Sunday, February 26, 2012

All the Juicy Details

I read an article today that my friend Steve Straza posted http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/28337-the-secret-sexual-revolution . It states that 80% of christian singles from age 18-29 are having sex. I was one of those statistics. Normally I think you’d be shocked and I should stay quiet and ashamed, but 80% of you are right there with me. Darkness and ignorance are powerful. They keep us bound and silent and when they aren’t dealt with they imprison the next generation.

I was always a good girl. I loved and pursued God with all of my heart! I loved Him, but I wasn’t sure what he thought about me. That belief and life’s trials left me very insecure. I was desperately searching for someone to define me; to find me precious, and beautiful, and special. I wanted to be chosen and prized. I wanted all of those things to be fulfilled by...a boy. I had many crushes but none of them chose me as their princess. Maybe they would have if they knew that I would have given anything; even that one sacred thing that can never be taken back. I would have slept with them if that’s what it took to be “loved”.
I had grew up in the church, I had been told that sex before marriage was wrong, that my virginity was sacred and meant for my husband. I knew it was good teaching, but I felt it was worth the risk if I could be chosen. Not everyone was “doing it” then. It wasn’t even on TV as much. I suspected that other christian adults I knew and respected had sex before marriage and they were all happily married and serving God and that to me made the virginity teaching just another one of those things we taught but didn’t follow. I remember one time after a convicting message on purity the speaker had us sign a paper promising we wouldn’t have sex before marriage. I desperately wanted to be all God expected and so I signed it. I hoped by making a promise to God, it would be serious to me not to break it and maybe I could stop thinking about giving myself away.

I made it through high school without having sex. The guys who liked me never had the guts to ask me out, so I was spared that temptation. Then I met this christian boy. Friends warned me not to date him because he had had sex before. It was really heart breaking because as much as I was willing to have sex I hadn’t and I wanted to marry someone who had also run the high school gauntlet and made it through. Somehow grace rose up in me and I forgave him and decided to date him. I was tormentingly shy around him. I literally could not talk. I couldn’t even form a sentence in my mind. It was crazy that he kept dating me. I really started to like him and he liked me because unlike the other girls he dated I was a “good girl”. We started with the good-bye kiss and then from there he kept moving me along the bases as most boys try to do. I didn’t want to lose him. He had chosen me! He was making me feel special! This will seem like a contradiction: he had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to have sex with the next person he dated (I was that person), he wanted to do it right this time. I on the other hand was thinking if I don’t have sex I’m going to lose him because the other girl was willing. I thought, “What’s the big deal anyway?” I didn’t get the value of sex, until I did it. I think he shook his head no at first, which is pretty good for a guy being offered sex from a girl he likes, but he of course gave in. It sucked! It was nothing like the movies! My immediate thought when we were done was, “I’m going to marry him”, and I did. To be honest I wasn’t even totally sure that I loved him, I just thought that was the way to make things right. Talk about risky! We faced hard times in our marriage as a result of this decision. We opened the door for shame and regret and doubt. The thing that kept us together at first was that we both really loved God and he kept us choosing to love each other. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone. He is my perfect opposite! Statistically a marriage that began like that doesn’t always work out! It could’ve gone another way too. He could’ve broken up with me and left me feeling more empty and desperate for love than before.

That whole story takes place while we are both attending church and pursuing God. We both experienced alot of guilt. I just kept telling myself that we were going to get married and make things right. I was just your average good church girl, from a good God-fearing family. My friends and I were very likely all going through the same struggles, but trying to keep our sins secret. I buried all my insecurities and hid them from my family, they wouldn’t have known I was in danger of making those choices. I think as mature adults it's so important to talk about the temptations and insecurities we’ve gone through instead of being ashamed of our sins and somehow hoping the next generation will do better than we did. I think if we bring things to light it would give us the opportunity to talk about this subject or at the very least allow for the grace of God. I think christians are the only people left on the planet who think that sex is private! No, I don’t want to know all the gross details of your personal life, but for goodness sake! us married adults have been there and obviously the teens we know want to have sex or are doing it already and the only way to make it all right is to shine light on it and drag this ugly shameful thing up out of the basement!