She is a virgin and so is her fiancé.
That makes me feel extremely humbled and I am very happy about it.
With that said, let me tell you why I am not a proponent of the purity movement. In fact, I am not only not a fan of it, but I want to persuade you not to use this method of training your children up in the way they should go.
When we began home schooling in 1998, said oldest daughter was four years old. I was immediately thrust into an environment unlike anything I had ever known. I was twenty-four years old. I knew how to talk the "church" talk, but the "home school" talk threw me for a loop. Let me tell you, in 1998, the home school movement was in the throes of trying to "find itself."
My friends all had hair down to their hips, wore no makeup, ground their own wheat, and wore denim jumpers. You guys, this is not a myth - it was for real. My 24 year old southern girl self who never left the house without my "face" on was mortified. I mean, my whole life my Mama told me to "put some lipstick on so you don't look dead" and for "heavens sake, where are your earrings?" And this was just to pick up a few groceries. These women looked over their reading glasses at me like I had just popped in off the street corner.
Suddenly, I had to reevaluate who I was and how I was going to raise my children. I tried to play along. I did. And God was good - though I am sure He got a laugh or two out of my attempts to conform. (Yes, I bought a denim jumper. And yes, Stan laughed his head off every time I wore it). I became a true follower of Christ during this period of my life - most of the ladies I met were amazingly in tune with the Holy Spirit. They wanted to get this marriage and parenting thing right, and of course, so did I. As my little children began to grow up, the majority of my friends had children a few years older than my oldest, some the age of my oldest, and a few younger ones as well. We home schoolers like to reproduce (and yes, we know exactly what causes it) - we only look prudish. :)
Suddenly, the home school conventions began to display vendors selling all sorts of curriculum designed to instill "purity" in your pre and young teenagers. (Of course we did not use the word teenager). No one really told us what "purity" meant, so the collective "we" decided without really talking about it that it meant no sex before marriage. Most of us came out of a secular dating culture where anything was acceptable, and we knew we did not want that for our children. The problem was, no one really seemed to know exactly what we were aiming for. No sex before marriage - fine. However, what exactly did we want before marriage?
As with most things, this was yet another issue where the conservative right was determined to be known for what it was against, rather than what it was FOR. We were against sex before marriage. Well, ok but ..... God created us, and our children, as sexual beings. Your tweens and teens ARE going to have crushes, they are going to be attracted to members of the opposite sex - and actually, you want that. Don't you want them to grow up and get married one day? Of course you do. You just don't want them to "test drive" a dozen people before they find the one. I know. That's what I wanted too. After all, Stan and I daily carry around the weight of our relationship mistakes and it is not God's best way to start a marriage. I get it.
So, I heartily joined the "Purity Movement."
I clearly remember the day we stood our "tweenage" children in a circle in the church gym during a "purity study" and gave the first little girl a construction paper heart. She passed it around the circle, skipping all the guys because....well, somehow guys always get a pass on this purity stuff - and every girl tore a little piece off of the heart. Then "THE" guy who was to be the future husband takes the paper that used to be a heart and holds it up. It is a ragged, torn, wrinkled piece of nothing. He dangled it between two fingers as us moms said to our beloved offspring.... "Do you want to give your future husband a whole heart or, or THIS?"
Friends......
I have no words for the damage that did to my oldest daughter. I am ashamed, embarrassed, and quite frankly shocked at myself for such a ridiculous illustration. If you have done this to your children - apologize. If you still have little ones - think long and hard - LONG and HARD about something like this.
Our God is not the author of shame. He is the author of redemption. He takes broken hearts and MAKES THEM WHOLE. Nothing you have ever done and nothing your children will ever do is beyond His forgiveness or His healing touch. NOTHING.
When we set up "purity" as a sin that is irredeemable we are doing nothing but creating a culture of shame and fear. You want to raise daughters that are confident in who they are in Christ. You want them to know Him as a loving Father who is powerful and redemptive. Christ makes us pure, not a list of dos and don'ts. You do not want them skulking about in the shadows of guilt and shame because they have a crush on their older brother's best friend. Good grief.
Friends, you want communication with your children and believe me, you will not get it if they are ashamed. You will get hiding, lies, and dark of the night internet searches. They will stop talking to you because you make them feel like they are dirty and not "pure" enough for their future spouse. They will carry around an undue burden because of emotions, thoughts, and feelings that pop into their heads, and which they will consider "sinful." All of this and they have never even had a boy or girlfriend. They will think of sex as dirty and off limits rather than the beautiful and holy thing that God created it to be. Then, all of a sudden they are supposed to find a spouse, get married, and love sex. It doesn't work that way.
Let your family be known for what you are FOR.
