Dear Unforgiven,
In the eight grade I got a Claddagh ring and I put it on my thumb. The Claddagh ring has a lot of significance. It has two hands that wrap around and hold a heart between them and the heart has a crown on top of it. The hands represent friendship, the heart is for love and the crown is for loyalty. If you wear the ring upside down it means that you are single and if you wear the ring right side up it means you are in a relationship. I also made this ring my purity ring. I have had this ring on ever since the day I bought it, literally. I have gone through several surgeries and played a ton of soccer and never took it off, I’ve always just put tape around it. My left thumb is literally smaller around than my right because I’ve had it on for so long.
The past few years and more so the past few months I have really, really struggled with my self worth, self-esteem, love, sexual sin, and forgiveness. I started trying to find my worth in the wrong places. I have always loved soccer and been good at it. When I made varsity as a freshman in high school and was a starter I was overwhelmed with joy. But the following year I was moved to JV, and junior year I was cut all together, it destroyed my self worth. I began looking for my worth in people, partying, my looks, and boys.
I had given myself fully to a boy who I thought loved me, who said he cared for me, who promised me so many things, who had money and a nice car and bought me nice things. So much of my worth came from him. I cried for months after having lost my virginity to him and then I slowly stopped crying because I believed he cared about me and if sex is what he wanted then sex is what I gave him. A while later, I found out he had been cheating on me. For months and months he had been doing this. I went numb. I told myself the only reason he stuck around was because we were having sex and that is what I was worth.
Sex became no big deal. Society puts this image on sex that we should be having it with whoever, whenever. “Go home with the random guy from the bar”, “Sleep with whoever you want”, “You haven’t slept with someone in a week, OMG!” I believed every word. And I listened. I was so numb and after a certain point I just told myself, “Screw it, I will never, ever be able to get my virginity back. I will never again be pure or clean. Its to late for me to change now.” I continued to believe the lies of the world and the lies out of boys’ mouths, and the lies I told myself.
For so long I have struggled with this. Being numb only feels okay for little while and then the numbness turns to hurt and that hurt builds and not only affects you but everyone around you. I would meet a new guy that I liked and they wouldn’t want to be with me because they had heard that I had “gotten around.” My image was destroyed and I was to blame.
When I was in Thailand we worked with women you were forced into and stuck in prostitution. These women are forced into prostitution in various ways. The most common one I found was by an enticing job offer. Someone would come to where they lived and tell their parents that they had a job for their daughter. They would tell the family that she would be serving in a high-end restaurant making a ton of money. They told them that she would make so much money doing this that each week/month she would send money home to them to support them. Women were tricked into moving long distances and families never questioned it because it sounded legit and they were sent money often. These girls did not choose this life, they don’t choose to go into bars night after night and be forced into having sex with strangers and men they don’t know. They did not choose to be put through this. Night after night they live through Hell and cannot get out. When I was in Thailand and heard some of their stories it made me sick to my stomach. In America sex is no big deal. Americans are encouraged through social media, movies, magazines, and ads to have lots of sex and no regrets. Americans chose to do what the Thai women are forced into doing. I chose to live a life that the women I was trying to help were forced into living. I could stop if I chose to, they couldn’t. This thought has haunted me.
I have been working so hard for months to turn around my life and change my ways and be better. I have changed more in the past 8 months than I have in my entire life combined. I have struggled with my self worth and forgiveness a ton in these past 8 months. I have not felt pure, or clean, or changed when it came to my sexual sin. I knew for a fact that God had forgiven me and saw me as clean and pure. But I wanted to be able to forgive myself and love myself and see myself as clean and pure. I have been one hundred percent convinced that no man would ever love me or accept me or see me through Gods eyes because I was so unclean and so impure. There is a song by Natalie Grant called “Clean” and it has played a huge part in my thought process with this. The first few verses of the song say this, “I see shattered, you see whole. I see broken, you see beautiful. And you are helping me to believe, you’re restoring me piece by piece. There’s nothing to dirty, that you can’t make worthy. You wash me in mercy. I am clean. There’s nothing to dirty, that you can’t make worthy. You wash me in mercy. I am clean.” If I had a dollar for every time I sat and listened to this song and just wept.
For a long time I have tried to make these changes on my own. I know, how silly of me. I finally got connected at church, became a member, joined a life group, joined a singles study, and started a bible study weekly with my mom. I would not have been able to make a change without their support, love, wisdom and prayers. I was the one who turned from God and it pains me to think I ever put my worth in something other than Him.
On Monday in my bible study with my mom, our chapter was about rejection and guilt. I was able to open up to her and was really moved by this chapter. We listened to the song Clean by Natalie Grant, and she rubbed my back while I cried. I started doing little things to remind myself of my self worth and prayed to God to help me forgive myself and feel pure. Last night as I was sitting in my car about to get out, the coolest thing happened. Without touching a single thing my Claddagh ring broke. The hands holding the heart just broke away from the rest of the ring. It didn’t get stuck on anything or snag or hit something, it just broke. At first I was mad because it’s my favorite ring and its been on my finger forever! And then I looked at it and it was not in the shape of a circle, it was all bent and bumpy and beat up looking. I pictured the not so circular part of the ring as being the old me. The unclean, impure, not worthy of being loved…me. And the hands holding the heart were Gods hands. I had let go of my impurity and given my heart to God to make clean. He took my heart in his holy, almighty hands and said, “Behold, you are in me, you are a new creation. The old you has passed away and the new you has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I AM CLEAN! I AM NEW! I AM PURE! I AM BEAUTIFUL! I AM WORTHY! I AM A DAUGHTER OF THE KING! HIS BLOOD HAS WASHED OVER ME AND MADE ME WHITE AS SNOW!
I told my mom all about this amazing thing God had done. We then picked out a new Claddagh ring. A new, pretty, perfect, clean, circular (ha), ring. When I get this ring in the mail I will have it blessed by my pastor. I will wear it every day to remind myself that I was made new. I will never forget what God has done for me. I am “clothed with strength and dignity.” (Proverbs 31:25).
Sincerely,
FREEDOM
