A Purity Lesson From The Author Of Romance, Part 2

If you haven't read part 1, you can find it here.

One night, after collapsing into my comfy purple recliner in my bedroom, I began to think about the things that had been happening. I noticed for the first time that God was speaking to me. Not through a powerful steady voice, but through other people, circumstances, and a restless spirit. I realized Jesus was calling me to have a different kind of romance, to live a different kind of life, to be able to offer a priceless purity to my future husband without any baggage.

I remembered the verse from the popular Proverbs 31, "she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." All the days meaning every single day. Every single day meaning.....


Now.


Then I actually realized, for the first time, that I have someone out there that God specifically designed for me. A real actual person, alive right now. For the first time in my life, I prayed for this guy. The thought of him actually being out there made me want to honor him even more. People usually only think of you as only being "taken" or "unavailable" when you're in a relationship, but Jesus showed me that technically my heart belonged to the person He had picked out for me from day one...unless I gave pieces of my heart to someone or something else. The purity right that I wear on my left ring finger every single day of my life suddenly took on a whole new meaning.


That same night I had a dream about my future husband. God revealed many valuable things to me in that dream, and in a way it was like the icing on the cake. Then I really knew that all this stuff lining up perfectly was no coincidence. He wanted me to live my single years set apart for my soul mate, focusing my eyes on Himself rather than flirting and getting mixed up in oceans of emotions. 


The word "courtship" came to my mind. Is that what God wanted for me?


Dating or courtship....whatever you choose to call it, I don't think there is a specific word God prefers. "Dating" is a hugely controversial word, and my beliefs tend to match up more on the side of courtship. My sister is in a relationship, though, and finds it easier to use the word dating, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get there.


What God revealed to me through this process was way more important that tirelessly trying to figure out what to call "it". He showed me that purity is so, sooo much more than saving sex for marriage. It's a lifestyle, a lifestyle of honoring Jesus and my future husband with my thoughts and interactions with other guys. 


And when that day comes and my love story begins, I will thank God for gently showing me His idea of purity. But until then I will enjoy every moment of intimacy with my First Love, the One who died to save me, the Ultimate Gentleman, the One whose love is unshakable and undeniable.


The One whose love alone will always, always be enough for me. 

A Purity Lesson From The Author Of Romance

Note: Before reading this, know that I have always planned on staying abstinent until marriage, always hoped only to go through one relationship, and never really believed in the whole "dating" scene. This is how God showed me a deeper meaning of the word pure.




Purity.

It was the word that seemed to come to my mind almost every time I would go to pray or read my Bible. It was also the same time that many guys my age began to come into my life. And well...we all know how that goes.

The first few times the word came to me, I would go flipping through the thousands of pages of my Bible trying to find more verses on it, but after a couple weeks of finding what seemed to be like a dead end, I gave up. I eventually forgot about it and thought that it must have all been in my head. About 2 months later, I randomly picked up the book "Being A Girl Who Serves" by Shannon Kubiak Primicerio, and to be honest, I expected it to be shallow.

By the end of chapter 1, I was pleasantly surprised at the message of the book. She talked about many things relating to servant hood, but one thing that really stood out to me was her talking about letting God speak to you, opening your spiritual ears to listen to Him, and the many ways He speaks into a persons' life. At the end of the chapter she challenges the readers to ask God to speak into their own lives, and that's exactly what I did. "Father, if there is something you are trying to speak to me about-anything-I open my heart to you."

As I continued to read the book, that continued to be my prayer. And no, I didn't have an angel show up to me in the middle of the night, and I didn't hear God's voice speaking through a burning bush. In fact, I didn't hear as much as a whisper. But I was sure He would be faithful in His own timing.

If any of you are familiar to the show "19 Kids & Counting", you know that they are a very strong Christian family with conservative values, "courtship" being one of them. While watching the show one day, they had a part of the episode where they talked about courtship. It was an episode that I had seen before, but for some reason it struck me differently this time. I watched the love story of the young couple carefully unfold, both of them fully dedicated to guarding their hearts, emotions, and bodies in a God-honoring way while they fell in love.

It was a beautiful thing to see, especially in comparison to the shallow flings I see happen so often in the culture around me. Neither of these two people had never dated or even had a "love interest" in their lives before, and they were both in their 20's and had never been kissed. The relationship was so pure and innocent though, and it really stirred my thoughts.

In the course of the next few days, I discovered an extremely thought-provoking article on "True Purity With Your Lifestyle" while reading a Christian magazine, had my youth leader text me and tell me that he was going to be talking about honoring God in relationships that week, and had my spirit become restless as my thoughts kept going to the word "purity". I started to pick up on the pattern. God was speaking into my life. And funny thing is, I didn't even remember that  just a few months back, my thoughts were on the very same word.


Stay tuned tomorrow night for part 2!