MORAL TO THE STORY: Maintaining a chaste conversation, both spoken and written, will reward you with gladness.
A CAUTION: Every deed, every word, everything will be revealed in detail some day. “…and be sure your sins will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
When you’re in love, your priorities change. Previous plans and goals don’t seem quite as important anymore. That “special someone” is suddenly the most important thing in your life. A dangerous fact is that when you “think” you’re in love, the same thing happens...it just doesn’t last.
story four
MY NAME IS TARA. I AM nineteen and have never been your average girl when it comes to guys. Yes, they make good buddies, but I could never understand the girls who spent all their time giggling about their latest crushes. I made up my mind from a young age not to waste my time or emotion on a guy I couldn’t picture myself marrying. Looking back, I can see I had too much spare time. If I had been busy, I would not have had time to text, text, text.
Matt was the most sensitive guy I had ever met. He wasn’t the kind of man I had pictured myself with, but we seemed to fit together so well. Because I grew up with an insensitive and very emotionally unflappable father, I never thought of sensitivity as a positive character trait for a man to have. But when you become the object of all that emotion and thoughtfulness it is very appealing. Matt always knew how I was feeling and seemed to relate. He was romantic and read poetry. He made me feel like I was the most special and wonderful girl on earth. In a way, it made me feel guilty, because I didn’t know how to do the same for him. Like my father, I am rather insensitive, and very realistic. But I tried. Even though I knew I wasn’t being myself, I tried to be emotional and as dependent on him as he was on me. It just felt so good.
Girls just love attention of this sort. It becomes intoxicating, like alcohol, and bends their perception of reality, like a drug.
We had briefly met through mutual friends. We seemed to hit it off. A few months later we started writing, and over the span of about four months he became one of my best friends.
That’s the first red flag—internet “love” is just pie in the sky. It looks great, but it is not a real pie.
Because I am a very self-reliant and guarded individual, I found it amazing how much I opened up to him and trusted him on the internet. The transition from close friends to something more may have been slowly building throughout those four months, but neither of us realized it until he helped me get through some very difficult issues. He was extremely honest with me and very sympathetic. I gave him my cell number and we began talking and texting all the time. Looking back, I see that we didn’t have a chance of remaining “just friends”.
When a guy and girl spend all their time communicating and confiding in each other, they are going to run into trouble eventually.
I set myself up without knowing it. I didn’t see it coming, and while I was still trying to figure out my own feelings, he had already moved on to considering himself in love with me. Knowing that the man I cared for was in love with me was a wonderful feeling, and I felt pressured to return the sentiment. I convinced myself that I loved him, despite the fact that deep inside I knew I was forcing it. I thought love would be amazingly clear, but it seemed so elusive. I pushed the doubtful thoughts from my mind; we were both so shocked and surprised by this development that instead of taking things slow to evaluate whether it was real or not, we plunged ahead, discussing whether or not my family would like him and what kind of weddings we’d always dreamed of.
We also discussed his past and some of the issues he had struggled with for years, and once again I persuaded myself not to let it bother me, for I was his healer. Our relationship was good for him.
Red Flag number 2: You don’t have brains when you’re in love and you can’t “fix” your guy!
I convinced myself it wasn’t that big of a deal, that we could work through it. I was foolish and blind.
My parents were absolutely shocked when I told them about Matt. It was the last thing they would have expected from me. But because I had never shown much interest in a guy before, they took me seriously and said he could come meet the family. They made sure to emphasize that he was coming to be approved, not to visit me.
They had no clue as to how serious we had become through texting and talking on the phone. After talking to my dad on the phone a few times, Matt bought his ticket and finally arrived. It had been eight months since we met—the only time I had ever seen him. Things were awkward at first, and I started wondering what I’d gotten myself into. I pushed all my doubts and fears aside and pretended to be just as much in love as he was. But slowly, over two or three days, little pieces of his character that I didn’t recognize online began to show and it scared me. When someone writes, they project the person they think (or maybe wish) they are, not the person they really are. It became obvious that he wasn’t the man I foolishly convinced myself I loved. But still, I told myself it was too late, I can’t back out now. After all we had been through and all our plans, I couldn’t just end everything. He was so sensitive. I could not hurt him.
