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| from People of the Second Chance |
Here I am, spending seven days at home before I'm off to my next adventure: 10 weeks at summer camp in Alabama. And I'm excited for it, albeit a bit terrified. I have hope it will go well and I will learn a lot.
In the meantime, I've been getting up to date on the blogs I follow, and I came across a post referencing the "Purity Culture," that is, something along the lines of True Love Waits with a heavy emphasis on the sanctity of the marriage bed and chastity before marriage. The post (you can read it here) is not only expressing concern over the Purity Culture for keeping men and women from a healthy expression of their sexuality (it's bad and wrong until you get married, but then it's 100% perfect and encouraged), but is also offering up the hope of second chances. Jonalyn argues that much of the Christian community has an inadequate understanding of God's gift of sexuality. I would agree with her.
Let's explore that idea of second chances, because I don't yet have an answer for the "problem" of the Purity Culture. My pastor and his wife will have been married for ten years this summer. She was not a virgin when they got married and she told me once told me how heartbreaking it felt that she couldn't give her husband everything. I guess it was the realization that someone else had also known her intimately.
Yet her husband, my pastor, is truly in love with her. He does not see her as damaged goods. He sees her as beautiful. When they first met, he had hope for her. When I look at her now, I see a life changed. She left behind a girl of addictions to become a woman of faith. She shared her story with us on Mother's Day this year and I was reminded that God is a God of second chances.
The summer after I graduated high school, my oldest first cousin got married at a lovely ceremony I had the privilege of attending. He and his wife moved up north after the wedding and were together for less than a year before separating and subsequently divorcing. When I heard of their divorce, I wrote a painful and probably much-too-harsh post (that I happen to have located) detailing my frustration. I had high hopes for this couple and I felt broken when I learned that my hopes that this marriage would be the one out of our family to last were dashed.
It's been three years this month after that wedding, and I am proud to say that I saw a tweet slide up on my Twitter feed that indicated that my former cousin-in-law is happily remarried to a fellow believer. There was a spark of happiness in my heart when I saw that. What a God of second chances!
Even though this young woman is no longer a part of my family, she is still a member of the body of Christ, and God provided her with the gift of second chances that he willingly provides each of his children.
As I write this, my great-great uncle is lying on his deathbed. After almost ninety-one years on this earth, he spent his life well and is nearing the end of his time with us. As the story goes, he was in the Navy back in the day and was taken by helicopter off of his ship and out of the war zone for some reason. While he was gone, his ship was attacked and lost, and none of his friends and shipmates survived. The helicopter could not locate the attacked ship, and my uncle's shipmates were gone.
The story has been told to me multiple times, and it always ends with my uncle's feelings of guilt for leaving his crew behind and being the only one who survived. He never talks about it. But yesterday, as I sat beside his bed and stared up at his plaques and photos lining the wall, I came to the conclusion that God gave my great-great uncle a second chance. After leaving the Navy, he went to college and seminary, became a Methodist preacher, got married, and had two sons. He also helped raise my grandmother and her sister, who never knew their father. He wrote and published a little book and was able to move back to the area where he grew up. He and his current wife are presently living in the home where she was raised.
And God gave him another chance. I think the reason God gives us second chances (and third, and fourth...) is because he has something better for us. God doesn't want the mistakes men and women made in their pasts to mar their futures beyond repair. God didn't want my great-great uncle to die that day when he was in the Navy. I believe that God has great plans for his children, and if that means structuring events and circumstances to provide them with another chance to choose good, even another chance to choose him, I believe he will do just that. God is in the restoring business, and that includes second chances.
Speaking of second chances... I am preparing to move my blogging-self over to http://deannalexis.wordpress.com/, to a blog tentatively titled "Grace Upon Grace." I would love to have your insight into the next stages of my blogging career. If you are able, please take this quick survey and answer how best you can. I appreciate it greatly!
Need that survey link? Click here. Thank you so much!
It's been three years this month after that wedding, and I am proud to say that I saw a tweet slide up on my Twitter feed that indicated that my former cousin-in-law is happily remarried to a fellow believer. There was a spark of happiness in my heart when I saw that. What a God of second chances!
Even though this young woman is no longer a part of my family, she is still a member of the body of Christ, and God provided her with the gift of second chances that he willingly provides each of his children.
As I write this, my great-great uncle is lying on his deathbed. After almost ninety-one years on this earth, he spent his life well and is nearing the end of his time with us. As the story goes, he was in the Navy back in the day and was taken by helicopter off of his ship and out of the war zone for some reason. While he was gone, his ship was attacked and lost, and none of his friends and shipmates survived. The helicopter could not locate the attacked ship, and my uncle's shipmates were gone.
The story has been told to me multiple times, and it always ends with my uncle's feelings of guilt for leaving his crew behind and being the only one who survived. He never talks about it. But yesterday, as I sat beside his bed and stared up at his plaques and photos lining the wall, I came to the conclusion that God gave my great-great uncle a second chance. After leaving the Navy, he went to college and seminary, became a Methodist preacher, got married, and had two sons. He also helped raise my grandmother and her sister, who never knew their father. He wrote and published a little book and was able to move back to the area where he grew up. He and his current wife are presently living in the home where she was raised.
And God gave him another chance. I think the reason God gives us second chances (and third, and fourth...) is because he has something better for us. God doesn't want the mistakes men and women made in their pasts to mar their futures beyond repair. God didn't want my great-great uncle to die that day when he was in the Navy. I believe that God has great plans for his children, and if that means structuring events and circumstances to provide them with another chance to choose good, even another chance to choose him, I believe he will do just that. God is in the restoring business, and that includes second chances.
Speaking of second chances... I am preparing to move my blogging-self over to http://deannalexis.wordpress.com/, to a blog tentatively titled "Grace Upon Grace." I would love to have your insight into the next stages of my blogging career. If you are able, please take this quick survey and answer how best you can. I appreciate it greatly!
Need that survey link? Click here. Thank you so much!
