From: Susie MagElsa Kok Colopy
Grab your friends, recruit your youth group, get the word out: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, is your day to take a stand! This is way more than saying "No" to all the things you need to avoid.
]]>
Pure Life Day is all about the amazing things you can say "Yes" to--your incredible God, good friends and loving other people with a crazy-generous heart. Visist www.purelovepurelife.com to sign the Pure Life pledge, joining others who have already committed to this exciting vision for pure living. Signing the pledge will also enter you into a drawing to receive a Pure Life T-shirt and a signed copy of the Pure Love, Pure Life book. To find out more and to meet the author, Elsa Kok Colopy, during a LiveStream web event, go to www.purelovepurelife.com.
If I'd been born a pioneer woman--life in a buttoned-up dress, lacy bonnet, and sturdy boots--the only men who would have crossed my path would have been smelly, obsessed with gold and completely disinterested in my dusty, tough-girl self. Without TV or a computer, I'd never be exposed to what those smelly men may have looked like beneath their clothing. Keeping my heart focused on godly stuff would've been a breeze. What kind of girl thinks passionate thoughts or gets lost in racy images while trudging through six feet of snow to catch (and kill) a rabbit, field mouse or muskrat for dinner?
Unfortunately, I was born into a world where guys smell good, searching for romance wins over muskrat hunting, and images assault me at every turn. The images were innocent enough at first.
Looking for Love
As a little girl, I loved watching all the happily-ever-after movies and TV shows. I'd dream of my knight in shining armor--what he might look like, what kind of flowers he'd bring as he rode in on his horse, that type of thing. So I began looking for him--everywhere.
Louis was the first one to catch my eye. We were in the third grade. He was tall, I was tall. Obviously we were meant to be together forever. I used all my third grade womanly wiles to get Louis's attention: I punched him in the arm, chased him at recess and beat him in a contest to see who could jump the furthest off the swings. When I felt like I'd captured his heart, I let him know, in my gentle, womanly way, that it was time for us to take it to the next level and hold hands.
Maybe I moved a wee bit fast because Louis seemed to drift away after that. And then to add insult to injury, he asked Lisa--the only other tall girl in the class--to the school fair at the end of the year. I was crushed.
My crushes started like that--harmless, innocent. But when Dominic took me behind the school to kiss me and then tried to look down my shirt, it freaked me out a little. I wondered, just for a second, if I might be in over my head.
When it came to kissing, touching, and sex, I was told what I should do: My parents encouraged me to stand for purity. My church told me to keep my hands to myself. Infomercials told me to be smart and be good. Well, all the reasoning I heard from those authority figures seemed to fly out the window when boys like Gary leaned in to kiss me and spoke words that melted my heart: "You're so beautiful ... " Mmmm. I thought. Kiss me again!
Besides, impurity seemed like a different kind of sin. I knew to stay away from drugs and alcohol and not to steal, kill or lie. But then again I didn't wake up when I was 10 years old wondering what it would be like to smoke pot or drink a beer. I didn't dream of stealing from the local department store. But I did wake up wondering what it would be like to kiss Louis.
These mixed messages littered my childhood, drenched my adolescence and sidelined my teenage years. I got that I should stay away from drugs and alcohol. But romance? Love? Intimacy? How did that even compare? What did purity even mean? No French-kissing? No touching the "private" zones? No thoughts? It seemed far too confusing to put it all together so I didn't even try.
Movin' Fast
And then I fell in love. Darren fit the bill for the knight in shining armor I'd been looking for all those years. The love we shared was the most intense feeling I'd known. I couldn't seem to remember why it was so important to keep my hands to myself or wait until marriage to have sex. And where was the line again?
In the middle of trying to figure it all out, we didn't do a lot to fight the temptations. Even though we were both Christians who had been taught differently, we ended up going further and further until ultimately, we had sex. We felt guilty at first, but that seemed to lessen as time went on. After all, we weren't really having sex, we were making love, and in my brain that made all the difference.
Then Darren broke up with me.
We'd been dating for one year.
I was devastated.
I was crazy about him, and I didn't understand why he would walk away from something so good.
I was miserable. I missed Darren so much, and it literally took years to get over my broken heart.
At the time I thought it was because I was so in love with him. But I understand now that something much bigger happened when we became intimate. When we had sex, we became one. Breaking that bond severed my heart.
Then the consequences hit: I felt used. Disappointed with myself. The painful realization that I'd given away something I couldn't get back.
I thought I was giving myself to the man I would spend the rest of my life with ... now, when I did meet that forever guy, I'd have to explain how I'd given myself to someone else.
And then came the temptation. Oh, wow. Since I'd gone there once, it was so tough not to just make the same decision over and over again. What did it matter now? I tried to rebuild what was lost, but I really had no clue what that even looked like.
Elsa Kok Colopy is passionate about purity. She has authored five books and hundreds of articles and is a sought-after speaker with a deep desire to communicate God's heart. Elsa and her husband, Brian, live in Colorado Springs, Colo., and are the proud parents of four adult children and two handsome pups.
