Jesus Can Save You From Your Feelings of Sexual Betterness.

My last post was about how it feels to be called bitter.

This post will be about Christians who have the condition of Feeling Betterness.

:)

Sorry. Had to.

I found this Passport to Purity kit at the thrift store and decided to spend $4 to save another kid from going through these painful lessons.

I was very glad to find it was all still sealed. Phew.

Get ready for one of the activities parents are instructed to do with their preteens. Jesus can save you from feeling like other people are polluted water and you are clean.

Entering marriage as a virgin doesn't make you better. You are not a more whole person because your friends are just as pure as you and you are not a half person if you kissed someone or even *gasp* had sex. Sex is not all of you. You are whole and worthy because you are made in the image of God, unique, and with a voice all your own.

And before someone gets their undies in a twist, yes, I believe sex has real and big consequences, good or bad, depending. I believe in being wise with our sexuality. But it makes me sad that the main goal of many Christian adults for their youth is to guard them from sex. Let's aim higher. Let's get deeper. Let's respect our children too much to do that to them.

And let's also be careful about our terminology. It is so sad to me that the word purity in youth groups now boils down to "not defiled by having done anything sexual, ever." It's sad that sexually active people are compared to chewed up food and gum, or, like in this curriculum from Family Matters, worthless balloons with holes in them who end up with nothing to offer their future soul mate but regret.

Let's shift our focus from the timing of our child's first date to helping them mature into a person who is ready to use wisdom to make their own decisions about how to treat themselves and others. Rules are good tools, but in the end, they fall very short of that. 

You don't get a gold star sticker on your chart (or in this case, a passport stamp) for coming up with perfect formulas of how to follow Jesus.

And finally, I'm going to borrow a Freedom Builder friend's words to compare to this last image. Which would you rather give your child?

"I ask the question of those believing that this is healthy a simple question. Would you rather your child err by having physical affection before marriage or have them fail to understand the mercy and Grace of Jesus in the midst of failing. Sober virgins with a warped view of purity, redemption, and love seems to be the worst alternative."
-Rich Poupard 

Bitterness (and emotional health and forgiveness)

Time for this post. 

I meant to add something in when talking about forgiveness. My thoughts on forgiveness came from a very insightful e-course offered by Soulation. One month focused on forgiveness, and the video that was most helpful to me was when my friend said something like, "When you wake up in the morning and you're in a lot of pain, and you begin to pray over and over 'God I choose to forgive; help me forgive. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive." what you are actually doing is stuffing your feelings." Forgiveness does not mean I no longer feel. That Soulation e-course (and community! which I love!) can be found here http://soulation.org/freedombuilders/.

Edit: A friend privately just told me that he disagrees that, after forgiveness, a natural consequence for stealing is paying back what you owe, since forgiveness is for the benefit of the perpetrator. Aha! Yes, thank you Dale Fincher, for that correction. Candlesticks in Les Miserables came to mind. 

PS
My lovely rescue cat's name is Cecelia. She was a stray. Later in the video, she was being so loud pounding on the back entry/basement door that I thought, for a moment, there was a home intruder. If you ever came over to visit, she would probably find some boisterous way to get you to notice her, too.