The more you desire something the less qualified you are to make a good decision about it. The very desire that drives the decision clouds you from being able to judge the decision well. As attraction can become all-consumning, it is doubly important to be mindful of the counsel of wise family and elders.
I made up my mind to go through with it, to stop thinking about things so much and make it work. The same day I made that decision, a close friend approached me and said she had to talk with me. She hesitantly told me things she, herself, had noticed in Matt, things I had convinced myself were okay or “normal”. While she talked, I set my feelings aside and tried to see truth, because I truly wanted God’s will in my life.
Hearing these concerns from someone I loved and trusted was a reality check for me. It hit me that I didn’t really love Matt, and that I didn’t actually want to spend the rest of my life with him. I could see that all we had was a result of modern technology and runaway emotions. It wasn’t real tried and true love. Through her gentle counsel I came to realize that I didn’t want to have to deal with his past problems for the rest of my life, nor did I want my children to start life with a daddy that came with baggage.
It wasn’t easy to admit how wrong I had been, but I was relieved to know I was walking in truth. I went straight to my parents and told them everything. They told me I was doing the right thing. So that night I ended the relationship. Matt took it very hard and tried his best to change my mind. But I knew I was doing the right thing, and the freedom I felt was remarkable.
Life was hard the following weeks, but I deserved it. I had fooled myself into thinking you can know someone from chatting on the internet. I learned that is just not true, and I am thankful I escaped my folly. All of the pain I went through could have been so easily avoided if I hadn’t continued to play my little mind games and convinced myself of lies. I learned the hard way, but I will always remember one thing: lying to yourself doesn’t change the truth. I feel wiser now, so maybe something good came out of my disaster after all, although I know a part of me will never be the same.
~ Tara
“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3).
This is a very sweet but ultimately sad story. How terrible it is when we tell ourselves something is so when it is not. My younger sister has a similar story but did not go as far as this young lady. The mind is a very powerful mechanism and when you suggest lies to it, if not immediately combated with the truth, those lies can take hold and cause irreversible damage as actions based on that lie play out in your life. Possibly the best thing to be done after an experience like this is to pour Scripture into yourself and spend as much time as possible deepening your walk with the Savior. Stop lying to yourself. Replace the negative with the positive. Pursue the mind of Christ.
Chaste conversation: “While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear” (I Peter 3:2).
Holy Fear: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).
Tara’s story is a disaster that could have been avoided. Thankfully, when Tara was warned, she listened to counsel and avoided the tragedy that could have been.
Many girls go from disaster to disaster and think they will someday find their Prince Charming and live happily ever-after with no complications. It is a sad fact that disasters leave scars, some uglier than others.
“Regret” is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Regret is the reason psychiatrists are rich. Some girls, usually the sweet-hearted, trusting kind, are the sad victims of disasters caused by going over the line into territory where there is no recovery. This is called tragedy.
Tragedies go a step further than disaster. Tragedies are relationships that wreck the dream of the fine prince coming to find you. The next story is a tragedy that destroyed two families.
When Disaster Leads to Tragedy
There was this really cool lady who published a homeschool magazine that I really liked. You would think that a Christian wife and mother of many children, wouldn’t fall prey to tragedy, but she played with a possible disaster and it took her down. This is how it happened.
While at a large homeschooling convention where she was one of the leading speakers, she met a fine, spiritually-minded man who was also one of the main speakers. The two really hit it off. He was really cool. I am not being sarcastic; he was handsome, wise, and seemingly godly. Although both speakers thought they were being led of God and were walking in truth, in reality they had both just been caught up in the homeschool movement. As the Scripture says in 2 Timothy 3:5, they had “…a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”.
When the lady went back home, the two leaders had legitimate reasons to text…and they did text. At first it was okay, until the day she had an argument with her “lazy, unspiritual husband”. When she reached her lowest point, Mr. Cool knew just what to say to make her feel better. Thus they ‘got to know’ each other in a more personal way through sharing the pain and disappointments of her marriage. Then, of course, he began sharing some of his frustrations at his wife’s lack of interest in homeschooling their children. In time he began sharing his wife’s disinterest toward intimacy.
