I get angry at the lies I was told by my culture. The ‘sexual revolution’ is about selfishness. It promotes selfishness. It denies the truth of what love
is. Love is more than a feeling. Real love, for a lifetime, is a choice, a commitment, and not one to be frivolously played with.
When my parents’ marriage dissolved, it was then that subliminal messages were received. Those little deceits, the subtle nuance that sex outside of marriage
was permissible given certain circumstances. It was the yeast that worked through the dough in my case, the little lies that came from the culture
of the times (it was the 60’s and 70’s). The first lie that I believed was that we could be alone together but would not ‘do anything wrong’. And when
we did cross that boundary (losing my virginity at 19), the little lies we tell ourselves, that God will forgive because we love one another and we
plan to be married one day.
Somehow I missed the part that the act of intimacy we engaged in was the marital union, the commitment to one another before God. I bought the world’s
lie that I had other choices, and that I should explore my other options before committing. I entirely missed the fact that I had already committed
with my body to this person. Anything outside of that in God’s eyes (and, as I would not understand until later, also in my own heart) was adultery.
So of course when one day did not happen, and there was a new relationship, and then another, I ended up with less and less of my heart to give. The
little lies that lead us one small step at a time down a wrong path.
I found the turning in my path when I did marry, and this was due to God in my heart and remembrance of Him and the things I had been taught. I found my
strength in God from that point onward.
I’d known that with each successive partner I’d felt less of a connection and the bond was not as strong, but it wasn’t until I began reading my Bible
in earnest that I came to really understand the meaning of the one woman/one man union and bond of God. I came to understand the adulterer that I had
been. I came to understand what I had lost. The only true marriage was that first intimate commitment I had made. ‘No man may put asunder what God
has joined’. That first bond is a lasting bond for life.
The beginning of the lies, the subtle deceptions that the devil uses–I came to believe that it was safe to be alone in intimate situations without committing
acts that are meant for the sanctity of marriage. When it finally did happen I told myself that God would understand because we loved each other and
I knew that marriage was what was in the back of both our minds.
But when the subject of engagement finally did come up, I realized I wasn’t sure I felt secure in the thought of being married to this person for the rest
of my life, and the thinking of the world, the ‘culture’, supported this notion of free dating with no consequences. This is the devil’s lie, because
you don’t become aware of the consequences to your life, until too late.
When I began to read the Bible I became amazingly aware of how all the answers were written right there, if only anyone had ever bothered to read to me,
and teach me, the scriptures. The stumbling blocks in my life became very clear–The people who tripped me up by allowing my mind to believe that what
they did was acceptable and doable. I also came to see the people to whom I had unintentionally, but never the less, also been a stumbling block. I
understood God’s words to ‘avoid even the appearance of evil’.
Yes, I get angry at the lies my culture fed us, mostly through media, that removed God’s standards and made the world’s lies look desirable, and I get
angry at what those lies cost me.
Submitted by C. L.
