I went on a journey two years ago, in which I vowed to never give myself away to another man without his commitment to me and his vow in marriage. Most importantly, I would honor God with my body.
See, I endured years and years of not honoring God. Giving myself away to men, who didn’t deserve me. In return, I was left used, abused, confused and mistreated. Not to mention, the deep emotional void I felt when these relationships or situation-ships ended. I grew tired of that feeling. I no longer wanted to deal with the strongholds attached to giving myself away to someone.
Throughout my abstinence journey, I found me in a sense. I felt more in control of me, my body and my life. I developed courage and self-value that I am very proud of. I now embrace the challenge of loving someone and them loving me for simply who I am and who they are without our judgement being clouded. I appreciate the simplicity of getting to know someone, purely. I love knowing that there will be a prize at the end of courtship. I want to gift my husband with the newly untouched version of me.
I was recently placed in a situation where I had to witness testimonies of alleged sexual harassment. While sitting and listening to the grueling details of comments, conversations and experiences, I thought about how the lustful desires of sex was the driving factor to this situation. The problem is that sex is often misused and abused and most individuals don’t know how to tame it for its appropriateness.
Abstinence has taught me to tame my desires. Yes, I enjoy sex and miss it and look forward to the day where I can have at it with my husband, endlessly (lol). However, if me rejecting my sexual desires keeps me out of trouble, then I’m okay with that. I don’t have to worry about any sexual harassment accusations; pregnancy scares; having to be tested and possibly treated for STDs; and most importantly, the strings of emotions that sex leaves behind. Not to mention, I have now developed a form of self-control and delayed self-gratification that can benefit in every other area of my life.
Devon Franklin and Meagan Good talk about in their book The Wait, that if a person can’t control sexual desires before the marriage, they won’t be able to control them within the marriage either. And there stems a whole other set of problems. We have to learn to tame those desires. For so long, sex controlled my life. I mean, that was the one thing that I knew how to get right in a relationship. It was good and I was good at it, but every other aspect in the relationship wasn’t. Of course, I will deal with rejection from men and being ridiculed by others because of my choice, but that’s okay. I even remember someone telling me that no man would ever go for that and that I would be single forever. And that’s okay too. Whatever God’s will is for my life!
The beauty in this is that God gifts us another chance, another opportunity to get things right every day that we wake. It’s up to us to take advantage of that. I encourage you all, to save yourselves for marriage. Yes, it’s the uncommon thing to do but that’s why you were uniquely and wonderfully created. Honor God in your relationships and give your future spouse the gift of the pure you………BeGREAT and do great things!
