Pure Design

Pure Design

 

This session was taught by Ashley Chappell and it covers purity. It was supposed to be for teen girls, but Rebekah and I decided to crash the party anyway and check it out. Purity is always good to be reminded of!  Her main topic point is: "Why you're worth waiting for."

-You are loved! Be careful of settling for a quick love.

-You are beautiful! True beauty is a humble girl who admits her sin and then takes on the beauty of God's image. Your identity is in Christ!

- You are worth MORE! Realize the value of your purity and guard it. You deserve someone who would give up their life for you.

Some steps to maintaining purity:

1) PURSUE GOD -- Make that your focus. You deserve someone who values you enough to do anything for you, even die for you. So make God your focus and he'll bring you the right man for you.

2) ONLY DATE WHEN YOU'RE READY TO MARRY -- "You can't go shopping without money." I covered this a little bit in my last blog, but it doesn't even need much explaining.

3) ONLY DATE CHRISTIANS -- If you are a Christian you should only be dating Christians. "Do not be unequally yoked" the Bible says. And the men you date need to be devoted Christians, they need to take Christianity seriously and have a well established relationship with Christ.

4) SEEK WISE ADVICE/COUNCIL -- When you need advice or council on a relationship (or anything really) seek out people who have already "been there, done that"! It's not going to help you if you ask a friend who's never had any experience with what you need help with...Make sense? Haha.

 5) SET PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL BOUNDARIES -- Boundaries are a blessing and a safe-keeping and they need to be seen as such, if you view them as oppressive you'll end up compromising and that only leads to worse and worse things. ESTABLISH boundaries that will keep you physically and emotionally safe, and stick to them! 

6) GROUP DATE -- As someone who's not too sure about courting, I approve of this as a good "compromise" between one-on-one dating and courting. Go on group dates with other godly people. It should be a mix of guys and girls, but not everyone in the group has to be dating someone, groups can be made up of friends and couples, as long as you're not alone. This keeps you safe in multiple ways, plus it's a good way to see how your date reacts to this. If he doesn't want to go out with your friends a couple of times, then he's sketchy. Get rid of him! 

7) PRAY FOR YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE -- Even though you don't know who he is, pray for who God has in mind for you. If you're looking forward to your future then it's going to be easier to wait.

8) DRESS TO KILL! (Evil desires) -- This is by far my favorite point for two reasons: a) it's got a sassy title *wink* and b) when the speaker gave us this point she also shared a statistic with us: there have actually been studies done that have proven, PROVEN, that when men see a woman in a bikini their brains register her in the same way it registers other OBJECTS (like a hammer and nails and other tools, etc...) However! When they see women dressed modestly their brains register her as a person... Basically they respect her. This is the way their brains actually work and process things. It's not anything they really control. So why do women get surprised when they aren't treated as valuable when they don't make themselves seem valuable?! Dressing to show as much skin as possible will, yes, get you more male attention, but they will only see you as an object...a toy...

9) MAKE A COMMITMENT TO GOD -- this is pretty self explanatory... Make a commitment to God that you're going to stay pure until marriage, and by pure I mean it mentally and emotionally as well as physically. 

10) LEARN FROM OTHERS MISTAKES -- I am a prime example of mistakes you can learn from. One day I'll post my story, and hopefully it will be a help to others. But you know what? I learned from my mistakes, and I'm learning from others mistakes too... It's how we grow. So, see how it's NOT done and do the opposite, and if you happen to see how it IS done, then copy that! (Referring to a good, godly marriage).