Troubles are not permanent – Scars are

Continuing the story of my journey…

Song of Virginity

Trouble was looming!

Mr. Temper arrived on the scene. Oh my oh my… I was 10 kinds of blind, stupid and deaf. People warned me against him… told me he was living with another woman.
I actually found that out pretty quick, but the sad part was that I seriously couldn’t care less. I had it so bad for this guy that it gives me chills to think about now! I was head over heels in love!

We met when he could – e.g. when he could get away from home, okay “her”… He couldn’t choose between us, so he kept us both. For a time. Eventually, she left him and he came crying to me…
The 10 kinds of stupid I mentioned before – This was one of them: He cried to ME about her leaving him. Whaaat? Seriously disturbed.
We ended up living together and I can’t…

View original post 592 more words

Go- No- or – No go!

Continuing the story of my journey…

Song of Virginity

Life in the fast lane… ehh…

My love life was pretty casual, but for the most part it never went beyond flirting. Honestly. It was the early 1990’s and I lived my life mainly during the weekends.
I loved the night life: Dancing and loud music, being out all night until 5 or 6 am, dancing on the loudspeakers, flirting my way around like a careless drifter… I never stopped and thought about what I was doing or the dangers involved. I truly lived in the “here and now – ala James Dean” moment. Looking back I seriously wonder how I managed to make it through the weeks in between!

The bar served My favorite drink coke & whisky! Deliciously sweet and sharp and definitely made me care a lot less about – well, just about anything.

On a few occasions, I would take a flirtatious guy up on “his offer” and end up in a…

View original post 554 more words

Respect has no grey zones

Continuing my story with this next blog post about date-rape.
As I share my “journey of the flesh”, I’m hoping that all the beautiful youngsters out there will think twice before… Before it might be too late.

Song of Virginity

50 shades of grey? No’b – strike that!…

After my crucial “first yes” to loosing my virginity – and “yes” to have the knowledge of my own body’s reaction to intimacy – and the loss of innocence, it took some time before I entered “round 2”.

This time I wanted a relationship and that happened in a really weird way;

I went on a school bus trip to the city of Prague. It was an all night drive to get there, but a week of studying the history of Prague and in case you haven’t been: It’s a gorgeous city! But it was a bus full of teens and for us the real trip was to party in a country where, at that time, everything was incredibly cheap.

We had emptied the hotel bar one night (for alcohol, not people) and the morning after, my hotel roommate found a note…

View original post 458 more words

Tingle Single

I said goodbye to Mr. Bike in the tube of London (see earlier post “Finally Free or…”) and headed home. I remember feeling both relieved and sad. Mainly relieved though… Mainly sad because I so love London!

A short time later something strange happened.

While on one hand I was perfectly happy being single. Yeah… really!
On the other hand, I couldn’t resist the temptation the up-and-coming social media presented; Online Dating services!

I decided I wasn’t looking for anything serious. In retrospect, I probably were.
Before long I had a profile and not long after that I had notifications. 2 or 3 of the guys who contacted me, moved from the dating site to my email account. I actually had a lot of fun with it and 2 of them I met up with.

1 was a really nice guy. A bit too sweet actually…
The other one was r-e-a-l nice looking!  Mr. Rebound was attractive not only in looks but also in speech and we had a good time together. But outside of bed we had different expectations to each other. It lasted a couple of months. Essentially I was his rebound after a longer relationship he had been in – hence the name!

Why was it strange?
Well… After all the relationships I had been in. After all the heartache and even date rape’s (though without the drug), I was still attracted to jumping head first into new relationships.
Why I chose not to wait… for “Mr. Right”… is what I’m only now beginning to understand.

1. I wanted desperately to feel loved.
2. My body had a desire I couldn’t control.
3. Emotionally I had learned the coping skill of “shutting down feelings” (perhaps that would make for another blog post one day).
4. I’m an adventurer by nature.

If I had known the Purest Love from the beginning, then I wouldn’t have known my own fleshly desires to such depth. I wouldn’t crave to feel loved and not know where to fill up my tank. And last; I could have looked for a man I could adventure with.

