Why I Choose To Wait

Today it is commonplace to expect people to have sex before marriage. So many people don't understand why a person would willingly choose to abstain from sex until marriage. I would like to provide the reasons I have decided to wait. Certainly, my faith plays into it, but the fear of sinning is far from the only reason I have decided to wait for sex. 

I am waiting, because I value certain things so much. I see them as so valuable and special and desire to live in a way that expresses what I value. 

Disclaimer: I do not assume to say that if you have decided to have sex outside of marriage you do not value any of these things, so please do not see this article as an attack but as an explanation. I hope you can understand my reasoning.

If it seems strange that I would sacrifice certain pleasures for the things I value, I would like to point out that people sacrifice lots of things for what they value. People sacrifice years of their life to obtain an education that will allow them to (or at least make it far more likely that they will get to) enter into the career field they so desire. 

People sacrifice years of their life on the battlefield in order to provide their families and loved ones with a safe place to live.

I am abstaining from sex until marriage in order to orient my life in a way that sets me up for the kind of life I hope to enter into: a life with security and happiness standing on top of the things I truly value.

I am choosing to wait, because I value...

--COMMITMENT

--ECONOMIC SECURITY

--A LOVING FATHER IN THE HOME

--OPENNESS TO LIFE

--A HEALTHY BODY (physical, psychological...)
--SELF-CONTROL

--SELF-GIFT

Further Explanation

COMMITMENT
If I am going to open myself up to a person in the most intimate way, I want to know this is someone I can trust. If the man engaging in this activity with me isn't willing to or doesn't want to commit to looking out for my well-being and that of our potential child, then he is really only in the act for his own gratification. I don't want to be with a man who sees me as a functional object to be used for the source of self-gratification. If I have sex with a man, I want the act to involve looking out for my good --> emotionally, physically, spiritually, economically. 
I'm not looking to be with a man who will eventually commit to me if I get pregnant. I want to be with a man who is already committed. If the man I am engaging in sex with isn't willing to "tie-the-knot" with me first, one thing I question is his motives. I also question how much he really thinks I am worth. If a man hasn't already fully committed to me, then his commitment is conditional. Even if a man says, "If you get pregnant, I'll marry you," that's still conditional. Why would I have to get pregnant in order for him to stay with me? WHY isn't he willing to tie the knot now? Is he not sure that I'm "worth it" -- that my sense of security is "worth it"? 

OPENNESS TO LIFE
When I say I believe ALL life have value and is worthy of love and respect, this includes people of all different levels of ability, development, socioeconomic status, and race. It has been biologically proven (and can also be shown through philosophy and reason) that a human being comes into existence from the moment of conception and leaves at his or her last breath. When I say that I believe all people have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," I truly mean that I believe that EVERY human being who is living has the right to remain so. Because I truly believe this, I am opposed to the use of abortion or birth control --> which I believe (1) right away promotes the idea that pleasure is of greater importance than treating every human life and potential human life as a priceless gift worthy of love and (2) sometimes even acts as an early abortifacient, which means that the child is conceived but dies due to not being provided with the conditions he or she needs to stay alive.

The reason I mention this value in explaining my decision to not have sex before marriage is because having sex before marriage would require going against at least one of my values. If I were using birth control so that I could have sex while still feeling economically secure (due to the ability to avoid conceiving or to get rid of any life once conceived), I would be going against my values of "openness to life" and "a healthy body."

ECONOMIC SECURITY
I don't want to have to wonder if I am going to get pregnant outside of marriage and take on the responsibility of single-parenting, and I don't consider birth control to be an ideal solution (for reasons listed under "openness to life" and "a healthy body"). I know that single mothers fight a rough battle, because they are not only taking on the responsibility of looking out for their children's everyday physical and emotional needs at home. In most cases, they are also responsible for being the primary (if not sole) financial provider for both themselves and their children. This is a lot for a person to take on on their own. I have decided to wait until marriage to have sex, so that I will have a loving and dedicated spouse to share in these responsibilities with me. 

A HEALTHY BODY 

Psychological: The wound of being so intimate with a man only to have him leave me and break my heart is not something I would like to deal with. I do not want to live in the psychological state of constantly being on edge or uncertain as to whether the person I have given myself to in the most intimate of ways will always be there for me. Sex lights up so many hormones that a person is naturally going to feel a special attachment to the other person and is thus prone to getting emotionally hurt. 

