Sex Is Good, But…

What I am about to type is a vulnerable topic for me to speak about, but a much-needed topic that needs to be shared for every female (and male) in or seeking a relationship. I want this testimony to be a lesson shared with you to encourage you to hold onto something that God made beautiful—your purity in sex. Whether you still have it or gave it away, I hope this enables you to be mindful and focused on how one act can change your relationship with yourself, your companion, and most importantly, God.

My background

I will keep this part short. Before meeting my husband, I was the vulnerable girl who would easily fall for the “idea” of a guy and what our relationship could be like. I was a hopeless romantic and had many crushes on boys. I would then end the crush once I found out they liked me all because I liked the chase, but I was the girl who loved love and wanted it from a special guy. With that said, I was also the virgin girl waiting for the “one.” I knew since I was little that I would wait until marriage because my body was a temple, and I only wanted one person to share it with. So I was always seen as the good Christian girl who guys would say,

“Look, there is nothing wrong with you, but we’re in college, and we want to have fun. You are the good girl that we want to marry at the end, but in college, we don’t want that.”

I did not take offense to that, but I knew there had to be one guy out there who was different and ready for a girl like me.

Meeting my husband

I was working the night shift at the Student Union Building on campus when a guy came up to my desk trying to tell me about Jesus. I was not mentally there grieving the loss of my father, who passed away months prior, so I did not want to talk to this guy and told him, “I already know about my Jesus,” as I pointed to my Jesus strong shirt. He then began to try to hold a conversation with me. Suddenly, my co-worker came into work, and his brother in Christ also accompanied him in our discussion when God completely changed my eye vision of how I saw this guy. I heard “husband and children.” I then felt myself engaging in the conversation efforts and was in a good mood. After that night, I did not think much of that night but found myself randomly running into him all over campus. We then discovered that we lived on the same street and attended the same church between our homes. It was weird, but God kept setting up encounters we could not explain. Instead, we just said it was all God. After about a month of our encounters, with us barely talking in those moments, I decided to tell “Josh” what I heard from God the night I met him. Luckily, he did not freak out, but he just listened, and that was it. Because of our random encounters, we grew into a good friendship. One that I hold close to my heart.

Sin

After much time spent together having simple, clean fun, Josh and I started to become close to one another. We disregarded all boundaries, assuming that we were exempt from temptation. It began with one accidental sleepover when he came over one day and shared a sermon on how the enemy tactics worked with temptation between males and females. We both suddenly got sick, leaving him to sleep on the couch. That was when I felt comfort in him staying and imagining what it would be like if he was there full-time. What our life would be like. Though the thought stopped immediately with a common sense of how that could not happen again, we kept hanging out until another sleepover happened. It became an ongoing thing until he was now in my bed.

It took me one night to convince someone I loved to be intimate with me. I did not mentally or spiritually feel wrong because I heard God say he was my husband, so I told him that and gave myself to him. Due to it not being what I expected, I wanted to be the best for him and kept trying repeatedly on different occasions. I could not stop, and because of that, I was then lusting after him to the point where I became jealous and insecure as well. I remember just our friendship shifting from purity to something sick and toxic. We did not know exactly where we stood with each other, started fighting, and I just became controlling to the point where I let sex validate our relationship.

We tried to stop many times. Playing house was destroying us, and Josh was tired of it. He told me we needed breaks, and we could not visit each other’s homes or hang out without a third person because we had no self-control. He even managed to set up the bible app and create bible plans for us to do together to get us back on track to who we were before our fall. It was a lot of effort, but we kept failing. At some point, because my sister hated what we were doing, she suddenly moved out, which led to Josh moving in to help me not break my apartment lease. So, Josh and I efforts of being celibate at that point were finished. That was until Josh decided after graduation that he would take a job opportunity in another state, not because of me, but because he had an incredible life-changing opportunity. Although we decided on a long-distance relationship, it was highly devastating.

Revelation

Once Josh moved to another state for his job opportunity, I was left to stay with my co-worker and her family. I fell back into depression with thoughts on how he could leave me behind for a new opportunity. To me, it was him leaving me in his past for a new life. With my thoughts, I sunk further into depression, leaving my body ill and bringing concerns to my co-workers. She was a follower of Christ who hated hearing me locked in her spare bedroom crying myself to sleep and decided to invite me to a Christian retreat called “The Wait.”

The retreat brought me to the wilderness and allowed me to grieve and see what God was doing in my life. When I gave up on Josh, God reminded me how Josh and I prematurely became irresponsible and selfish in choosing our earthly flesh desires instead of Him. He reminded me of all the prayers Josh and I had to end our shameful streak of sex so that we could become pure again in His eyes and good to each other again. God showed me that He had to take away the beautiful thing given to me so we could return to Him, our focused center. He made me realize at that point that though sex was good and fun, the false goodness act brought more destruction and hurt because of it not being done in marriage. A marriage where we could have become one with God and praise Him in real love, but because we did not do that, we had to be separated and cleansed from each other. God also showed the retreat’s name again, “The Wait.” He reminded me of why I was waiting for Josh. It was not just for me and my emotions but for God’s mission with and through us.  Most importantly, he brought me back to his promised words of what was to come. “Husband and children.”

God opened me up again and showed me that I needed more healing in areas outside of Josh’s leaving and that it was time to begin the process of healing. This led me to move back home with my family.

Choosing transformation

Don’t get me wrong, many things happened while we were apart. I was still sad, but with Josh away, I was starting to get back into my Word. I started going to a new church and was even changing my perspective on my life and the decisions I made and would continue to make. I wanted to make a change. I tried to seek God and trust him my whole life, even through the beginning of COVID-19.

Around 4:45 pm on a rainy April day, I realized I was okay through the storm. After my final tear and received peace, I  decided to make a phone call to Josh and told him that I had given him all of me and my effort and was at peace to let him go. He did not have much to say, and I just said “bye” at the end. Although that would have been a nice ending, a few days later, Josh called and told me, after seven months apart, that he was moving back home. I was conflicted because of my transformation, but I just listened and told him how I would still live my life and do what I needed to do. I told him I could be a friend in his time of need but that I needed to continue with what I had started.

Where are we today:

Long story short, Josh came to live with my sister and me (but stayed with his mother when we would fall into temptation), and a month later, after we reunited, he proposed. Today, we are married with three kids. We are more in love with God and continue to speak life into each other through prayer and our Word. Our home and marriage foundation is on Christ, and we try not to be moved by anything but the Holy Spirit.

I typed this testimony to my sisters, who think playing house will fill that void or desire in your life to completeness, but it won’t. The beginning stage is beautiful, and you then move to the exposing stage, but all that does is expose you and your partner to toxic and, sadly, destruction, wiping out the pure foundation of what the relationship once stood on. Please think of the full effects before losing someone that you love. Please focus on God and never stop His plans for you for your earthly desires. Choose God and let it all fall into place. There is no need to rush for what is yours. The last thing I want to say is that sex is good, But sex in an ordained marriage by God is beyond any measure.