My one regret in life is that I didn’t say YES to Jesus much earlier. But He is using it – using me and my experiences – to reach you and for that I’m grateful. I pray you hear me out there…

 

After Mr. Rebound though, I actually managed to stay single for a long long time… Perhaps not by choice, but more stubbornness. I was really tired of “guys” and it was a good thing. A healthy thing for me and I thank Jesus for giving me that time.

Love of my Life – I am His Song – Guest post by Gail

Miss Gail from Gail loves God was kind – and courageous – enough to share a part of her story and it’s an honor for Song of Virginity to have her onboard. Read and marvel as Gail chose to trust the words of her Savior, rather than words of man… And when you’re done reading here, jump over to her blog and indulge in her poetry, singing from the depths of her heart to her Jesus.

———————————————————————————————-

Song of Virginity… that sounds so beautiful… in its purest and godliest form. It easily makes me wish I had a song of virginity. A song that says I have always belonged to the Lord and the Lord only. That nothing has ever come between me and my Lord.
Unfortunately, I was without a song of virginity from the age of 3. I was 12 before I heard the word, and in my late teens before I understood what it meant, though I was already an unwed teen mom.
Years of molestation and promiscuity had taken my right to make a choice. Yet there is no guarantee that if my life had been different, I would have made the right choice. And THAT is what Christ taught me virginity really meant to Him.

In 1994, I was baptized for the 2nd time (the 1st being when I was 8) because I thought my sins had washed away His blood, love, and forgiveness.
God would begin to whisper that His Son’s blood was shed to wash away my sins… of the past, present, and future. Christ did not need to die again. In that cleansing, He had made me white as snow.
To Him I was as clean as a virgin.
I would doubt this because man told me there was no use trying to make a testimony for God, because I had already been intimate, and especially since I already had a child.

God clearly asked me, “Do you want to believe in what man tells you, or in what I tell you? If I say that I love you, that I forgive you, and have made you white as snow, do you want to believe me or the world?

Do you want to see yourself through the eyes of the world… trashed and tossed aside… worthless and hopeless?
Or do you want to see yourself through my eyes as the beautiful virgin that I have restored you to be for me… pure and Holy… righteous and blameless?

 “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chastevirgin to Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 11:2 KJV
I chose to believe in Christ. I was even empowered by a song sung by Jonathan Pierce called I Believe in Christ, and it sang,
“I believe in Christ. No other before Him. And though I may fail, I’ll never leave Him.
For me, He laid down His life. Oh I believe in Christ.”

I have raised my son to remember to “keep God first, above everyone and everything, including me, including you.”

I have been blessed with singleness for several years now. By His grace and His great love I have been set aside… whether it be for a future husband or for Him… I am His song.

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” – Zephaniah 3:17 KJV 

In 2012, when my son was marrying his bride the Lord gave me this song to write.
Jesus, The Love of My Life written by Gail Brookshire

I love Him so cause He loves me. /Says He always has, and that we were meant to be.
I’m already a part of His family. /I love Him because He first loved me.

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, the Love of my life /wants to save me from my daily strife.
He wants to give me His peace for all eternity. /The Love of my life loves me.

A wedding invitation was sent to our friends. /They’ll join us when the engagement ends.
They’ll witness the union of a groom and His bride,/ and faithfully He’ll stay by my side.

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, the Love of my life /wants to save me from my daily strife.
He wants to give me His peace for all eternity. /The Love of my life loves me.

He’s so open hearted, He’s opened His home /and invited my friends to a room of their own.
They’re already a part of our family, /and we’re living ever happily.

Chorus: Jesus, Jesus, the Love of my life /wants to save me from my daily strife.
He wants to give me His peace for all eternity. /The Love of my life loves me.

Jesus, Jesus, the Love of YOUR life /wants to save YOU from YOUR daily strife. He wants to give YOU His peace for all eternity. /The Love of YOUR life loves YOU.

Photos are private and posted with permission from Sue Thompson of Set Photography, Leslie Ludy and Gail herself. Do not copy without permission. 

