We Need to Talk About...Sex?

Okay, so I just finish Dannah Gresh's What Are You Waiting For: The One Thing About Sex No One Ever Tells You About Sex.  It was incredible!  My whole perspective about sex and marriage has been changed forever.  And I thought I'd share some of what I learned with you.

For those of you that know me, your mouth has probably dropped to the floor by now.  I've always been the type of girl who couldn't even say the word sex aloud, much less talk about the subject.  Now I'm the type of girl that thinks every teenager should hear about sex...from a biblical perspective.  After all, parents, pastors and youth pastors, if you don't tell them, who will?  The world will, that's who.  And their perspective on this precious gift is a bit...well, screwed up.

So, here I go.

The first thing I learned (and probably the most powerful) is that sex is not just about a husband and wife coming together.  Sex was designed as a representative of the intimacy God desires for us.  Some of you are probably like "I knew that!" while some of you are saying "What?!"  Well, just to give you an example...

Did you know that the Hebrew word for sex is yada?  Yeah, the word we use when something is boring or dull is actually talking about intimacy.  However, did you also know that that same word is used when talking about knowing God?  Take these two verses for instance:

Adam knew [yada] his wife; and she conceived...Genesis 4:1

Be still and know [yada] that I am God...Psalm 46:10

Yada is actually translated as: to know, to be known, to be deeply respected.  So, in the same way that a husband and wife "know" each in their marriage bed, that's the same way we should be with God.  Completely transparent and open before Him.  Receiving a love that totally trumps human love any day. 

Next, I learned exactly why sex before marriage is a bad idea.  I mean, we all (by "we" I mean those who have grown up in a Christian home) have been told that we can't have sex before marriage.  When we asked why, the answer was most likely something like "Because the Bible says so" or "God wants you to save yourself for your husband".  But have you ever wondered why?  Why the Bible tells us it's wrong?  Why God wants us to wait for our husbands?  Well, this book gave me the a-ha! moment I needed to answer that one pesky little W-word.

Did you know that you can actually get addicted to a person?  Yep!  There is a chemical that washes over your brain called dopamine, which is responsible for giving you a feeling of pleasure.  Whether it's from chocolate, meth or sex, that chemical washes over your brain and makes you want more.  So, when you have sex with a person, that feeling washes over you and you become attached to that person whether you intend to or not.  So how do you think it feels when this relationship ends or when that person no longer wants to have relations with you?  It hurts.  A lot.

This kind of sex is shakab, meaning a counterfeit.  It's something we pursue to fill an emptiness (which can be filled with the divine love of our Savior) Just to give you an idea of what kind of sex this is, you should know that the word shakab is used in the passage where Lot's daughters have sex with him to preserve seed (Can you say gross?!).  Now that you know that, does having shakab sound appealing at all?

Finally (and you're probably thinking "Thank God!"), I learned that you can start over.  Unfortunately, many people are going into marriage nowadays with shame or ties to other people because of sexual sins in their past.  But just because you go into it with shame doesn't mean it has to stay that way.  God offers forgiveness and healing in ways that may seem impossible to you.

If you or someone you know if struggling with the past, know that there is hope.  Find an older, godly woman (or man, if you're a guy) and confess the past.  It's going to be painful, yes, but it will be worth it.  After that, fast and pray that God will release you from your shame and break the ties you have to the people from your past.  It will be a process, but you will be free.  You don't have to live bound with shame and regrets.

Okay, so that's a lot of information (and that was just scratching the surface!).  I wish I could tell you everything that I learned, but that would be a much, much longer blog post.  You'll just have to read the book yourself. :-)

Breaking Stereotypes.

I spent last week at Harvard University (no, I didn't get accepted or anything...I'd have to be crazy smart for that!) for a People to People Leadership Summit.  Honestly, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, especially because there would be people from all around the world there.  My crazy fear was that we wouldn't have anything in common or that they wouldn't be able to speak English (which is a stupid thought, now that I look back on it).

When I first arrived at the summit, I was overwhelmed by the different countries represented.  For the first time ever, I was in the minority.  After a while, I was assigned to my group which included 5 teenagers from Kenya, one from Brazil, one from South Korea, one from China, and four from the USA.  At this point, the cultural barriers I had set up in my head were beginning to break.

By the time, we had reached dinner that night, I realized that they weren't so different from me.  My motto began to be the same as the summit's: We are different.  We are the same.

Throughout the week, I learned so much about the world and made so many friends from different cultures.  A realization came upon me that our way of life is not the only way...people don't have to eat the things we do or speak English as a primary language for us to be friends.  By the end of the week, I had befriended people on five different continents.  And there were absolutely no barriers between us.

Stereotypes often keep us from reaching out to those in other nations.  I think we make up a number of excuses to keep us in our own little world, never allowing it to expand.  But what happened if we broke stereotypes?  If we allowed ourselves to befriend those that are a little different than us?

The truth is...we could change the world.