The devil has taken the message of purity and warped it - to make us believe that our virginity makes us worthy in God’s eyes. It has caused the church to turn sexual purity into an idol. Sexual purity is a gift from God, and it is just that - a gift. It reveals God’s heart to us. The gift of sexual purity should never take precedence over the Gift-Giver.
Despite what Disney tells us, a happy life isn't about all your wishes coming true, it's about the motives of your heart. What are you wishing for in the first place? John Piper says,"We can live for our will or God’s will, or we could have our passions so transformed that we need not choose between the two." If the desire of your heart are properly aligned with God's will, when you love what he loves, when you want what he wants, that's the real dream come true.
Is there marriage in heaven? If it is such a good and beautiful thing, shouldn’t it last for all of eternity? I was always puzzled and upset by Jesus’ response. My idea of the perfect fairytale had me believing that marriage was the ultimate.
This is one of those growing pains every women remember, getting their period for the first time. Without going into too much detail, I knew what was happening when mine first started, but I was too embarrassed to tell my mom about it. I was actually out of town and my Great Aunt (amazing woman) helped set me up with all the necessary feminine hygiene products, and after that I kept it a secret. I stored my newly acquired pads in the closet and didn’t say a word to my mom when I got home. This burned me up on the inside. I felt like I was keeping some deep dark secret, that my mom should know about.
Warm, winter light filled the little Chinese restaurant with its golden glow. As my family enjoyed their lunch, the sun wasn’t the only thing in the room beaming. I was deeply engaged in conversation with my parents about the upcoming science fair. I was in 8th grade, in love with everything science, and thrilled to be able to show off my knowledge at the school fair. The question of whether I would place in the competition wasn’t even a question in my mind. The actual question was where I would place: First? Second? Or maybe third?
As an unapologetic optimist, I used to assume the best about people which made me an unfortunate judge of character. Sometimes I honestly couldn't identify fake friends from real ones. But the sarcastic words? The little insults? They were the hundred paper cuts that eventually made me bleed. I had to learn the hard way that not everyone likes Ashley. And some people never will.
I’ve always been good at being self-sufficient. If I had a problem, I’d find a way to fix it. If I were feeling sad, I would realize it was my responsibility to make sure I stopped feeling that way. Essentially, I’ve always had the logical sense to realize that nobody else could fix my problems; I knew I had to be responsible and take care of them myself. In many ways, I applied that to my relationship with God. He had good works prepared for me to do, so I’d better get my act together and get them done, right?
For as long as I can remember, my dream has been to become a wife and mother. In my mind, the ideal scenario was to start dating in late high school, get married fresh out of college, and start a family not long after. The only problem was that there was never a guy in the picture. I finished high school without dating anyone, so needless to say, things didn’t start out the way I had imagined.
I remember crying myself to sleep in high school because of a joke some boy I barely even knew had made about my weight. I was about seventeen at the time, but my struggle with the way I looked had begun much before that. I had always been a “normal-sized girl” growing up, until I hit puberty. That, plus all the junk food I consumed when I went away to boarding school, caused me to put on a lot of weight. It wasn’t until people began to notice that I realized what a large part of my identity was formed around the way I looked and even more so around the way that people saw me.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the “Good Girl.” The kind one. The honest one. The encouraging one. The happy one. The good one. I knew the right things to do and say: what my family wanted, what my friends wanted, even what I thought God wanted. I was polished on the outside, doing all the “right” things, but on the inside, I was selfish. I was angry. I felt inadequate. I was driven by performance and perfection.
