On a Secular Campus
A couple weekends ago, one of my friends spent the night in my room. It was a bit last minute, but ended up being a lot of fun. She, my roommate and I watched movies all night and had some of those deeply profound conversations that only seem to make sense at two in the morning. One of the topics we discussed was what actually caused her to ask me if she could come over in the first place. The reason she needed a place to sleep for the night was because her roommate had “sexiled” her. To “sexial” someone was something I was unfamiliar with before coming to college. To be “sexialed” means that your roommate has either kicked you out, or asked you not to come home one night so that they can have their significant other spend the night. It’s fairly self-explanatory, and actually an extremely common occurrence, though I have never experienced it first-hand. My roommate has never done this and actually told me at the very beginning of the year that she would never tell me that I couldn’t come in my own room, which I appreciate and I told her the same.
My boyfriend and I have decided to abstain from sex. We have similar values, and he knows that I have chosen to be chaste and abstain until marriage. There are many reasons, and aside from the main one (staying pure for my future spouse), we don’t want to potentially hurt each other by having sex. When people find out about this, it seems weird to them. “You’re not having sex? But you’ve been together for how many months now?” I suppose it is abnormal. I mean, nearly everyone’s doing it and they’re totally fine, right? Well, not exactly. Pre-marital sex comes with a lot of problems we are not always aware of, and I’m not going to risk it. The secular world doesn’t value celibacy, and it’s hard (impossible) to avoid all of the sexual media we are exposed to. So, unfortunately I can see why so many of my peers have an aversion to sexual purity.
I had a conversation with a freshman guy at my school a few months ago. He was telling me how he really liked this girl he met a party and then found out that she wore a purity ring (a ring worn on the left hand ring finger to remind the wearer of the importance of sexual purity). He told me that he thought she was hot, but he wasn’t going to waste his time on someone he knew he couldn’t “do”. He made fun of this girl for wearing a purity ring. He said that her morals were stupid and old-fashioned and he called her a prude. I told him that she obviously has strong beliefs. He told me that yeah, she’s “super religious”, and then he repeated a quote he had seen somewhere on the internet which went, “If you don’t sin, Jesus died for nothing.” Yes, Jesus did die for us, but that not giving us permission to sin. It’s not like he was saying, “Yeah, I died for you. Sin as much as you want.” What really happened was so much different. We sinned. The result of sin is death. God didn’t want us to die. God sent Jesus, his only son, to be killed in our place. Not only that, but Jesus agreed to this. He agreed to being tortured and killed because he loved us. (Can I just take a moment and comment on how absolutely incredible it is that someone would do that for us? Yeah, more than a little mind-blowing.) But anyway, Jesus did die, so we are forgiven for all of our past and future sins. That’s not permission to sin, that’s grace. The consequences of sin hurt us and those around us. This side of Heaven we are still going to fall into sin, but if we don’t even bother to try to live like Christ, we risk falling away from grace. God’s plan for us is so much better.
This girl who I don’t know personally had a lot of guts to wear that ring and to tell this guy “no.” I respect her for it. My friends who I have explained my principles to respect me. People have asked me if it’s really hard to stay abstinent. Of course it is. I have often wondered if this whole “sexual purity” thing is really worth it. And every time I reach the same conclusion: yeah, it is, actually.
Contributed by H.A.
0 Comments