It’s Your Turn!
We’ve spent the last week or so sharing purity stories (in case you hadn’t noticed)…each of us has been walking a path that the Lord has used to teach us the price and value of purity.
Lauren shared that purity in our lives reflects our relationship with the Lord–we’re not supposed to daydream about other lovers, but we’re supposed to love the Lord purely! She also shared that meeting the “perfect” man wasn’t a signal to lay down her arms and give in–it was actually just a stronger call to keep fighting the battle–even protecting her physical purity during her engagement so that she could give herself entirely to her husband on her wedding day! And as a married woman, she shared that the same love that inspires “keeping” as a single woman, inspires “giving” as a married woman.
Megan shared the power of God’s redeeming love as the basis for all purity. With that in mind, pride doesn’t lead us to true purity. She expressed that purity is far more than physical boundaries–that it begins with a pure mind and heart and humility! She also shared how God’s powerful love can redeem even our mistakes and sanctify them for our growth and use them for our blessing! As a wife and mother (with a fifth on the way!), a pure mind and heart are no less important now!
Amy shared that an invaluable secret to protecting “chastity” is godly accountability–particularly parents! Contentment is an act of trust and the foundation for trust is knowing and understanding God’s character–that He is good and gives good gifts. Even when “Mr. Right” entered her life, the Lord still had growth planned for her! And even after her marriage, she has learned that contentment is still an act of trust! The day we trust the Lord is only the beginning of a life of trusting.
Sarah shared the struggle of learning to balance preparation and training to be a godly wife and mother with the commands to guard her heart and keep her daydreams focused on the Lord. One day she came to her parents. “For my entire life you have been grooming me to be a wife and mother. What am I supposed to do, erase 16 years of brainwashing from my head?” She also shared the struggle of balancing a godly friendship with the teasing of “helpful friends” and her own desires for a godly husband. She also shared how we can tend to trust “good things” that the Lord provides, instead of simply trusting the Lord.
Ana Marie shared the importance of filling our lives with the right things–nature abhors a vacuum, and where there is nothing, usually there is plenty of room for stumbling! She shared the value of a tender conscience and also the power of confessing even motives to her father. She also shared how necessary it is to guard our brothers–hearts and eyes–in worship to the Lord.
Abigail shared the danger of creating “high ideals” that are often founded in pride instead of in scripture–since they set us up for failure! God doesn’t promise us our ideal–no matter how we behave. He just commands us to obey Him. She also shared the importance of understanding that both marriage and singleness are pure–and glorify God when submitted to Him. And she shared the the call never changes–regardless of circumstances, pressures or temptations. Purity must start and end in love–love for the Lord first and then love for His people–all of them.
Now it’s your turn! We want to hear how the Lord has convicted you and how you’ve responded to the call to purity! Leave your thoughts and/or post a link(s) to your story in the comments below!
Blessings!
Sarah’s Paradox
Sarah’s Story
Lauren gives some history: Sarah is a dear friend whom I met nearly 11 years ago when I first started attending a wonderful little Bible church back in my home state of Texas. It was the beginning of high school, and I was a one-year-old believer. I didn’t fit in all that well with churched kids, since I was mostly Bible-illiterate. But Sarah was one of the first people to welcome me and made me feel right at home (dispelling any stereotypes I may have held about homeschoolers). Eight years later my then-fiance Nathaniel and I attended her wedding to Evan, and a few months after that, she was one of my bridesmaids. Nathaniel and I still try to get together with our wonderful friends whenever we’re in the same state! It’s always a great time of fellowship, sharing what the Lord is doing in our lives. I hope you’ll enjoy as Sarah shares her story. P.S. You might happen to recognize her husband, Evan…he played the evil reporter on “The Widow’s Might.”Have you always desired to be a homemaker? What inspired your desire to marry and keep a home?
