Thursday, April 7, 2016

The danger of "YOLO"

It has been almost a year since I got married. It's hard to believe yet I know we are still newlyweds.
There have been many ups and downs and many challenges I was surprised to deal with.
A big one has been the reality of the baggage from my past.
Though God has done an amazing work in forgiving and healing me, there is still a lot more to do.
The main purpose for this post is that I really want to share the reality of sexual sin. I know I've written about it before and for many people it's a very taboo subject but I think it's too important not to expose the devastating affects of this sin in the fiber of a person. I know many of you may be reading this and thinking, "Pfft, what does she know? I'm fine, I can handle a lifestyle like this. It's not affecting me at all." And to that I say, you are deceived and you don't even realize it.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 says, "Everything is permissible for me"- but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me" - but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food" - but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Honoring God with our body is something that doesn't seem to be very common in our culture, inside the church as well as outside of it. If you don't belong to God, you probably dismiss this passage completely like you would the rest of Scripture. And though this is written to believers, (in Corinth it was especially important because the temple of the love goddess Aphrodite was there. This temple employed more than a thousand prostitutes as priestesses, and sex was a part of the worship ritual. Paul clearly states that Christian are to have no part in sexual immorality, even if it is acceptable and popular in our culture.) This doesn't sound too far from what our current culture is like.
So although it was written to believers there is still a deep wound that sexual immorality leaves even in non Christians because sex was never meant to be just a careless act. It was meant to be within the protection of a true commitment, that true commitment being marriage.
This is something that I rolled my eyes at. I thought it was an outdated "rule" and I figured I could handle doing whatever I wanted and not be affected at all. I was deceived.

The notes in my NIV Bible spoke a lot of clarity and truth on the subject of sex outside of marriage:

Christians are free to be all they can be for God, but they are not free from God. God created sex to be a beautiful and essential ingredient of marriage, but sexual sin - sex outside of the marriage relationship - always hurts someone. It hurts God because it shows that we prefer following our own desires instead of the leading of the Holy Spirit. It hurts others because it violates the commitment so necessary to a relationship. It often brings disease to our bodies. And it deeply affects our personalities, which respond in anguish when we harm ourselves physically and spiritually.

The part that hit be deepest in this paragraph is "it deeply affects our personalities, which respond in anguish when we harm ourselves physically and spiritually."  The choices I made to indulge in sex outside of marriage continues to have impact on my personality. There are times I struggle with self hatred, rejection, loneliness, fear, unworthiness, and the list goes on. God has done tremendous work in these areas but there is a lot more work to be done. 
Being married to the man God brought me is wonderful and amazing and God has used my husband to bring healing to so much of my brokenness. But he can't fix everything because he can't see everything the way God sees it. God knows the deep, deep scars that still remain due to my past choices. He knows what triggers memories and thoughts of self hatred more than I know what triggers those thoughts. At times I can't seem to find a way to stop those thoughts and can quickly get swept away into a pit of self pity and despair which can last from one day to a month.

This is the baggage I didn't realize I still carried. This is the personality change that has occurred in me due to my choices in the past. Or perhaps better said, these are the challenges that come up due to my past.

However, my personality has changed. When I was younger I was carefree and can remember feeling very passionate about not wanting to give up my virginity before I got married. (My whole testimony is a different and more detailed post read it here). But after I made the choice not to wait a lot about who I was changed. I didn't understand how to receive appropriate affection from men because most of the affection I did receive was usually sexual. So I started pulling away from my family, especially my Dad. I no longer felt comfortable around him, not because of him, but because of how I allowed myself to be treated by boys. I started comparing myself more and more with other girls and celebrities in movies, etc. I wanted guys to want me so if I didn't look like what I saw on T.V. I desperately did whatever I could to try to be as attractive as possible. This never seemed to work so the self hating thoughts would come and rejection would set it and push me into a downward spiral of depression. Yes indeed, my personality changed.

Now, years later, after the work that God has done, I still battle. The war isn't over in my mind and satan knows where to attack.

The lie I think people believe is that once you find someone who loves you and is committed to you, you won't have feelings of rejection anymore. That is not true. I love my husband very much, I'm beyond blessed to have him in my life and as I said earlier, God has used him in very very powerful ways to help me in this healing journey. But there are things he simply cannot fix, he is not my savior. Jesus Christ is my Savior and only through His affirmation, love, and healing can I have victory in this war. My husband is a weapon in it, but he alone can't proclaim victory for me.

If you are still reading and you don't care about God and think I'm crazy and that none of it applies to you, I still challenge that.

Even if you aren't a believer but you've indulged in sexual immorality, it has changed you. As my sister would say "how does your heart feel?" You've been with guy after guy, or maybe just one or two men, either way, how would say your heart has felt after they left you, after they rejected you and kicked you to the curb? You were hurt, broken, and found yourself feeling so bitter that you just wanted to "screw over every guy to get back and them" so you decided to spend your life going to bars, hooking up, and convincing yourself you won't get emotionally attached and had the attitude of "who cares, I only have one life to live ("YOLO" which is foolishness), so let's party and forget about the consequences." Maybe you're living that way right now.

Whatever place you're in, this is a warning
.

You will be changed. You will be broken. You will find it hard to commit, love and accept love. Stop the behavior now. Do whatever it takes. Find new friends, move out of his/her house...if a person doesn't love you enough to prove their commitment by marriage, they don't love you. This may sound harsh and you're thinking "you don't know my boyfriend/girlfriend, they do love me and they are committed!" Are YOU committed? Do you value yourself enough to not allow someone to use you?

Listen, you are probably thinking that I sound like a completely crazy, old fashioned, religious nut. But my heart in writing this, GOD'S heart for YOU, is that you experience all that sexual intimacy can be but the only way to do that is within marriage. I am telling you that the longer you keep living that lifestyle, the more baggage you will be carrying into a marriage if you ever get that far. You will be affected, deeply affected. Do you want to be different? Stand up against sex before marriage, don't go with the crowd. So many teenagers these days (I also used to think this way) want to be different than everyone else, they want to seem cooler, or more hip, or more edgy. You know the BEST way to do that, is to turn away from what everyone else does. Choose to wait. It's not too late even if you've already gone too far, you can choose from this moment on, to live a life of abstinence. This means not only refraining from intercourse with someone, it also means any other sexual acts as well as pornography or fantasizing. I am choosing to be blunt in saying these things because all too often people talk about purity meaning just keeping away from pre-marital sex but it is so much deeper than that.

I love you, GOD loves you too much to not warn you of the impending danger of sexual immorality.


May our innocence be restored....



-Brit