Consequences of Failed Purity

There is something written on the heart of every woman of God that sees strong, Godly male leadership and just wants to...get naked.

Hmm, that's not what I meant...

Oh, wait, that's exactly what I meant.

It's exactly the way we as believers are meant to respond to God's loving leadership. No, I don't mean get naked. :) But kind of! We see power and beauty and care and intention by someone we trust and come to respect, and when our hearts are tuned to it, we respond by wanting to draw closer to it, become one with it.

With that in mind, levels of intimacy are meant to progress at the same pace. I never made the delineation before between my personal spiritual life and the spiritual life of my (at the time) boyfriend. So for the longest time, I let my spirit and emotions progress at their respective paces--fast and completely unchecked. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do when you date with Godly intentions, right?

No, it's really not. He was not yet mine and I was not yet his. That business happens FAST unless you deliberately guard your heart and take things slow. And you must, because the physical will inevitably follow. It HAS to--all three are meant to progress in concert. I did not understand this. It made perfect sense to my heart that desired oneness to let our hearts grow intimate while trying to just tame the physical.

Well, frankly, it made sense because I was 19 and a naive idiot who completely lacked common sense in this area...but it made sense nonetheless.

Within the first week of dating, we were already building spiritual intimacy. We prayed together, studied the Bible together, worshipped together, wrote spiritual goals for us as a couple down in a journal...it's no wonder our first kiss was a makeout session. I had placed him in my heart as my spiritual leader from the second we started dating, and my heart and body, in turn, wanted to respond to him.

We, unfortunately but not surprisingly, had sex outside the covenant of marriage. This had consequences I didn't see coming.

Remember how I talked about how women of God respond to men of God? Yeah, that trust and respect was gone.

Let me be clear: the decision to have sex was completely mine--my responsibility, my free choice, my action, and my sin. The trust and respect I lost was just as much in myself as it was him. We had to tell ourselves a lot of lies in order to make what we did feel okay:

"We're already married in our hearts."
"We're getting married someday anyway."
"It's not cheap because we love each other."
"Everything else is progressing, it only makes sense that this does, too."
"We can't undo what we've done, so we might as well keep going."

During that time, I was racked with guilt. I knew I had messed up and felt completely helpless to change the pattern we had established. I looked to the man I was going to marry for mutual remorse...but by this time, he didn't seem to have any. This was DEVASTATING to me. He seemed resigned to it in his heart. I felt like I had lost an ally. I found out much later that he was dealing with his own private battles at this time. But still, from this time on, it felt like we were on completely different pages spiritually...

Because we screwed up, got married, and never repented together over what we'd done. We just kind of figured that we were married and everything was okay and permissible now, so why revisit the past, especially since we weren't on the same page?

Our hearts don't work that way, though. Because of the trust and respect I lost in us that we never addressed through repentance and healing, we were constantly out of step. I don't need to go into details, but suffice it to say that sex isn't the joyous expression of covenant love and complete trust when you know you're not being delighted in.

I've realized since the divorce that God designed things to happen in a certain order for a reason. He knows the human heart and all of its propensities so intimately. Personally speaking, He knows my propensity to fall hard and fast out of a desperate desire to be delighted in. This is something He gave me as a gift...but it's ultimately a longing to be delighted in eternally. Something that can only be filled by Someone who eternally delights in me...and also in the committed covenant relationship of a man who experiences and understands the same eternal longing.

Let me be clear again: I don't begrudge anyone a rough story. I've made (and make) considerable mistakes. But, church, the second your significant other says, "We're already married in our hearts," run for the hills. I mean it. Because if you really love me, you'll desire to protect my purity before God...emotionally, spiritually, AND physically.

Repentance is what marks a believer. Repentance is attractive. Get you some.