I was 13. Naive, not thinking and I did not realize the consequences that it would bring later on down the road in my life. I had no idea what it would do to my faith either.

It changed quite drastically after that occurrence.

I got scared.

I became lonely.

I started blaming my dad who wasn’t really in my life for the choice that I had made.

I didn’t know what to do in my life and it felt like it was going down a downhill spiral.

The only thing that kept me going was who I could be with next. To know how often I would be getting more and more experience. To see what it honestly felt like to live wild and dangerously.

I was never one for taking chances growing up. I always took the safe route when doing anything. I have never broken a bone or done anything crazy to where my parents had to extremely scold me.

This, this was a new concept I did not quite fully grasp. I thought having sex would make me cool. To have almost a new life and persona that would be more mature and know more things instantly.

I was completely wrong. It made me a mess and I not only thought less of the world, but less of myself.

I didn’t know where to turn because I couldn’t tell my mom and she was my closest friend. She would’ve been devastated, and I couldn’t handle her always worrying about that whenever I was hanging out with guys because that’s who I was mainly around.

I never knew how judgemental people could be until I got to high school. I thought by telling people that I had done the deed made me instantly a whore by the standards of everyone I thought were my friends. No one seemed to be interested in actually getting to know me, but they didn’t mind getting to know my body. They had no intention of learning who I really was.

I realize now that a way to a man’s heart is not through other parts of his body.

It’s about growing a relationship not only with Him but through Christ.

I still remember when I felt Jesus come to me one night during junior year of high school. I wrote a poem about it because the feelings I was having were so overwhelming that I couldn’t do anything but write them down.

After 7 years of trying to figure out why things happened to the way they did, I realized that nothing can change what happened to me.

I don’t have a magical time machine to stop myself from making the “biggest mistake of my life.”

Sex became such a part of me and who I was because I thought that it was all I was ever good for when having any relationship with any man. I idolized the everything about that “bond” that I was having with that person at the moment. I never really understood why I became so emotionally attached after one time with a guy. All I knew was that I wanted more.

What I do have though is grace.

I learned at a retreat called Chrysalis not only how to forgive others that seemingly wronged me from my past, but learned how to forgive myself for what I had let happen to my body. It was taken over by someone that I did not know anymore.

When I told my table of my infidelities, they were shocked at how open I was with them only knowing them a few shorts days, but that was my main intent for going. I knew I had messed up along my road to redemption. I needed to find someone willing enough to hold me and pray for me, and that is exactly what they did. After that time, I had never felt so fully of the Holy Spirit. Life was given a makeover through my eyes.

I have my Heavenly Father to forgive me for what I did for so long because I thought that sex was the only thing that would satisfy my need to be loved and longed for, but I was in search of the wrong kind of love.

Agape, having only two places in the Bible, means unconditional love. That means I receive love from The Father for not only this sin, but everyone of them that I have committed. No questions asked. No shaming for having lustful eyes before making the vow before God to commit myself to one man for the rest of my life.

1 John 4:8 NIV

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God has presented Himself in so many ways since having such a big turn of events happen in my life. He has taught me to overcome many obstacles put in my life such as being persecuted by my peers to having to move and cope with making new friends that knew nothing about me.

Coming to a Christian college made me think that everyone that went here had to be perfect and blameless in the eyes of God. When in reality, these friends that I was making had gone down a similar path such as myself.

I realized that I did not have to be perfect when being here, nor did I have to tell anyone everything of my past.

Honestly, I would not be who I was today and gone through the experiences I had if I hadn’t had sex when I was younger and honestly, I am okay with that. I have come to terms that I do not need that in my life to be happy, but be filled with God so that I may better not only myself, but teach others that you do not have to give your body up before you are honestly ready.

Seek God before seeking man because man will let you down in the end, whereas Our Father will sustain your needs for all your days here on Earth and with Him eternal.