In our family, we are for healthy relationships and marriages full of laughter, communication, and amazing, holy, God ordained sex. Remember, God created this. The enemy is the one who twisted it into something disgusting. Don't let him have the upper hand.
I am so thankful that my oldest daughter is a non-conformist. Like, truly. She could not follow a rule without questioning it if her life depended on it. It has served her, and me, quite well I must say. She was not about to let this "purity movement" thing go on without an thorough explanation. Be very careful about teaching your children to think. They WILL out think you - I can almost guarantee it. The more we discussed it, the more I realized how devastating it actually is to our children. Many of her peers from this movement are afraid of relationships, disgusted by the thought of sex and children, and truly damaged. I am so incredibly humbled that God spared us with minimal damage. However, Bryce would be the first to be willing to talk about her struggles if it helps someone else.
And her younger siblings are most definitely glad she cut them an easier path.
So, back to my statement at the top. Bryce and Jacob are both virgins and we are very happy about that. That begs the question of why are we so happy if I am against the purity movement and what exactly am I teaching our younger ones about sex?
Here's the deal. God lays out for His children in Scripture His very best. If He says do something or don't do something, it isn't because He is trying to kill the fun. On the contrary, He is trying to preserve it. He is trying to grant us fun the likes of which we can not even fathom. For that reason alone, I am happy that my daughter and her soon to be husband are going into marriage without the baggage of past sexual partners. Do I believe sex before marriage is a sin? Yes, but I do not believe it is an unforgivable one (God, I hope it's not). I also do not believe it is any different from any other sin that we commit every day without much thought - lying, gossip, anger, envy. Those things are spoken about in Scripture far more times than sex. I believe that like everything else God says, He instructs us against sexual sin because it is His very best for us in the long run.
So, what do we teach our younger children? Well, we most definitely do not use the torn up heart illustration. We do not tell them, in words or actions, that God can not redeem the broken hearted. We teach them about God's design for sex, we model for them a healthy marriage, we are an open book as far as our own sin. We do not in any way make our children feel that their thoughts or feelings are any different than ones we ourselves have had. We teach our sons to respect women and our daughters to respect their bodies. We teach them that relationships are to be taken seriously and that hearts are not to be toyed with. Communication with your children is imperative.
Yet, above all of that - your children's own personal relationship with Christ is the absolute key. Friends, this world is sinking to a very base level and it is sinking quickly. The world tells them that anything goes - and there is not enough parental control software made to truly control their internet usage. I wish it were different, but let me tell you straight up - they are smarter than you when it comes to technology. You can't block everything negative from their lives. Gracious, it would be nice, but it is not possible. Trust me on this. Your children have to learn to recognize and repent of their own sin, you can not always be their Holy Spirit.
My very wise friend and mentor once told me that young teens need enough rope to make non-life altering mistakes, but not enough to hang themselves and have a total moral failure. It is the only way they learn. We do not allow "traditional" dating in our young teens. We allow groups of friends to hang out, go to the movies, come to our home. We do not encourage "pairing off" until such a time when marriage is in the foreseeable future. Does this mean they don't have crushes? Of course not. All early teenagers have crushes. This is the time when they are learning to respect each other. Your sons should take this time to learn to hold doors open, pull out chairs, treat girls with gentleness and kindness, serve together. Your daughters can learn to expect this from the boys in her life and to respect herself.
So, what is the answer to the "purity" movement? In my opinion and after lengthy discussions with my daughter, the answer is simple, not easy, but simple. An awareness of sin in your own life. She and Jacob have had plenty of opportunities to have sex. They are 22 and 23 years old. We do not hover over them all the time; that would be ridiculous. They have chosen to restrain themselves because they value God's Word above their own desires. That is a lesson we all need to learn to apply in every single area of life. They put their own hedges in place, made sure they had accountability, and focused on preparing for their future.
If they had made a mistake? Then, we would have dusted off and moved forward - forgiven, whole, and redeemed. And one thing I am forever grateful for, instead of hiding it, she would have confessed it to God for forgiveness and to her daddy and me for accountability, knowing that any sadness we had would have been the same as sadness over any sin and hardship that someone you love is facing. Not "disappointment" and not anger and not horror. Once your children are mature adults with their own relationship with Him, their sin is not about you and you have no right to be personally offended by it.
I know this is not really the popular way to feel about the "purity" movement among believers and goodness not among homeschoolers. However, trial and error has shown me, and many of my fellow sojourners on this path, that "kissing dating goodbye" might have been just a little bit hasty. We had good intentions mind you, but you know what they say about those.
Moms of young children, we do not have to manipulate everything. Train your children to "glorify God and enjoy Him" and to "seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness" and truly, ALL else falls into place. It does.
Find Joy in the Journey - life is too short for anything else and GRACE truly is scandalous.
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