LIVING SINGLE AND EMBRACING CELIBACY!

I promise to not make this post super uncomfortable but this is the post where we talk about SEX! *cue dramatic music* ok who am I kidding, this is probably gonna get a little uncomfortable, well for me at least since I am the one who will be baring my soul to you! I believe it’s so important to be transparent and honest, too many people (Christians) have these secret lives, living in shame and denial! Well I say there is no shame in admitting your struggles, the things you do in secret, no more hiding! because ultimately what we are really hiding from is ourselves, because we definitely cannot hide from God! When we hide, it stops us from repenting, and coming to God in repentance is so important in our walks! We all have a past, and some of our pasts are more colourful than others, but its those experiences that shape us, it’s those trauma’s for some that God uses to help us share with others how good our Father is, because even in our transgressions, God is so full of grace and mercy that his hand is always out stretched to us!

I think at the age of 39 it’s no surprise to know I am no virgin. I’ve only technically had one long term (7 year) relationship, after that its been plenty of near misses, you know when you think you meet someone great but after a few months (if that) they show their true colours? But in between all that it’s been a lot of casual hook ups. I went through a sexual liberation phase, I was celebrating being free and sexually uninhibited, and I was actively looking for these kind of connections all under the guise of female empowerment! Let me tell you as a Christian woman if you subscribe to that movement of feminism I warn you to be careful because its a slippery slope that can lead you away from a Christ led life! The joke of it was sexually I wasn’t fully fulfilled like you would expect living that life style, and its not got anything to do with the men I encountered, but more to do with the way God created me! I’ve always been a person that enjoyed building mental and emotional connections more than the physical, without that initial connection, sex wasn’t that earth shattering for me no matter the skill of my partner. So after kissing a lot of frogs, and experiencing some sexual trauma because of lack of wisdom on my part (some frogs need to be avoided at all costs!) by the summer of 2019 (before I found Christ) I had decided that I was not going to give my body away casually anymore, I would save myself for a real relationship! As you can imagine, once I put those conditions on my sex life, my sex life became non existent because surprise surprise nobody I met was ever looking for a long term commitment. By the time November came along, when I gave my life to Christ I had a taste of celibacy so I figured it would be easy to switch to being celibate until I met my husband.

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It’s funny how as soon as I put those restrictions on myself, every temptation got thrown in my path! For 6 straight months, it seemed like every guy I had encountered had dusted off their black book and decided to check in on me! Some of them wanting to hook up again for old time sake or even asking about exploring more than just the casual setting, even my long term ex had tried to rekindle something! It was a crazy time! But like I said as soon as I decided to be obedient to God, the enemy tried his hardest to tempt me by offering me a perverted version of what I ultimately wanted, a relationship. ROMANS 8:7-8 “THE MIND GOVERNED BY THE FLESH IS HOSTILE TO GOD; IT DOES NOT SUBMIT TO GOD’S LAW, NOR CAN IT DO SO. THOSE WHO ARE IN THE REALM OF THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD.” I know the thought of abstaining from sex can seem like an impossible option for some, especially those who are not in a relationship with God, but when I understood what God was asking from me, It stopped feeling like a sacrifice! It started off by me understanding that my body was a temple. I know that is a concept that most are familiar with, but I truly understood that the temple (my body) is where the Holy Spirit resides, the Holy Spirit I received when I believed and accepted Jesus! When we accept Christ we are made into a new creation, its the Holy Spirit that renews us, and causes our desires to change, but we have to be obedient and allow the change to take place! GALATIONS 5:16 “SO I SAY, LET THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDE YOUR LIVES. THEN YOU WON’T BE DOING WHAT YOUR SINFUL NATURE CRAVES.” When we really let the Holy Spirit guide us, all the things we thought we couldn’t live without become a memory of a past life! Your mind is renewed and your cravings change. Honestly it’s been over year of celibacy and I don’t think about sex! I feel differently about the act itself! Like I said before, I was casually giving my body away without any thought. Now I understand the intimacy of that act and how God intended me to experience it! God showed me that it’s a sacred act to be experienced between man and woman who make a covenant with each other and God in marriage. He showed me the two come together to become one flesh, and that’s how we honor Him in our unions! When you want to live to please God, the things that He hates start to become the things you hate! This is how we start to align ourselves with the will of God!

When I started to learn what it really meant to be a wife, and not in the worlds standard of what a good wife is, but God’s standard, I started to think about the roles we play in relationships! Suddenly the thought of being single seemed smart, and not for the reasons you might think, but because I realised that I had a lot of unlearning to do when it came to my idea of what a good relationship or partner looked like! Ultimately I needed to relearn what the word SUBMISSION meant now that I was a child of God. The word submission in culture today when it refers to women in relationships is viewed so negatively, that it is almost impossible to have these conversations and come to any agreement, especially when we live in a society that champions the women empowerment and feminist movement! Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for women’s rights, and fairness and equality, and I believe God is too! He never made us all in His likeness and image so that we could be at war with each other about who holds more importance, we are all equal, we just have different roles to play! We have a God of order, not of confusion! If God is calling me to submit to my future husband and I have a problem with it, then something is not right here! So before I could think about submission to the future man in my life, I had to learn to submit to God! Because if I can’t submit to God then what chance would I stand in my union?!? I started to look at submission as a good thing, not as a loss of self but a gain of self, a different kind of empowerment. If you read PROVERBS 31:10-31 in the Old Testament, you get an idea of what God views as a noble woman, a woman that God says deserves praise and to be rewarded, and its not a helpless woman who lives under the thumb of her husband! It’s a strong woman, who takes care of her family, is a business woman (a boss!) she is wise, she isn’t lazy, she is hard working! she enriches her husbands life, she instructs with kindness! Just to name a few things. This same woman, who is strong in mind, a boss, and wise still submits to her husband! My fears of submission, I realised came from my past traumas in relationships and encounters with men in my life, I found it hard to separate my experiences and pain. The things I experienced before I found Christ were still weighing on me heavily! I had to let that go and understand that I no longer had to carry that into my new life, and God would teach me what a man with a heart for Jesus would look like, and that would be how I would decide on who my future husband would be!

It takes a lot of work to change your list of requirements when looking for a partner. When your list is full of superficial wants that have nothing to with heart and character you are setting yourself up for a fall! Now my list is all about heart, about being equally yoked! I am asking about prayer life and relationship status with Jesus, because if I am called to submit to my husband he has to be in submission to God! If you are submitting to a husband who isn’t obedient to God first, you leave the door open for the enemy to enter and destroy! I know I am no marriage expert but I believe you don’t have to be to use the wisdom that God provides you when you read His Word. So to all my single ladies out here who really want to find a holy union, have patience, use this time to really grow in your relationship with God, learn to do what pleases Him and be obedient, because trust me God is using this time to shape and mold you so that you are the woman you need to be! He is making you into a Proverbs 31 woman! Read 1 CORINTHIANS 7:32-35, which basically tells us to use this time of singleness to serve the Lord because when you find your mate your earthly responsibilities of pleasing your partner will become more important! It’s because of this I am content with my season of singleness, I now see the benefits of this time! I know my Father knows what the desires of my heart is and he would not give me such desires which align with His sovereign will if He did not intend to full fill them! It’s because of this knowledge of God’s heart that I can wait patiently with a joyous heart of my own.