Guest post – Beauty and the Actual Beast

A big thank you to Brandon, from the blog Brandon J Adams – For millennials seeking the abundant life of Jesus graciously wrote a post for Song of Virginity – and without further ado:

————————————————————————————

Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the beast

There’s a tale old as time, all right, but not the Disney version. It’s a heartwrenching remake.

I’m watching it, again, at my workplace right now.

Guy and Girl get together. Girl becomes Mother Girl. Guy tries to stick around at first. Guy finds himself overwhelmed by Mother Girl’s and Baby’s needs. Guy gets noticed by Other Girl. Other Girl sidles up to Guy with sweet words that Mother Girl hasn’t had the energy to muster up for a while. Guy lets Other Girl linger just a bit. Mother Girl gets upset. Guy grins hunky grin, thinks Mother Girl is overreacting. Other Girl brazenly presses. Backtrack four sentences and repeat until Guy decides Mother Girl is “crazy” and leaves.

Baby grows up to be Guy, Mother Girl, or Other Girl.

I watched this film as a teacher, playing in hallways: I had a baby crawling along the floor of my rural classroom, shredding his mother’s algebra homework with an evil grin. His father walked out that spring.

You’re assuming that Guy is the beast.

But both Guy and Girl were meant for beauty in their own ways, created in God’s image. So was their union – “the way of a man with a maiden” (Proverbs 30:19) – protection by a jewel case called marriage. Yet they are marred, grounded, twisted like veal by something in their nature.

The beast is sin.

I know guys. We have puppet strings labeled “affirmation” tied to our hearts. When Other Girl so expertly pulls the strings, guys want to dance. That’s no condescending judgment; even twenty-somethings have little sense of what’s driving them. Rare indeed is the person of any age with the honesty and self-awareness to question their own inner workings. Few of us even think of asking.

That is the risk a woman takes by giving herself to a man who isn’t committed. It’s like taking a hot air balloon ride during a tornado warning.

This isn’t to portray men as victims or shame Mother Girl for not offering enough. It’s not her fault. Guy has been given a Bible to show him right action and a will to help him defy his feelings. He’s responsible.

But a girl can do this: find a man who will stack the deck against himself…by marrying her.

God stacked the deck against himself by having Elijah drench the altar with water, so that only fire from heaven could incinerate it. He stacked the deck by having Gideon decommission all but 300 troops, so Midian would know Who really beat them. He stacked the deck by publicly crucifying Jesus, rolling a massive stone across his sealed and guarded tomb, so that only a risen deity could emerge. In each case, the men obeyed, placing themselves in a position where only God could come through for them.

In the same way, a man of God will seal himself into a covenant, renounce all others, commit before a cloud of witnesses to honor your heart before he ever asks for your body. Marriage requires a man to play the man, cuts off escape routes, makes leaving far more costly.

God’s man will come through, for he is of God and has his strength.

The best bet in an imperfect world, ladies, is to obey. There, you’ll receive the fullest benefit of God’s power.

Young men – you can be heroes.

The Beast in the movie sacrificed himself for his Belle; he lost his life protecting her.

That is the Gospel.

I doubt the creators of the movie had the Cross in mind, but even if by accident, the parallels to the Gospel are astonishing. The beast didn’t expect to survive, nor did he care. That is your path. That is the discipline that defines the warrior. When you offer and offer and it seems pointless and thankless and ominously endless, but it’s bringing her life, you’ve learned to love. You’ve become like Christ.

We’re getting nowhere with the alternative. Ravi Zacharias once heard from the president of Albania:

“We are the most atheistic country in the world, and we have made one mess of this country. Maybe it’s time for us to stop doing it our way and start thinking of doing it God’s way.”

And what happened to the Beast after his sacrifice?

“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33)

Our generation is scared and contemptuous of marriage. Walk straight into that fear, men! Put a ring on it. Keep your fingers off her until then.

It’s sacrifice, and sacrifice brings life, just as Christ’s did.