Physical: (1) I want to only have sex with one man in my life, and that man is my husband. Studies have shown that it is unhealthy for the body to have multiple sex partners. The body was not made for this. People who have various sex partners are prone to developing diseases that people who have only one sex partner are either not at risk of or at a very low risk of developing. Among diseases people who have had various sex partners are prone to developing are herpes and aids, but there is a much longer list of diseases than that. I do not want to put myself in a position where I am prone to these lifelong diseases. 

(2) People often use birth control these days (especially when they are engaging in premarital sex.) Another decision I have made is that I do not intend to ever use birth control. This decision not only has to do with my value of "openness to life." It also has to do with keeping my physical body safe and at optimal health. Because it alters a person's hormones, birth control comes with lots of negative side effects and health risks. I do not want to increase my risk of developing these symptoms or illnesses. I also want to my body to be in the best possible position to nurture a child when I do conceive. At least some, if not all, sorts of hormonal birth control act by doing harm to the lining of the uterus. Additionally, if a person uses birth control at one point and later hopes to conceive, the body is not in the most optimal position for this because mixed messages are being sent within the body. Is the body supposed to block the systems and processes that made conception possible, or is it supposed to nurture the child? Certainly, as we well know, a person who is on birth control and goes off of it (or sometimes even while on it) can indeed conceive a child. Yet, since the body learns behaviors (including but not limited to learning how to respond to potential conception or an early conception), it will have to unlearn behaviors. Rather than playing around with the hormones in my body, I want to give them a straight path so that they are at optimal function when I conceive rather than my body having to go through a period of recovery and restoration of function.

A LOVING FATHER IN THE HOME
My decision to not have sex before marriage does not only have to do with my hope for a healthy life for myself but also for my children. Studies have shown that children who are raised with a dependable father in the home are more likely  to have stable childhoods and to develop into healthy adults. Along with wanting a husband to help me provide for me and my children, I want my children to grow up with both a father and a mother in the home who they can look to for guidance and support. Men and women have both different and overlapping characteristics and traits that are beneficial for a child to see and experience. I want my children to come to know that they were brought into the world because two people who love and committed to each other wanted them, and I want my children to know that these two mutually-loving and dedicated people are people they can lean on in hard times and rejoice with in good times.

Of course, no marriage is perfect, and not having sex before marriage doesn't guarantee that I will end up with a kind, caring, and devoted man, but it does increase the chances, and don't we alter our behavior in other areas of our life to increase the chances of a positive outcome?

SELF-CONTROL

The more I lose control of myself in certain parts of my life (for example, I'm finally getting over a social media addiction and am attempting to improve my eating habits), the more I realize how much I value the ability to regulate myself and make decisions rationally versus being at the mercy of my body's every impulse. It doesn't feel good to lose control. In fact, it lowers my self-esteem. I'm not saying that people who have sex before marriage don't have any self control, but I want to be able to structure my life in a way that sets me up for success in the life I am striving for: hopefully a life with happy, healthy children; a life that promotes everyone's right to life and love regardless of ability, developmental level, economic status, race, etc.; a life that says I believe I am worth waiting for and committing to. Being able to say "this is what I want" and "I am capable of doing what it takes to set myself up to succeed" is a very empowering thing to be able to say. :)

SELF-GIFT

When I look at my life, I want it to be something I offer up for others. Jesus offered His life for me on the cross, and now I want to offer myself to Him and to His children by looking out for their well-being, by showing love towards them, by nurturing them, and by considering them to be just as important as myself. Therefore, as Christ gave Himself completely and unreservedly to me, I want to give myself completely and unreservedly to another. When I have sex with a man I want to not only be saying "Here is my body" but also "Here is my commitment. Here is my all." When I perform this ultimate act of intimacy, I also want it to be an ultimate act of self-gift, holding nothing back. I believe God gave us the gift of sex so that we would have the opportunity to provide as drastic and complete an act of self-gift as He provided for us. 

HEALTH BLOG #2 - Vocal Cord Dysfunction

I've been far more antisocial this past month than in previous months. I find the main reason for this is that once your life becomes more and more difficult due to health issues, one gets tired of and overwhelmed at the prospect of having to answer the question "how are you?" / "what's new?" / "how's life"? [It also becomes more difficult to go places, as your body feels so drained and confused.]

As I go through this year of self-care, we're finding more and more things. Allergy testing -- Depression -- Anxiety -- Potential PTSD -- Acid Reflux -- things I'd rather not name -- etc. etc. I'm trying a new diet: DAIRY FREE AND WHEAT-LIMITED. On top of that I'm supposed to avoid acidic foods due to reflux. 