I have the blessing of being the daughter of a very godly woman, an amazing teacher, and a homemaker extraordinaire! From as early as I can remember she poured her life into teaching me to love our Lord and others and to live to serve. The older I get, the more I realize how she threw her intelligence, creativity, energy, diligence, and love into every task, even the most mundane, and how she shaped and guided my development as a young woman through her example and through her teaching. By living in her home, I never saw homemaking as an inferior choice or something to be done in half measures. It always seemed such a high calling, to be a teacher, chef, interior decorator, advisor, accountant, and so much more…just like my mother. Now I am even more amazed at all she did and how her love for the Lord permeated her life at home. I still want to be just like her when I grow up…
Was it difficult desiring a godly husband and home before the Lord brought it about? How did you guard your heart and keep focused on the Lord?
One day when I was about 17, I realized the paradox of wanting to be a homemaker. I sat down with my parents and said “Ok…so, for my entire life you have been grooming me to be a wife and mother. When I help Mama in the kitchen it is “so that you can be a good wife.” When I am playing with a neighbor’s child, you say “You’ll be such a good mom!” When I am in charge of preparing meals one day a week, it’s so that I can be ready to run a home of my own. When I work in the garage with Daddy, it’s “your husband will love working with you if you…” When I get ready to teach the younger kids at our church, you say “Here’s something that you can do someday with your kids!” Everything you taught me aims toward a husband and a home! Then, as soon as I am close to the age to be able to actually think about having a husband and a home, all I hear is “Don’t think about it! Don’t pursue it!” What am I supposed to do, erase 16 years of brainwashing from my head?” (As you can tell from this conversation, I am still learning the whole gentle and quiet thing!)
My parents have hearts that are captive to the Word of God, so they understood my dilemma and gave me godly advice for the next years of my life. They told me, “You are right…there is a paradox there. You (rightfully so!) desire something that you cannot actively pursue. But here is what you need to do: Pursue serving the Lord. Cultivate the gifts that He has given you to the best of your ability, and prepare to spend your life serving Him – either alone or with a husband. That is what He has called you to do.”
We talked about my goal of going to school and earning a teacher’s credential lest I ever need one in order to homeschool my kids. We talked about the love and facility that the Lord had given me for language. We talked about some options that I should pursue with my life. But I was still struggling. “So you mean that you want me to just go on blissfully planning my life as a single woman and then just drop the things that I am pursuing if a man walks into my life?”
Their answer: “Quite possibly!” Of course, my independent spirit rankled at the thought of having to set aside my own plans. I would much rather have just married before I had plans I would have to give up! Why go to all the trouble of making plans only to drop them like a hot potato? Wouldn’t that mean that my plans were not really a part of God’s will for my life? Was I being rebellious to pursue something other than being a wife and mother?
Then my mom gave me an analogy I have never forgotten. “Sarah, when is it easiest to steer a car? Can you steer a parked car? No! But when a car is moving at an appropriate speed, it is no problem to direct it wherever you need to go. Think of your life like a car. If you sit there, you are making it more difficult for God to steer you. Just start moving! He’ll guide the course of your life, sometimes in directions opposite from your plans. But if you are willing to submit to His “steering”, you are not sinning when you start moving.”
How did you spend your single years? What were the blessings of this time period? Do you have any regrets?
With this advice from my parents, I went to college at Oklahoma Baptist University and earned a degree in Spanish Education, allowing me to be credentialed to teach K-12. During this time, the Lord blessed me, taught me more that I could ever imagine, and prepared me for where He has placed me now. My first year away from home I learned that all my life I had been saying that I trusted and depended on God, but when I was removed from all my “props” – my family, friends and church – He showed me that I had really been trusting in those good things rather than solely on Him. It was a difficult but sweet time of drawing near to the Lord in dependence, realizing my desperate need for His grace and strength each day. Through those four years, He blessed me with some wonderful, godly friends, and allowed me to learn how to be an excellent teacher through the classes I took.
How did you and Evan meet and marry? What drew you to Evan? How did you approach purity in your pre-marriage relationship?
Evan and I had actually known each other since junior high. We had been quite good friends as young teenagers. I loved the way he would sit and talk with me about things that mattered! As we grew to be good friends, people started teasing us about liking each other. I was so concerned that our friendship would be ruined that I didn’t even consider romantic attraction an option. (Evidently Evan’s view differs here – he was just biding his time…) As Evan started college and then I went away to school as well, we gradually stopped seeing each other as much at church and with our families, who were good friends as well.
