I was having coffee with a younger girl before leaving for the World Race. We were chatting away when she said the dreaded and unexpected words….the words that stopped me dead in my tracks…”I think I am going to have sex with my boyfriend. I mean, I think that’s the next step in our relationship.” I don’t think I heard anything after that, although I knew she was still talking. She said it so nonchalantly, like she was telling me where they were going to dinner the next night. I could only think “I need to tell her to not have sex, right?” But, wait…what if she asks me if I have had sex? Do I tell her the truth or not? Do I even believe that? Then would I just be lying to her? At that very moment, I felt so unequipped, so inadequate to be a youth leader. Who am I to tell someone to not have sex outside of marriage, when I had engaged in that very behavior? 
I said my tearful goodbyes to the guy I was dating and to my family and after our first long plane ride to India, I decided I needed someone to talk to. I can’t explain the thoughts or feelings that were streaming through my body, but I knew something wasn’t right with me. It was that feeling when you know something bigger is happening. When you start to see a puzzle taking shape, but can't find all of the pieces quite yet. As I looked around at the faces of strangers I met just weeks before, I finally found someone I was able to feel somewhat safe talking to. As she listened to me, I opened up about my convictions. I told her my heart and that I was worried that I would be pregnant or that I was going to be punished for having sex before coming on the trip. She told me about the importance of marriage and blah blah blah is what I heard because my fears were overcoming the importance of the message she was sharing. Little did I know she was telling me the most important lesson I was going to learn on the Race.
Throughout this year, I have had the opportunity to process through the pain of my past relationships, see what a strong marriage in Christ looks like, and start to understand how my past mistakes have affected who I am today.
Along with countless conversations with the intelligent women on my squad, I have been reading a wonderful book called Sex and the Soul of a Women by Paula Rinehart, which has started the next chapter in my life in understanding why we as women do certain things and why it leaves us feeling an unexplainable way.
Where I am from, sex before marriage is not only condoned, but it is almost encouraged. From a very young age, I have thought it was a good thing to have sex before marriage, because “What if it isn’t good and then you waited! YIKES!” I have also heard it is good to move in with someone before marriage, because “What if they are terrible to live with and you didn’t find out until after marriage! CRAP!”
Do you know one thing that I had never heard…you are beautiful, you are loved, you are cherished, there is another way…
Has anyone ever told you that? Beloved daughter… you are cherished and there is another way.
Has anyone ever told you that the feelings that you feel after you have sex with someone are normal? Those gut wrenching feelings after you break up with someone you were intimate with are ok?
We as a society condone what I like to call “playing house.” I suppose dating has essentially turned into a trial run for marriage instead of a time of getting to know each other and a man courting a woman. Playing house (aka being intimate, sharing parts of your body/soul with someone, living with someone) is supposed to be shared with only your husband, so when you breakup it actually feels like a “mini-divorce.” And why wouldn’t it? You just shared your life with that person. I have had a couple “mini-divorces” and it took me separating myself from the crazy society that we live in to understand why I was left tear stained and heart broken for so many months after it all ended.
After many long discussions, tears, pain, and even some laughs it all started to become clearer. My heart was getting in the way of it all…my messy awestruck love seeking heart. I was allowing these men to be intimate with me and I was creating a soul tie with them. Being intimate with someone, means you are literally giving yourself to that person, you are forever bonding yourself with them. It might feel great at the time, but what about after the fact or after the breakup? It doesn’t feel so great then…As a woman can you honestly say that it is easy to “get over” someone you were intimate with? Or does it shake your core? Does it still hurt deep down in the places of your heart that only you can see?
In all of this, I think what scares me the most is that as women we tend to find our identity in men. But, what about when that man is gone? Then all we have left are the painful scars and the hope someone else we complete us.
We are right in thinking that we have someone else out there who will eventually complete us, but we are wrong in thinking that we should give everything to that person (our high school boyfriend, or some guy we went on a few dates with) before we are committing to marry them. Our hearts tend to intermingle when we are intimate with someone. We miss that the relationship isn’t “perfect.” I mean who cares if the sex is great, but we don’t have the same values! We can completely miss the most intimate and deep details of a person’s heart when we jump into their arms (or their bed) before getting to know them.
I think I knew all of this…I think I knew long before I had that conversation with her or before I stepped on that plane to India…I think God told me all along, “Daughter…you are worthy, you are loved, and your feelings are valid.” I think I knew I didn’t need to pretend I was someone else in my past relationships. I felt like a liar when I said I didn’t want a commitment or a family or love….I DID. What is so wrong with that? Where did those lies get me? They got me more broken promises and yet another failed relationship that ended in Nepal.
As Paula says, “The desire for a romance and the beauty of a good relationship, for deep connections with people that last through thick and thin, is like a homing device that God installs in our hearts early on. Unless we have completely short-circuited, this is the very desire that will lead us home, in the most real sense of the word. All real change of direction in our lives comes this way: We get a vision of what God has made us to experience, and we begin to walk toward that. Sometimes it’s the pain we’ve experienced that drives us down a new path. Sometimes it’s an intuitive sense that much more is possible in relationships with men. Perhaps the soul connections we’ve made with men in our pasts are bleeding over into our ability to give our hearts to the right man now. As women, we are designed for deep and lasting attachment- as someone’s daughter, mother, aunt, sister, friend, or wife. No matter what we achieve or accomplish, our lives are empty without relationships of duration or depth."
I am sure many of you have heard the quote, “You have the love life that you want.” Often times we are programmed to think we don’t have any options and that by changing ourselves we have found the “right one,” because after we have chipped and chiseled away we “fit.” But who wants someone that doesn’t love you for the beautiful mess that you are?
For all of my sisters who aren’t ever told this or who just need a reminder…
“You are meant to be loved and valued and cherished for the rest of your life by a man whose face lights up when he sees you.” Whether a woman marries or not, strength and respect are her God-given birthright. You can find the door out of destructive relationships with men and recover the parts of your heart and soul you may feel you’ve lost. It’s entirely possible.” -Paula Rinehart
…and I will keep reminding you that it is worth it. Worth it to wait for someone who loves ALL of you. For God has someone better in store for your future my daughter. Someone who loves you when your messy, sad, beautiful, tear stained, angry, full of joy, laughing, sick, on your worst days…someone who loves your drive, your passion, your past, your future, your dreams, your regrets…
For all of those beautiful princesses waiting for their prince…
just know, you are loved…
Thank you Christina for sharing the intimacy in your marriage
Thank you Amanda for being vulnerable and sharing the depths of your heart
Thank you Jaime for sharing the wisdom beyond your years
Thank you Angelique for helping me process in your creative ways
Thank you Carm for walking alongside me
Thank you Mom for always loving me through my mess
