Your pain is immeasurable. The pit in your stomach and hole in your heart is vast with loneliness, bitterness, regret. Your mind is racing every time you recount that day when your life changed: your world altered forever. The feeling of having given a part of yourself to someone who is no longer in this chapter of your life. Such a precious thing that you could've only imagined going a certain way and then in an instant, gone: a raw vulnerable moment that was intended to be a Fairy-tale had a not-so happily ever after. Every now and then you find yourself thinking about what your life would be like had you not gone through what you did, what your current relationship would look like, the lack of emotional heartache you endured and continue to endure, what it could've been, or who it could've been with. This chip on your shoulder has grown over the days, weeks, months, years knowing that you will never be able to again experience your first time for the first time. The pain is deep and ever hardening through time; some of it may be guilt, some of it may be regret, and some of it may be anger. Whatever it may be, do not lose heart.

I know the agony you may be feeling was caused by a moment of weakness for two. I know that you feel as though this constant memory of that day might never leave you; you're too far gone, you're imperfect, you're not good enough, you're damaged goods, you're not worthy of your future husband because you did not wait for him. You feel as though your life with your forever partner is completely ruined based on one or two or fifty nights spent with someone who wasn't him. I'm here to tell you that this is not true. One wrong move altered your universe, that much is true, but one right move can do that as well. While you have one very important part of you that is now given away, that can still be shared with someone you will forever love, under the vow and commitment to God.

There is hope. Do not lose sight that you two can be made new and are made new in the perfect image of which God created you from the beginning. God did create a perfect thing that was a gift to a man and a woman under the sanctity of His love and law. Through time man destroyed it and distorted it. Sex has become a thing of a norm for our culture: the next step in the relationship, television, magazines, music; the list goes on and on. Instead of God creating it in His own image, we have created sex in our image which is full of impatience, lies, deceit, prostitution, and slavery. We've lost sight of the true meaning of what the first time should look like, who it should be with, and the intention of it.

So many men and women have given themselves to each other within a matter of days of being in a relationship, some not even in a relationship. But this is not where the line ends; this is not going to be the end of your story. God is ever so sovereign. He makes things new as He has created you to be made new. While that pit in your stomach resonates with the sound of anguish and despair, God can fill that void to make you whole: complete.

While sex is a cultural norm, you can fight the drug that tells you it's alright to sleep with someone out of wedlock, it is okay to give yourself to someone who will not be around forever, it is normal to have sex on the first date. In a moment that is fleeting, it feels right, but in the long wrong you know that the outcome will have a much more damaging affect on you than the here and now. Let go of the pain of the past and take the step forward knowing that there is so much goodness in waiting, remaining strong, and making yourself whole by the love that God gives. Ladies, you are beautiful, and remember that you do not have to give it all away, but treasure it, value it.

"He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Mark 5:34