Real love waits – this is one of the advocacies of my youth org.
I too am a personal advocate for this. Being the bookworm that I am, I came across Saving my First Kiss (by Lisa Velthouse) and I Kissed Dating Goodbye (by Joshua Harris). They explained how waiting not only entails waiting for the right one but reserving physical intimacy until marriage when we could completely give ourselves to our spouse. I was convinced that this was truly how relationships ought to be.
I guess it’s easier said than done. And much easier when you’re not in a romantic relationship.
Flashback to college, I had my first boyfriend. Everything was new. It was my first time to actually be with someone who feels the same way that I did. Since this was my first relationship, I did not realize how difficult it would be to actually stay true to the words “Real love waits”. I thought that since most of my college friends who were in a relationship were physically intimate, then it was the norm. I ended up in deep sexual sin and led my partner to the same path. I did not want to keep engaging in these sins while serving in my youth org, telling my members to keep pure when I myself was not.
So not wanting to live a double life, I let go of the better life of chastity and purity.
It all seemed well and good at first until as months passed by, I felt myself becoming emptier and numb. By the grace of God, a friend of mine invited me again to one of my youth org’s activities. After two years of inactivity, I was back in the community. Even though I hardly knew everyone, I was still welcomed by the people I served with who were still there. It was in that grace-filled day when I truly realized how wrong I had been.
[second_picture]
The euphoria of giving yourself away premaritally is unreal and temporary. Giving yourself physically without giving yourself wholly in marriage will never give you that joy that lasts.
I ended my sinful relationship and quickly confessed my sins. Although I knew God had forgiven me, it took a while to sink in and to forgive myself. How can you undo all the things that you have done in the past? You can’t just erase them the way you would a writing on the wall.
Then I realized, I cannot undo my past mistakes but His mercy and forgiveness makes the past irrelevant.
In faith, I have come to accept that it is God’s immense love for us that makes us anew. No sin is too big for Jesus to overcome. Christ dying for us is the single act enough to clean our slate, cleanse our hearts and purify our souls.
My name is Kirstin Kintanar – sinner but saved and made new in the love of Jesus Christ.