“The difference between false and true pleasure is this: for true pleasure, the price is paid before you enjoy it. For false pleasure, the price is paid after you enjoy it. … You walk into the path of an illicit relationship, it may be easy to do, but the price you will pay is after that. If you say no from the beginning, it’s painful, but you enjoy the legitimate pleasures of what God gives to you.” – Ravi Zacharias

No more Guy, Mother Girl, and Other Girl.

Our world needs Husbands and Wives.

At the heart of Youth

“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him
– just to find her.”
– Max Lucado

I love this quote! Because nothing could be more true – and yet, not much is further from the truth when asking  the youth of today.

According to an article on Christianitytoday.com, the top ten fears of the youth today has the #10 fear as “I will never have a happy marriage”… ???…
That’s not the Lord speaking, but the devil speaking into the hearts of our youth today.

Girls & Boys: You are valuable! You deserve love! You are worth dying for!

You don’t believe me?
Then look at the compassion in God’s eyes:
He hung on the cross – so you wouldn’t have to.

You are infinitely loved by a God Who will never abandon His own!

With God nothing is impossible. Marriage? With Jesus in the center – you are in safe hands. It won’t always be easy, it won’t always be what you want; But it will be worth it!

The big question is – do you have the courage to believe Him and take Him at His Word? 

 

Eternal love – guest post by Vince

Vince from You, me and this world stopped by Song of Virginity to jot down a few words about a love given and received.

————————————————————————

Life without love is really unbearable. I have been blessed to travel on every continent and to many countries, and one thing I’ve seen no matter what language, color or creed, everyone or at least almost everyone, wants to love and be loved.
Therefore this is God.

While living as a single in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I met Suva.

She was a wonderful young woman that I fell totally in love with. We spent most of our days glowing in the gift of love we found in each other and in God, and we found that this love was so bright that others saw it too. We were together for 8 months. When we went to file for a marriage license, I was asked to show my immigration papers and for a financial status. Since I was a missionary my papers were in order but I had very little money. I was given three days to leave the country.

My heart was breaking, Suva tried to get a visa and she too didn’t have enough money to get the papers she needed. I went to Bolivia and we wrote for five months. We never got back together. I thought that I would die.

Now many many years later I have a wonderful wife and wonderful life.

The love for Suva will always be in my heart as love never fails or leaves us. It’s eternal.

 

Finally Free, or..?

With a pair of parents who couldn’t understand why I discarded “a stable marriage with kids” for what they called “loneliness”, it was no easy task to lick my wounds. But now that I was out of my not-so-picture-perfect verbally abusive relationship, I chose my days carefully and opted not to visit my parents, if I could find a way not to. 

One day at work, a sales-guy from London called, wanting to be put through to the big boss. That particular big boss refused to speak to salespeople and I was his bulldog. The guy was persistent but so was I and from that sprung a longer conversation… which continued into lunch break and private phone number exchange.

He called, I called… we talked for hours… and London-Copenhagen flights are 2 hours and cheap – well, ended up being cheaper than the phone bill! Before we knew it, he was flying in from London to meet me.

Good heavens, what was I doing…
I was having fun… that’s what!

We spent a nice weekend together and though I perhaps knew it wouldn’t last, I decided to breath in the moment. He rode a motorcycle and I have always had a hard time resisting that… Oh my!! Riding on that big thing, going fast through the english countryside – Now that was enthralling to me!

So for the sake of keeping up with my story-post-line, I’ll name him Mr. Bike! For a few months we flew back and forth every other weekend, but gradually the interest dropped…

After staying at his flat and seeing the bachelor side of him… ahem… I also learned that he wanted not just a wife, but a “mom” and when I realized his head was full of “how to become a millionaire in a heartbeat” ideas, I got very cold feet – in a sense.
One of those ideas included moving to Copenhagen, live with me and do online commodity trade… I immediately had flashbacks and pulled out… He did the exact same thing as Mr. Pride – came up with barrels of good points as to why it was a good idea. I disagreed!
Our final weekend together was rather awkward and it all came to an end in the tube of London. As the train rolled out towards Heathrow airport I breathed a sigh of relief.