When God wanted one word to describe sexual intimacy he chose know. “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived...” (Gen. 4:1) When one opens the door of one’s spirit and emotions to another of the opposite sex, the result is “knowing.” The man and woman, without any physical contact, were indulging their emotions to their own gratification.
Mrs. Magazine Lady felt his pain. At the next homeschooling conference they went out for coffee. The sweet, spiritual intimacy they had come to share through texting had taken their consciences to places neither of them would have allowed in a social context. At this second meeting the energy between them caught both by surprise. They were amazed at how attracted they were to each other. It felt so good, so fulfilling–love like they had never known. “It must be of God!” they thought. “Surely both of them had made a mistake and married the wrong person. Our love was meant to be.” The Bible says in James 1:15, “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
“Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Proverbs 9:17).
People often think the forbidden boundary is the act of fornication. Not so. These two crossed the boundary the day they met at the first conference and decided the other person was of such interest that they wanted further contact through texting. Each act of texting was foreplay. When they finally met in person the second time they were already turned on to each other. They left their consciences further in the dirt every time they advanced their emotional intimacy through their digital communication. When they agreed to going together for coffee, it was just the next to last of many steps away from virtue.
They divorced their spouses and the two “hot lovers” married. After a few weeks of bliss, they lived in a state of constant stress and unhappiness. Now, years later, they both know that their wild attraction was just Pie In The Sky.
“How weak is thine heart, saith the LORD GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman...as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!” (Ezekiel 16:30, 32).
As a young unmarried girl, do you think you would have to be married in order for your texting “love affair” to be soulish adultery? Think again. In the next story the girl had never even been kissed.
This is not a story I read in a book or got from a letter. I heard this sad tale sitting at my own kitchen table. I watched the tears flow down the faces of those who knew her. Her parents were shocked senseless for days because it never occurred to them that their clean, wholesome, homeschooled girl might have done this thing by her own volition.
Young Bride-to-Be’s Pie in the Sky
Jane was 23 years old before Rodger asked for her hand in marriage. It came as a total surprise to her. He was a friend of her brother, but had never really shown her any special attention. Rodger was shy and awkward around her, and she was so nervous around him she couldn’t say a word. He was a nice guy, and she would have swooned over him if he had asked for her just three months earlier, but now she wasn’t sure.
Jane had been secretly texting and emailing a guy from Florida for several months. Through a mutual friend he had asked to be on her Facebook page. She had never actually met Mr. Florida, but they had discussed everything while texting. As soon as Rodger left her family’s house after asking for her hand in marriage she rushed into her bedroom to email Mr. Florida of Rodger’s proposal and then shared with him her nervousness, fears, uncertainties, and doubts. Mr. Florida totally understood. Every evening for weeks Rodger came over to visit her, but she never could open up to him like she could to Mr. Florida. But, the wedding was scheduled anyway for Jane wanted to get married. Mr. Florida never mentioned marriage. She knew her parents would never approve of him anyway, as they had narrow expectations of a suitor.
Two weeks before the wedding, Jane was getting very nervous. She emailed Mr. Florida saying she wished Rodger were like him. She felt like she was marrying a stranger. Mr. Florida said he wished with all his heart they could be together, just to talk this out and make sure she was doing the right thing. In confused desperation she bought a bus ticket and slipped out of the house. Mr. Florida met her at the bus station and took her to a motel, where she fell into his arms weeping. They didn’t mean for it to happen…they just felt so connected…like it was meant to be. You do understand, don’t you? After a week of sleeping together at the motel, the spiritual, Bible-quoting, deeply sincere Mr. Florida revealed that he was already married and had two kids. He explained that he desperately loved her and that she was so much more than his own pitiful wife, but he had a commitment to his family. She walked into the motel an unkissed virgin; seven days later she walked out pregnant. Jane got back on the bus and went home.
Her relationship with Mr. Florida was just Pie In the Sky. It felt more real than what she felt for Rodger. Why? Because Jane believed she knew Mr. Florida. They experienced intimacy as they texted. They became relaxed and confident with each other, which made physical intimacy hard to resist. Emailing, texting, and phoning was the sin that lead to her ugly tragedy.
She had skated close to sin every time she punched a letter on her keyboard, and God is not mocked. Every time she pushed “send” she sent him a part of her intimate self. She had already given herself away before she closed the door to a cheap motel room with the noise of the interstate in the background. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). Her texting brought death to her lifelong hopes, dreams, and the possibility of becoming a pure bride.