I'm someone who has a hard time getting out of bed or going places due to anxiety and who-knows-what (still figuring stuff out), so AVOIDING certain foods isn't as big of an issue as making sure I EAT at all. I guess my body is accustomed to going through the day on a rice cake or no food, so I have to force myself to eat. Once I start eating, I want to keep eating due to the fact that it can be an anxiety-relieving activity. Preparing the food can be tiring. I have to set myself to it and am lucky if I get in a solid meal a day. People may ask "how do you function?" Fair question. I don't necessarily function, but this is normal for me.

People ask me, "Well, did these things just suddenly appear or have you had these symptoms in years past?" The best answer I can give is that I've had these health issues for the past 11-22 years, but I've chosen to avoid addressing them, and my symptoms have gradually become more severe.

The basic narration of my health journey over the past few years has been the doctor saying, "Yes. We can't find a cause of this [weakness, fatigue, etc.] Your testing came back negative. Much of it could be due to allergies or psychological problems."

I was diagnosed with asthma many years ago, but when I finally went to the allergist again this year -- after about a decade -- to see if we could identify triggers and some life adjustments could help lessen some symptoms [headaches, weakness, tingling, shortness of breath, itchiness] the breath tests showed that I did not have asthma. In fact, my ability to breath out was "above average." 

What we found was "below average" was my ability to breath in.

L  R

The vocal cord folds are the entrance for air to get into the lungs.

LEFT: My vocal cords in open resting position VCD.

Note: In my case, the vocal cords twitch nervously in anticipation that they may need to close all the way to block out potential threats to the lungs.

RIGHT: Approximately what the vocal cords look like (only slightly more open than) in a resting person without VCD.

The allergist suspected vocal cord dysfunction and sent me to a voice pathologist for testing. His guess was accurate. DEFINITE vocal cord dysfunction, and it's funny of how for all these years we didn't know this or I thought it must just be in my head.

Click here for an informative, 15 min. podcast on VCD.

Now for some questions I anticipate:

1) Did I always have this disorder? 

2) If so, why didn't I address it sooner?

I don't know exactly when this disorder began, but I suspect I have had it for as long as I can remember. I have had difficulty breathing for a long time, and I think I was diagnosed with asthma around the age of 11. Before age 11 I had some difficulty with breathing too, though I primarily remember it as being exercise-induced up until that point. Age 11 is when other disorders I have kicked-in, and I definitely think the various disorders contributed to each other. So I would say my vocal cords have been gradually closing for at least 11 years.

I wouldn't necessarily say I haven't addressed it. I have gone into the therapist with breathing problems every few months for the past many years. I'm often given breathalyzers to breath out into, since they thought I had asthma. I carry an inhaler. But I was misdiagnosed. We didn't really know the cause for these breathing issues up until now.

My other response to question two is that since I was a kid I'm accustomed to being told that I'm faking or exaggerating things. I've had perplexed doctors tell me, "It's not this. It's not that. It seems to simply be due to your psychological disorders." Sort of like "it must be all in your head." In this case I'd say "in my throat." Anyhow, doctors have been so perplexed for years telling me they can't find any problems with me that I've succumbed to the conclusion that most of my physical problems are "in my head." I think this is a big part of why I've developed such a "guilt complex."

3) How can it be treated?

As you will hear, if you listen to the podcast above, often more than one form of treatment is needed. 

I currently am seeing a voice therapist who gives me exercises to do at home to teach my vocal folds to open up. Not surprisingly, people with VCD often have issues with anxiety. The disorder can be anxiety-induced, and even if that isn't the case, surely a person will experience some anxiety if they aren't able to breath. Due to this and an array of issues related to the disorder, seeing a psychotherapist can be helpful to learn ways to calm one's body, live with the disorder, and lessen the symptoms.

I do not know if the disorder is curable. I doubt there's a perfect fix, but there are exercises that can be done to teach the vocal folds how to open, and a stress-reduced lifestyle can naturally help.

On the bright side, I seem to have something in common with one of my favorite film characters, Darth Vadar! :)

What Our Generations Are Losing: Self-Control

I've been wondering why I so impulsively spend time on the internet. Even when I know it makes me unhappy and that time off of it will eventually leave me happy, it's a sort of addiction. It draws me back. It's like there's a force that I don't know how to fight. Sometimes I succeed, and thank God for that. Often I don't. This isn't something I struggled with as a kid. I didn't have crazy obsessions with needing more: more computer, more iPod, more this-or-that, more snacks. Not because I want it, because I need it [or so my self tells me].

There are countless articles about how screen time harms brain cells and dis-regulates people's circadian rhythm. There are lots of articles warning that our next generation is coming up glued to the screen like super glue: unable to resist it, because they don't know how.