As I finished my sophomore year of college, I spent a month in Venezuela with some missionaries, came home, and prepared for my junior year. I felt that it was a point at which I needed to decide what I wanted to pursue after college. If I wanted to be a missionary or a teacher, it would take planning to be ready as soon as I graduated. I was very worried, and once again had a long conversation with my mother about what to pursue as a young single woman who wanted to serve the Lord. Oh, and I should mention that the winter before I had developed a very bad crush on Evan…
Lo and behold, the very week that I finally stopped worrying about my future and trusted the Lord to continue guiding my life as I pursued Him, Evan asked me to start courting him! We enjoyed a year and a half of deepening our already-existent friendship, thinking and praying about our futures, and spending time together without being teased incessantly by our friends. We were careful to be together only in our families’ homes or in public places during this time. Physically, we moved along slowly, only progressing to hand-holding after a year of going out together. Looking back, we chuckle about the awkwardness of a relationship where you are aiming toward marriage but must be careful to remain pure. Thanks to the Lord and to being surrounded by friends and family with high standards, we do not feel that we were overly tempted to be impure during our courtship. Following our parents’ advice, and due to the Lord’s timing, we were only engaged for a short period of time (3 months), which was a great aid in maintaining purity. Even those three months almost seemed too long to wait! We were happily married in July 2007…after approximately 8 years of friendship and 2 years of courting.
How has God sovereignly worked in your life to prepare you for serving Him with Evan?
It has been so wonderful to see the small ways in which the Lord prepared me to be Evan’s helper. My mom loved music, so I grew up in a home where it was always played and where I was encouraged to play and sing to the Lord. Evan is a very skilled musician and a choir teacher, so now I can relate to the things he loves the most. Also, while I am not the most spontaneous and flexible person, my father was, and my husband also is. In learning to submit to and serve my father, I learned many little lessons that have helped me submit to and serve my husband.
What have been some of the challenges and rewards of making a home for your husband?
I think my favorite part of making a home for Evan is that he loves having people over to visit and fellowship. It is so rewarding to prepare my home to be an inviting place where he can carry out his ministry of hospitality. Ministering at his side in our home, at church, and with unbelievers in our community is such a privilege!
As a married woman, are there struggles to be content? Is the purity struggle still alive?
Um, yes! It is SO important to realize that home, husband, job, child, and circumstance have NOTHING to do with being content! Contentment is resting in God and delighting in His provision, no matter what is in my life at the moment. The sad thing is, no matter how He blesses, my sinful heart still finds something to complain about. It is my daily battle to find joy in the moments and the circumstances that God sovereignly places in my life.
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His Perspective…On Respect
Valentine’s Day conjures up thoughts of red foil, powdered candy hearts, oozing chocolate cakes and over-the-top sentimentalism all wrapped up in a hazy misunderstanding of the word “love.” To the world, love is a feeling, coming and going on the winds of time, age, business and beauty, pronounced in words that pass away and proudly displayed through things destined to perish with the using. The disciple Jesus loved gives those of us who would understand true love a great reminder: “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in action and truth.” (1 John 3:18 ) English teachers will insist that love is an abstract noun—an idea. Scripture tells us it’s a verb. Sisters, let’s stop just using empty words to express love. Let’s really get active about loving according to the truth of scripture!
Paul, the bond-slave of the Lord, never mentioned flowers or chocolate or candlelight dinners, but he did give some excellent advice for godly love and relationships. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church…and let the woman see to it that she respect her husband.” (From Ephesians 5:22-33–we really recommend reading the whole passage). In the literal Greek the word for “husband” is really just “man”, plain and simple, and we believe that the respect factor applies to young women under the authority of their fathers, as well. After all, what better way is there to prepare for respecting a husband, some day? Could there be a better way to prove respect for the Lord than to respect the authorities He has placed in our lives?
