Have you ever been in a position where a decision you made came back to haunt you? Maybe it was something from last week, maybe it was something from 10 years ago. Nonetheless, it caught up with you. Do you regret that decision you made? Do you embrace that decision you made as something from your past, knowing you grew from that experience? Or do you simply try to ignore it?
I recently had a friend contact me in regard to this very same situation: something from her past had caught up with her in a very unexpected way. My friend, we will call her Amanda, had parents who loved her and adored her, but they did not tell her she was beautiful. In fact, they caused her to be very self-conscious and she often felt less than beautiful. As a result, Amanda searched for words of affirmation from the boys around her. She found herself in a very manipulative, toxic relationship as she sought for attention and affection from boys.
When Amanda was a little older, she made a decision to send indecent pictures of herself to her boyfriend at the time. She thought nothing of it at the time other than, “If I do this, he will love me more. He will call me beautiful, and hearing I am beautiful is what matters most.” She needed those words of affirmation so desperately that she sacrificed a very intimate part of herself via a text message.
All too recently, though, her decision to send those indecent pictures caught up with her, and, in a way, came back to haunt her. Her photos and phone number were used by someone just a few weeks ago to make a personal, sexual advertisement. So here she is, married with kids, but she is still haunted by her past.
She was contacted as a result of this ad, and while at first very confused, quickly came to understand the story behind the ad -- a picture she had taken a long time ago. She was devastated, but shared a message with me that resonated in a multitude of ways. Her message was this: “You may not care now, but you will eventually." I considered this for a long time, evaluating how many things in my personal life to which I said, “I simply want to indulge/give in/not care/etc. now.” Yet, here I sit, five, 10, even 15 years later, regretting those decisions. Amanda learned through her experiences that nothing is ever truly deleted and nothing is ever truly gone. These pictures, eight years later, are still haunting her. Her poor decisions have had lasting effects, that in this day and age, may forever continue to come back to her.
Research conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy revealed in 2008 that approximately 20 percent of teens in the United States admit that they have sent or posted online lewd photos or video of themselves. According to this study, most teenagers were sending these indecent, even explicit messages to friends. To top it off, of those who reported receiving an indecent image, well over 25 percent said that they had forwarded it to someone else.
There have even been reports of students losing jobs or college scholarships as a result of being identified in sexually-suggestive pictures that have appeared on the internet. Thankfully, Amanda has not faced consequences such as these. A great gift from the Lord is that her husband did not judge her or condemn her for her past, but loved her deeply as they walked through this together.
Sending these inappropriate images falls into the common credit card approach — “Play now, pay later.” Ultimately, if you are sending nude images, you will pay a price at some point. The price may be having to tell your husband about your choices, it may be losing a scholarship or even a job, or there could even be legal ramifications, but no matter what, there will be a consequence to your actions. My approach, though, is this: there is a time and place for full exposure, and it has nothing to do with cell phones or the internet. The Lord asks us to wait to reveal ourselves in this way until we are married.
If you are currently engaging in sending sexually-suggestive images, please remember that these images will never disappear. They will never go away or cease to exist. They are forever.
