Forty years ago (1968) I graduated from high school. I grew up on a farm and attended a small town school all of my life. I was protected from things such as drugs, teen pregnancies, etc. If a girl in our high school got pregnant outside of marriage we said, "She's in 'trouble'." My naivet'e was about to change. After all, this was the late sixties---the time of the Viet Nam War, college campus riots, and protest marches with banners stating, "Make Love Not War," "Peace," "Free Love," and other such idioms. Drugs and sex were the big scene on college campuses. "Free Love" was touted openly. No more abstinence...just do what feels good!
As we look at today's teenagers it is easy to see that the "free" love that was touted wasn't really free at all. It was very expensive as we have sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancies of disproportionate numbers, and hence, teen mothers who decide whether or not to get an abortion (and live with the guilt as a result) or to keep the baby and be "burdened" with responsibiltities they are not ready to accept, or to give the baby up for adoption and lose a part of themselves for years to come.
As a young person I was challenged to keep my virginity and go to the marriage altar pure. I am grateful for the leaders in my life who gave me this challenge. Promiscuity and impurity before marriage always comes back to bite and hurts the marriage relationship.
A few years ago I made a purity bracelet for teenage girls. I launched the bracelet at our church's national Youth Conference and was amazed at the response. Young people love to rise to a challenge and seemed to love being able to have a tangible reminder of the life of purity they were choosing.
God is a very loving God and His instruction for young people to be pure in their sexual lives is not because He is mean. Just the opposite is true. God knows what principles will help us become happy, contented, successful Christians. He knows that virgin young people will have a much better chance of having a happy, successful marriage.
We are helping our young people live on a higher plane when we encourage them to live purely. At any moment a pure young person can lose their virginity and become like most other young people in America, but at no time can those who have lost their purity ever become like those who still have their virginity. Let's encourage our young people to live purely!
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