Sex--It's Complicated.
We don't want it to be. We want it to be a simple yes or no answer. We want clear lines. We want boundaries.
But we also was the answer to align with what we want. We want to blur lines for our own happiness. We want to cross boundaries because it feels good.
Until it doesn't feel good.
Until it doesn't make us happy.
Until we find out that it wasn't what we wanted at all.
One of the most influential books for my life, When God Writes Your Love Story," but Eric and Leslie Ludy, opened my eyes to something I had never considered when it came to sex. In a chapter that Leslie writes, she says:
"Maybe you have learned the hard lesson that casually giving yourself away physically causes incredible pain--you feel guilty, dirty and used afterwards. But have you ever though of your HEART as a treasure every bit as valuable as your physical purity?"
Growing up in a small Lutheran Vs. Catholic town, I learned quickly and at a young age that sex was bad. Period. And since feral law prohibits schools from teaching anything other than abstinence in sex education, I didn't learn anything different. Even from my incredibly loving parents. My mother and stepdad's sex talk was simply, "don't." and My father and stepmom gave me a purity ring at the age of 12 because they "care very much about me and want me to do what is best for me." Now that one confused me. Here is a ring binding you to your virginity until marriage--but do what is best for you...? Right. Got it...
To be very truthful, I'm not sure that I will ever, even in the 'right' context associate sex without guilt on a subconscious level because of my upbringing. Especially since I had to learn things the hard way because no one had the courage to speak openly with me about it. And furthermore, no one seemed to care about me, Jada Plath, but only about Jada Plath's virginity, as though that was my identifier and made up who I was at my core.
If you combine this ignorant teaching of sex education with fear and lack of communication and the fact that Oxford's dictionary named 2016's Word of The Year "Post-truth," We as a society and as a Christian Community are in for a world of hurt.
Post-truth is this idea that your reality is not my reality and what is true for me is not necessarily true for you. That spreads like wildfire into our morals. Because of this post-truth, teens are retreating to this idea that just because my parent's waited to have sex until they were married and just because it is what the Bible says to do, doesn't mean that it applies to me.
THIS IS WRONG.
Not in a post-truth, wrong for me kind of way, but wrong for Christians as a whole. We need to fight post-truth with scripture and faith in the Lord. Post-truth doesn't apply to you. You are God's children and He has given you rules like a parent does, not to lord them over you and control you but to protect you from hurt. God isn't concerned about your virginity, God is concerned about you as a person. He cares about your heart and your emotions.
In the early church, Christians had a lot of high standards that they held one another to: one of them, was sexual purity. This meant that you were celibate or married and if you were married, you were loyal. This wasn't because Christians are a bunch of prudes but in fact because they respected life. There wasn't birth control to protect anyone from STI's or from unwanted pregnancy. So if anyone was going to have a baby, they wanted it to be taken care of by two loving and healthy parents.
Now, of course we have birth control methods that help to prevent those things, but I think the idea still remains. Christians care about and respect life. Good life, for that matter. Heart break, empty feelings, strings of boyfriends or girlfriends that hurt us and lower our self-esteem and break us: these things are NOT good life.
I want to be clear. I will never teach abstinence only, purity pep-rally classes. I will never shame or belittle or look down on someone who loses their virginity before marriage. None of these things are my job. My job is to show students what scripture says and to help them talk to God about their sexuality. I am here for these students. I care about their hearts, not their v-card. Do I think they go together, yes. Will these students ever be thinking about what I said at youth group while they are "watching Star-wars in the basement"? No.
My hope and prayer and goal here, in these next few weeks, is that our students will learn something about their faith when it comes to their sexuality, and when it comes time for them to consider if they are 'ready to have sex,' I pray that they will talk to God about it, talk to one another about it, and someone they trust about it.
But we also was the answer to align with what we want. We want to blur lines for our own happiness. We want to cross boundaries because it feels good.
Until it doesn't feel good.
Until it doesn't make us happy.
Until we find out that it wasn't what we wanted at all.
One of the most influential books for my life, When God Writes Your Love Story," but Eric and Leslie Ludy, opened my eyes to something I had never considered when it came to sex. In a chapter that Leslie writes, she says:
"Maybe you have learned the hard lesson that casually giving yourself away physically causes incredible pain--you feel guilty, dirty and used afterwards. But have you ever though of your HEART as a treasure every bit as valuable as your physical purity?"
Growing up in a small Lutheran Vs. Catholic town, I learned quickly and at a young age that sex was bad. Period. And since feral law prohibits schools from teaching anything other than abstinence in sex education, I didn't learn anything different. Even from my incredibly loving parents. My mother and stepdad's sex talk was simply, "don't." and My father and stepmom gave me a purity ring at the age of 12 because they "care very much about me and want me to do what is best for me." Now that one confused me. Here is a ring binding you to your virginity until marriage--but do what is best for you...? Right. Got it...
To be very truthful, I'm not sure that I will ever, even in the 'right' context associate sex without guilt on a subconscious level because of my upbringing. Especially since I had to learn things the hard way because no one had the courage to speak openly with me about it. And furthermore, no one seemed to care about me, Jada Plath, but only about Jada Plath's virginity, as though that was my identifier and made up who I was at my core.
If you combine this ignorant teaching of sex education with fear and lack of communication and the fact that Oxford's dictionary named 2016's Word of The Year "Post-truth," We as a society and as a Christian Community are in for a world of hurt.
Post-truth is this idea that your reality is not my reality and what is true for me is not necessarily true for you. That spreads like wildfire into our morals. Because of this post-truth, teens are retreating to this idea that just because my parent's waited to have sex until they were married and just because it is what the Bible says to do, doesn't mean that it applies to me.
THIS IS WRONG.
Not in a post-truth, wrong for me kind of way, but wrong for Christians as a whole. We need to fight post-truth with scripture and faith in the Lord. Post-truth doesn't apply to you. You are God's children and He has given you rules like a parent does, not to lord them over you and control you but to protect you from hurt. God isn't concerned about your virginity, God is concerned about you as a person. He cares about your heart and your emotions.
In the early church, Christians had a lot of high standards that they held one another to: one of them, was sexual purity. This meant that you were celibate or married and if you were married, you were loyal. This wasn't because Christians are a bunch of prudes but in fact because they respected life. There wasn't birth control to protect anyone from STI's or from unwanted pregnancy. So if anyone was going to have a baby, they wanted it to be taken care of by two loving and healthy parents.
Now, of course we have birth control methods that help to prevent those things, but I think the idea still remains. Christians care about and respect life. Good life, for that matter. Heart break, empty feelings, strings of boyfriends or girlfriends that hurt us and lower our self-esteem and break us: these things are NOT good life.
I want to be clear. I will never teach abstinence only, purity pep-rally classes. I will never shame or belittle or look down on someone who loses their virginity before marriage. None of these things are my job. My job is to show students what scripture says and to help them talk to God about their sexuality. I am here for these students. I care about their hearts, not their v-card. Do I think they go together, yes. Will these students ever be thinking about what I said at youth group while they are "watching Star-wars in the basement"? No.
My hope and prayer and goal here, in these next few weeks, is that our students will learn something about their faith when it comes to their sexuality, and when it comes time for them to consider if they are 'ready to have sex,' I pray that they will talk to God about it, talk to one another about it, and someone they trust about it.
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