement would not deter the couple from the promise that they’d made separately so many years before.

“We continued with the same standard, the same rules. And yes, the temptations just got greater and greater as we approached our wedding day,” explains Lotze, now 22. “Our personal decision (to not be physical and to not be alone together in a dating sense) was the key to our success.”

On July 20, 1996, Dan Hieronymus held his bride’s hand for the first time ever as he walked her up to the altar at their wedding. Toward the end of the ceremony, Lotze took a ring and the microphone into her hands.

“For the last six years,” she said, looking into her groom’s eyes, “God has held the key to my heart. And this day, I give that key to you.” She tucked her covenant ring into her husband-to-be’s hands.

Engstrom was in the audience.

“When Jessica gave Dan that covenant ring, I wished every teenager in the city could have been there to see it. I wish every child would at least have this opportunity to make the kind of choice that Jessica made,” she said.

With his new father-in-law officiating, Heironymus listened carefully for the words he was waiting to hear.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” said the pastor and father-of-the-bride. “And now, Dan, here’s the good news: You may kiss the bride!”

No tame kiss for the young couple’s first.

“It was quite flamey,” says Lotze, who took the name Hieronymus. “This was two years of building to this point. What a good reward! When the time came, God just took over, and it was really beautiful.

“Being with Dan was like I had been with him forever. I think that’s what God means when he says that he wants the best for us.”