Wow. This is the best way I've ever heard someone explain why it's important to keep yourself pure (generally in reference to sexual purity) until you get married. I found this paragraph on Solo Femininity and I was blown away by how bang-on she was. (You can click on the link for the entire article). Basically the author (Carolyn McCulley) was responding to an email from a 39 yr-old woman who had kept herself pure but was starting to give up hope for a husband and didn't think she could hang on any longer.
Here is part of Carolyn's response:
The finish line is not the marriage altar, as good and right as marriage can be. The finish line is seeing your Lord and Savior face to face, in glory. Don't forget that when temptation comes around. You must remember that you are keeping yourself pure because it's your spiritual act of worship and praise (Romans 12:1-3)--not just because of the hope of a future husband. If you get married, your husband will no doubt praise you for your self-control and the gift of your purity to him. But your primary motivation must be to please your Savior, marriage or not.
Sometimes we forget that our primary reason for doing anything or pleasing anyone should be to please our Saviour. Any other reasons are secondary.
Thanks to Carolyn (also an older, single woman) for keeping things in perspective.
(Also check out this article she wrote about sinful judgement - I'm halfway through and it's enough to cause me to recommend it!)
that is a good quote. I think I'll use it. :)
ReplyDeletegood to have you back.
I agree with Deb. Thanks for the post Vanessa!!
ReplyDeleteI stole the book idea from the link on here, the ladies web page. Honestly it took some time to figure out the coding but basically I just put in the photo tags from photobucket where I uploaded the book images and then made them link to the appropriate website... let me know if you want me to send you a copy of the coding.
ReplyDelete