As a medical journalist, I reported disease statistics every year. This is an excerpt from my new book, Imagine the Future You, which should be released this month. While principally written for youth, adults can profit from it as well.
HOW SELF CONTROL AND BOUNDARIES ENHANCE OUR FUTURE
HOW SELF CONTROL AND BOUNDARIES ENHANCE OUR FUTURE
By Ada Brownell
Scripture: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may
devour” 1 Peter 5:8.
A high school human sexuality teacher who is a Christian did this
experiment for me in a class I taught at our church.
She gave paper and pencils to everyone. Before class, she marked an X
on the back of one of the papers, but none of the kids knew it. She instructed
students to shake hands with other teens and have them sign each other’s
papers. They gathered signatures for 3-5 minutes, then returned to their seats.
“Turn your papers over and see if there is an X on the back,” she told
them. A girl found the X and raised her hand.
The teacher told her to stand up. “She has
Virus X. Who signed her paper?”
Five hands went up and those kids stood.
“Now these five have the virus. Who signed
their papers?” Four more got out of their seats, also contaminated by the
fictional “virus.”
Six
more admitted their fate.
The remaining students signed the papers of
those students, so all were “infected.”
“This is how sexually
transmitted diseases spread,” the teacher said. “When you have sex with someone
you are essentially going to bed with every person that individual had sex with
because once a sexually transmitted disease is shared, it is contagious until
the disease is cured – if the disease has a cure. You might only be intimate
with one person, but be exposed to multiple diseases.”
Some STDs, such as herpes, cause severe misery, and are incurable, but
they don’t kill. But the HIV-AIDS virus isn’t the only one that kills. Both
Hepatitis B and C affect the liver and can take your life. Human papilloma
virus (genital warts) sometimes causes cervical cancer. Chlamydia and Gonorrhea
let untreated can affect joints, heart valves, cause pelvic inflammatory
disease, infertility and even blindness.
A story in the New York
Times by Lawrence K. Altman published on March
12, 2008, said the first national study of four common sexually transmitted
diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four are infected
with at least one of the diseases.
IMAGINE YOU—CLEAN!
But the federal study could have pointed out
three out of four do not have the disease. I imagine a large number of them
were virgins.
According to Kelsy
McIntyre in “From Times Past,” white has been accepted as the preferred wedding
dress color since Queen Victoria married her cousin Albert of Saxe-Coburg in
1840. Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1849 reported, “Custom has decided, from the
earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the
material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood and the
unsullied heart she now submits to the chosen one.”
A wedding gown probably is
the most beautiful dress most women wear in their lives. Even the least
expensive are exquisite.
Young men, too, probably
will never be more handsome than the day they stand at the altar waiting in a
tuxedo for the beautiful bride.
Children often like to
play “bride and bridegroom,” and during their growing years, many girls dream
of the day when they walk down the church aisle, dressed in white, as the
wedding march fills the sanctuary.
In 1953, about half of all
women were married by age 20, and half of all men by age 22. In 2002, the
average age for the bride was 25 and bridegroom age 27.
Today, thousands of couples are living
together without being married, and every day hundreds and thousands of young
girls are giving birth to babies without being married. In addition, 45 million
babies have been killed by abortion in the United States since abortion became
legal.
Something happened. A
large number of young men don’t bend a knee and extend a tiny box containing a
diamond and ask his beloved to marry him. Instead, many just want to rush off
to bed somewhere and perhaps live together.
Some folks blame the lack
of finances and waiting to earn a college education as the reason, but it
doesn’t make sense. You can get a marriage license for a few bucks. A pastor
will marry you for free, but it’s customary to pay him $100 or so. A couple can
live cheaper than two single people, and you can get your education after
marriage. Thousands of people earn their degrees later, and most of the people
did from generations before us.
But there is something
else—and it’s huge--young women and men are giving away their virginity like
they would drop a penny on the sidewalk and leave it there. Guys who already
have a sexual relationship with a woman won’t hurry to get married. A woman who
gives away her virginity before marriage risks never being married—especially
to him!
IMAGINE: UNBLEMISHED
With throwing away
virginity goes the dream of walking down the church aisle in a white wedding
gown or a tuxedo as a virgin, pure and unblemished. Maybe the bride will wear
white, but it won’t mean anything—especially to the bridegroom.
In addition, sex
before marriage causes emotional consequences. Physicians Joe S. McIlhaney and Freda McKissic Bush,
authors of the book, “Hooked,”[1] say neuroscience has discovered
sexual activity releases a chemical that impacts the brains of developing
adolescents and young adults. These chemicals cause an emotional bond between
partners and when this bond is broken, the youth suffers depression and
difficulty with bonding in future relationships.
In contrast, when
the bride is a virgin and her man loved her enough to control his own urges for
this day, there is suspense, excitement, electricity and sparks that go way
beyond the fireworks of the wedding. When they bow their knees together and
pray with the minister’s hands on their heads, they are serious about this
commitment. They recite their vows to God, concluding with tears in their eyes,
“Until death do us part,” and they intend to keep their vow. If they continue
to follow Him, God will help them through the better or worse, thick or thin,
hair or baldness, sickness or health, poorer or richer.
Staying
pure until the wedding night is the way God dreams of life for young couples.
Sure. God knows about sex.
He invented it. Here’s what God’s Word says: “Marriage is honorable in all, and
the bed undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4).
One time during the Hippie
generation Evangelist Billy Graham visited a college campus and asked students
what they would like to talk about.
“Let’s talk about sex!” yelled
one uncouth student.
“Sure,” said the evangelist
with a smile. “That’s how we all got here, isn’t it?” Then he explained sex is
a wonderful thing between two married people, and marriage is endorsed by God.
But he added sex outside of marriage will only bring sin and sorrow.
Young people who accept
anything less than God’s best for them learn early about the sorrow.
---To see more from Imagine the Future You, look for it on Amazon later this month at Amazon Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06
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