Dear Younger-Self:
You saved yourself for marriage for 29 years. While there are those who applaud you, you do take a lot of grief for it, from men as well as women.
Is it hard staying a virgin? Absolutely! Especially a male. Believe me. Girls saw it as a challenge, even at a Southern Baptist University. Thank God for will power, self-control, and being married to education!
I believe that staying pure is the ultimate wedding gift I can give my wife.
You will have an unfortunate event that takes place. Mom, the most important person in your world – best friend, confidante, biggest supporter, etc., passes away when you are in your twenties. That experience will throw your world upside down. It will create a huge void that your work just can’t fill.
Mom always said you’d meet the right girl in church. After mom passes you will meet a girl, think that you are falling in love, and end up marrying her. Unless…you take your time and get to know her a little bit more first.
Despite the fact that your bride is a Christian and grew up in a Christian family, she doesn’t see that saving yourself for your spouse is really possible. She ends up being with quite a few before you.
Not to pass any blame at all, but the void that you feel with mom dying was yearning to be complete. The girl you may marry isn’t the right match for you. And if mom hadn’t died shortly before, I think I would’ve seen it.
I didn’t get to know her well enough honestly and who she really was. If not for that void I was searching to fill, I wouldn’t have moved as fast and would’ve, at least in my mind, seen she wasn’t the one for me. I know mom would’ve been wise counsel for me if she had been alive, so there’s that too. No blame on anyone intended, just was an impossible situation for me at the time. Think I’m still searching for that “One.”
So my advice to you is WAIT AS LONG AS IT TAKES. So you may be the thirty or forty year old virgin. Great! Don’t settle. Don’t look for others to feel any voids in your life, look only to your Heavenly Father. Allow God to fill you and make you complete. Get to know your future spouse and their heart. When you need wise counsel, seek God and godly wisdom before jumping all into to anything in life, not just marriage.
Sincerely,
Your Future Self
“Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband.” Hebrews 13:4a