Rodger didn’t want a candy bar that had already been licked, so he went elsewhere and found a nice chaste girl who didn’t text. I must note, just a few weeks after this event someone found the charming Mr. Florida on Facebook getting to know another nice Christian girl.
Pie in the Sky—the very thought is tantalizing to the imagination, the first bite sweet, the afteraffect as bitter as Hell.
When you get to know someone online it is like getting to know a character in a fiction novel. That character is the product of creative writing. When a young man writes to girls, you can be sure of one thing: he is doing his very best to make a good impression. Have you ever seen one of those nature shows that feature the mating rituals of wild creatures? The male bird fluffs out his feathers, making him look three times as big as he really is. Frogs inflate their chests and make deep croaking sounds. Lizards expand the skin around their necks until they look five times bigger. Young men go online and become spiritual giants, with large hearts and magnificent goals and worthy ambitions, but it’s all bird feathers and lizard skins. He describes himself as he would like to be, or as he thinks she would like him to be. He develops an online personality. None of his assertions are tested. His body language and mannerisms are concealed. Like an author writing a novel, he is known through his creative writing. Like the country song goes, “I’m so much cooler online.”
So, am I saying texting is inherently evil? No, not at all; it is just a form of communication. Texting in itself is not sin, but then, neither is parking a car. However, if you are alone with a guy when you park, you have already accepted the slippery slope. When you text a guy, you are alone with him, it is just the two of you—soul to soul. Because your body is not there, you feel safe. But intercourse of mind and heart is 90% of the intercourse of marriage.
Are you in a Pie in the Sky relationship with a guy or, maybe, several guys? To get to know a man who is not your husband is emotional adultery. To exchange intimate knowledge with several guys is whorish.
Texting, Facebook and emails are not private. Husbands are checking up on wives. Employers are now paying computer gurus to find “web noise” information on people who are seeking employment. If you sent it, someone can trace it to you. Sin and foolishness will find you out.
In preparing to write this book I asked several young men if they had gone to the web to check up on any of the girls they have considered as potential brides. Many men felt the best way to really know what and who a girl is was to check out her past cyber traffic: What has she written? Who has she been in contact with? The guys had thus eliminated many girls that never even knew they were being considered.
You think, “Shame on a man who would violate my privacy.” What privacy? I say, “You typed it; you or one of your friends posted the pictures; you went to that place and associated with that crowd.” If you have already soiled your cyber image, now is the time to start over.
Just say never again, and proceed to reform your foolish tracks with righteous and sober-minded remarks. A man seeing the change will appreciate a healthy repentance and a lesson learned.
Great White Throne Judgment
There is a new rash of suicides among very young teenagers. The reason has been tracked to the embarrassing situation kids are finding themselves in due to foolish “sexting” and texting. These young teenagers tingle with excitement as they, in the secret corners of their bedrooms, point a small phone toward their bodies and push the camera button. It seems secret and it doesn’t feel that bad.
The Scripture teaches that there will come a day when every thought, deed and attitude will be made known and each person will give an answer. Some of you will give an answer long before The Great White Throne Judgment. Some of you will have friends (at least you thought they were friends) forwarding your messages and your pictures to people who only want to hurt you. It might not be revealed until your wedding day, or at your first child’s fifth birthday party, or maybe when your daughter is eleven. But it floats around out there waiting to come forth at the most embarrassing time.
God says in James 4:17, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Then in I John 3:9, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
Amen! We all need this reminder.
God commands women to be chaste in their conversation.
If you are not chaste as a single girl then you will not be
trustworthy as a wife. You are what you do!
Some of you are conceiving sin by participating in activities that will one day bring forth the death of your marriage. Are you NOW involved in an unchaste conversation with a guy, or maybe several guys?
If you knew every single week the preacher would read to the whole church your emails or texting, and show over the large screen every picture you sent or received, would you feel ashamed, embarrassed, or outright horrified?
Are you ready to honor God in this area of your life?
Are you willing to flee the temptation by removing from your chat list any person that you have written or who has written you in an unwise manner?
Are you willing to do whatever it takes to completely free your heart from attachments that dishonor God?