Some of the men who are seeking to work out this Biblical pattern graciously agreed to help us in digging up some great insights on the issue of respect. We’ve included a few prime quotes below as a sort of appetizer and we’d encourage you to take a look at what they had to say and put your love into action, guided by the truth of God’s word! Just follow the link at the bottom to visit the “Respect” page and see the whole survey! Feel free to share what you find, and don’t be afraid to ask your own men the same questions to discover what honors them and proves to them your love and respect–for God’s glory.
Are candy hearts and red roses wrong? Not at all. They are thoughtful. They are romantic. They are even pleasant. Only to call those things “love” or even “expressions of love” which never even come close to scratching the surface of the love of God, who sacrificed His Son for sinners, is to cheapen a word which should be reserved for gifts of much greater worth. This Valentine’s Day, we challenge you to give more. We challenge you to lavish your man with respect—all year long.
“Biblical respect is the humble, intelligent, joyful response of a wife to God’s placement of authority expressed by esteem for, encouragement of, and submission to her husband’s leadership.”
––Shai Linne, Philadelphia, PA
“It is possible to have a surviving relationship without respect because I could choose to love them [wife/sister/daughter] even if they refused to respect me, but to have a really healthy flourishing relationship both must fill their biblical roles.”
–Moriah Day, Altamont, KS, age 16, eldest of 10
“Leaving me would be the highest rejection of my leadership and provision. But in absence of legal separation, complete emotional and relational separation would be basically equivalent.”
–Nathaniel, Tulsa, OK, married to Lauren for 1 year, 4 months and 4 weeks 😉
“We hear much about men having a built in need for respect and similarly women having a built in need for love … as if men and women are designed by God with the frailties of tiny egos and frail emotions that need constant stroking by the other lest we suffer the consequences. This is nonsense. Respect and Love in the context of Marriage have everything to do with God given roles and authority structure. Respect and Love are what bring about God’s desire that we use our position selflessly for the benefit of our Spouse.”
–John Day, Altamont, KS married 18+ years, father of three daughters (so far)
“’Love is of God,’ I John 4:7 says. God’s love is not natural to man, as the Scripture continues: ‘everyone who loves has been born of God.’ So husbands are to love, not by human product, but by the love of God. Likewise are wives, according to Titus 2:4, to love their husbands, not by natural love, but God’s love.”
–Glenn Schreiber, Central Illinois, (very happily) married for 18.5 years, father of two daughters
“It is the ‘picture’ of Christ and His bride. The relationship for the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. Sacrificial love, a love worth respecting because it is wonderful and it knows the love is acting in the best interest for the wife. How do they differ? The love is the leading action which makes the respecting enjoyable.”
–Gabe Graham, Tulsa, OK, married 5+ years, father of three daughters
“The Bible says that Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. I think this word is a great way of summarizing how a wife is to respect her husband. She treats him as someone who is very important; as someone who she means to serve and obey, and who is worthy of her service. No other person trumps him; he is the #1 person she is meant to help, to love, and to give her time and affections to. What is important to him becomes important to her, simply because he values it. This all comes out of an ultimate desire to serve her Heavenly Lord, because this is His command to her; ultimately, she is serving Him through demonstrating a giving over of her desires to the desires of her husband, and treating him as the authority God has given her.”
—John A. Moss, Morgantown, WV, married almost three years, a daughter due in April (!)
“God’s originally-stated purpose for creating mankind was to rule over the earth (Gen. 1:26). His special purpose for man was to cultivate and keep the garden (Gen. 1:26; 2:15) and for woman was for her to be a suitable helper of her husband (Genesis 2:18). It follows that she must learn to help her man. This is the major distinction between the husband and his wife’s roles–he is the leader and she is the helper. More descriptively, he is to be her loving leader and she is to be his reverent helper.”
–Lane, Rural AR, married 31 years, father of Abigail (and Lydia)
“Trust and respect can be shattered by failure to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.”
—Zach Welchman, Arkansas Tech University
We found the answers sometimes surprising, often enlightening, sometimes encouraging, often convicting. We’d love for you to take a look at the comments and the survey (when you can) and tell us your thoughts!
His Perspective on Respect: The Survey
Pearls and Diamonds 