I've sensed that even when I spend my time with the screen looking up good things and so forth, there's still something detrimental about being in front of the screen.

Recently, I started a diet due to allergies. I've felt better since it: more-so psychologically than anything. I think it's because I'm finally starting to exercise self-control and that build up the foreign feeling of self-worth. The diet helps some due to the fact that I'm not eating certain foods that make my stomach upset, but I think the biggest thing it has done for me is it has given me a sense of worth and control. Now I think before I eat. And I don't just resist. I say no to things that aren't good for me. I won't just eat whatever I crave. I'm still prone to eating to try to reduce unpleasant feelings, but it's not like it was.

Many issues I deal with are related to psychological and other physical symptoms. That said, most of them relate to not knowing how to take control. It's the whole "I don't want to, but I do it anyways" and somehow I didn't know how not to. It sounds odd or irrational, but there's a strain on my body: an impulse I don't know how to control. I can tell it has something to do with my brain patterns.

I deal with it in relation to my sleep schedule, in relation to the media I watch... I'm finally getting a better hold on it in regard to the food I eat (though it could be better)... I have lots of addictions and phobias. I'm not saying that other things didn't lead to or contribute to these things, but the main thing I deal with now is feeling a lack of control.

I don't mean the kind of possessive control that dictators use over their people. I mean the ability to decide what and when I am going to do things. I'm like a slave to some unknown force that I can't describe as anything better than a glue-like addiction.

I guess these things (media devices, etc.) have become so commonplace in my life that I just don't feel safe without them. The unknown hurts, and even when I experience it and am glad to be away from the computer there's often a nagging force (almost like a vibration in the air) that calls me back.

But the media hurts even more. It's killing me, because I know I could live a fulfilling life where I have control. But I don't. It's hard. I'm afraid and unpracticed.

________________________________________

I'm grateful that I had a pretty media-free childhood. We watched some movies, but it was limited. We didn't watch TV at all except for a few months in fourth grade, so we didn't have to impulse that I need to be glued to the screen. We didn't go on the internet. I never played online games. The closest I came to that was a training program for speed typing in fifth grade, but even that was goal-oriented. We kept it from being an addiction. I was more interested in playing dolls, writing stories, or playing outside. By brain and body-brain connection felt (for the most part) healthy.

I'm so grateful I've had this, because I know even many children from my generation haven't, and hardly any children born even half a decade after me had this privilege: the privilege of being screen-free. Exercising self-control.

It's not that the media is the only thing that disregulates our brains and makes us lose control, but it certainly contributes. We learn we can no longer resist things that peek our interest. It's so easy to click on an add or the next episode in the sidebar on YouTube or to scroll through Facebook and refresh the page when one gets bored.

It's all training for: I see. I want. I take/do.

My brain is in training for this, and I need to take it back. The battle IS NOT going to be easy. I'll probably never have back exactly what I had before, but I want to take it back. I'm going to therapy now. I'm hoping to learn self-control. Not just impulse control but to control my fears.

I think the best form of retraining or untraining is PRACTICE. With that mysterious psychological force pulling my mind (called addiction or I want or don't want but impulsively need-->I take/do), this will probably be one of the hardest battles I ever face.

It will take effort to get my brain out of this impulse-serving mode. It's painful pulling off the glue. But I actually WANT TO LIVE. I think what's unfortunate is that much of the upcoming generation will never get to experience what true living (to not being slaves our impulses, passions, desires) is. 

It's so free. So beautiful.

I pray that some parents will still provide their kids with THE FREEDOM OF SELF-CONTROL by teaching them to limit media, not get a phone right away, avoid websites (especially some until a certain age), not insist on eating everything they crave in the moment, not buying every single toy on the market.

If you're born into slavery, how do you know what freedom is? What you're missing?

Yet I have hope that at least a few people in our upcoming generation will learn this discipline that makes it possible to breath, to mean it when you smile, to experience, to enjoy (vs. helplessly scrape for more) things.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to do the hardest thing I have ever done. FIGHT THE FORCE. GET MY BRAIN BACK. 

I have been blessed to know what screen-freedom is like, to know that it's worth it. And I beg our next generation to give at least some of our children true childhoods (not iPad schools, not video game evenings, not TV dinners, not electronics for the holidays but textbook schools, evenings that include playground and ballgames and dolls, planned-out family dinners where people take responsible roles, REAL toys for the holidays) so that true freedom lives on.

And parents -- MOST importantly of all -- DON'T just hand your child your iPad while you're making dinner or taking a nap of need a little break. Let them get creative. Trust me. Kids can get creative if they get the opportunities and actually have decently self-regulated minds. It's what they were made to be.