(PART THREE)

Dear Matthew,

I’ve been writing to you for the past few weeks about sexual purity in relationships. First I told you Rebekah and Steve’s story. Then I wrote a list of how’s.  In this letter I want to talk to you a little about why.

You see, my son, I have spent many hours listening to stories and wiping tears and praying over shattered young women.

And my heart has broken with their brokenness because those wounds are hard to heal and marrying her doesn’t make it go away.

I am a mom— not a psychologist, not a doctor, not a researcher with numbers to prove my point. I’m just a mom who loves women and loves to listen and wants to help.

This is what I know:

1. When a woman gives herself to a man, she gives her whole self.
2. She risks rejection in the hope that she will gain his love and faithfulness forever.
3. Men are not like that. Men are fully capable and comfortable with being intimate sexually without giving their hearts away.
4. Many good men have no idea how deeply they are wounding the woman they love by exploiting her vulnerability. They mistakenly assume that she wants what he wants— and its just not that simple.
5. She wants more than he wants. Sex for a woman is not simply release of pent up desire, it is a craving to be desired, to be the center of a man’s universe— forever.
6. When a man does not honor a woman’s true desire and he takes her sexuality to slake his thirst for sex, he is responsible for deeply wounding her soul, even when she is a willing participant. And she will bear those wounds for the rest of her life.
7. And marrying her doesn’t make it go away.
8. One last thing that every man needs to know: God made a woman’s sexuality to be inseparable from her soul. When she gives herself away, she gives herself away.

And that, my dear son, is something to think about.

Matthew, next week I’ll tell more of the story I know. Because you need to know and so does every young man whose heart is good but who lives in this world of mixed messages.

•       Why do women dress provocatively if they don’t want sex?
•       Why is she flirting?
•       What does she want?
•       How can a man give her what she wants without taking what she has no right to give and he has no right to take?
•       What happens when a fully committed man and woman choose to indulge their passions before marriage?

From my heart,

Mom

Do not let sin control the way you live;

do not give in to sinful desires.

Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin.

Instead, give yourselves completely to God,

for you were dead, but now you have new life.

So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

Romans 6:12,13

(NLT)