It’s perhaps a nice story in a sense, but it could have been a horrible nightmare. Back then not many people thought of human trafficking, sex trade or the likes, but it existed! Between the photo he had sent me and the day we met, a couple of kilos measured in 10’s had grown on him. He was nice looking though, but let’s just say I anticipated something different. I’m not hung up on looks, but my point is: 

Meeting perfect strangers is to meet a perfect stranger! Even after hours on a phone or email, words can deceive and pictures can lie – it all boils down to: Humans can lie! 
In today’s world, doing what I did back then – could be incredibly dangerous. I had no lifelines: people who knew where I was, expecting a check up call from me and knew who I was with.

How did I become so reckless?
A huge gaping hole in my heart and a bleeding wound from an ex-boyfriend and unsupportive parents. That’s how.
Was it their fault?
No. I own my own mistakes.

Looking back on this short, rather intense affair of the heart, I realize that it served but one purpose:
So I could lick my wounds and recover after Mr. Pride.
But I didn’t recover. Not really.
I was simply trying to fill a wound with what looked soft and romantic but underneath was not much more than another sharp knife.

If only I had looked to the real place of love.
Where love is unconditional and freely flowing.
Where love never runs out and where a wound can truly be healed and filled up.

With Jesus there is healing of wounds. 

 

Internet safety is vital. This is a link to Dangers of internet for kids if you are interested in reading more.

Teacher love – guest post by anonymous

He touched her chin and lifted it towards his face while he gently leaned over and kissed her… And then she woke up from her daydream and realized that she was staring stupidly into the whiteboard during class,with romantic dreamy eyes. She looked rather franticly around her classmates, hoping nobody had seen her daydream.It would seem they hadn’t. Phew!

She was taking a supporting class to complete her degree.
The class was taught by the handsome, well spoken, nicely dressed, cool but kind and tempting beyond her loudest sigh, teacher!
A month or two of dreaming about him led to her asking questions about the material. Questions she possibly didn’t need to ask.
She tried to get closer and he didn’t exactly shut her out. He didn’t invite her in either.It was beginning to feel like she had befriended him and yet he kept her at a distance.

She obviously had a gigantic crush… on her teacher! He was so irresistible. She was panting for the “one and only” she watched in the movies, tv and even read about in romantic novels. But all her past boyfriends had miserably failed.
Her longing was strong and as she watched her teacher, being of the same age as her, she imagined his character in a home, his gentleness with kids, his pride in her as his girlfriend. Oh, to be loved by him! 

Yet, she sorely wished she didn’t have the crush! Because he clearly wasn’t interested. Either because he wasn’t interested in her or because she was his student.

One evening after a rather uncomfortable bump-in with an ex-boyfriend, she took a walk to clear her head. It was winter, cold and dark. She saw her warm breath every time she exhaled. She found herself outside his home. Despite just wandering around she knew exactly where he lived and most likely it wasn’t a coincidence she was there. She could see light in his windows. She just stood still staring at his window, hoping she would catch a glimpse of him… hoping he would see her – see her pain – see her love and rush out to take her in and into his arms
But unlike her fantasy, that didn’t happen.
He saw her staring and though she didn’t know if he knew it was her or not, he closed the curtain and shut her out.
She walked home hearing only the lingering voice in her head “now you’ve done it! Now you’re a stalker!”. She was ashamed, but not enough. She began to take up evening walks as a hobby and ever so coincidentally walk past his home.

The academic year came to an end and unfortunately she ended up failing the class. Not because she didn’t know the stuff, but because she felt so ashamed to have been a stalker of her teacher. During the final test she simply couldn’t concentrate. Afterwards, she was so ashamed of her actions that she decided to avoid any contact with the teacher, no more evening walks past his home and she chose a different school and supporting class and a year later completed her degree.

———————-

The above is a true story, written by someone who wish to remain anonymous. Here on Song of Virginity, that is okay too. 

We often apply characteristics of “perfection” to those we fall in love with as we try to fill the void in our hearts with someone who can never fully fill it or in this story, fill it with emptiness: To love but not be loved again.

When we choose to love Jesus something happens in our hearts.

We can ask Him anything! He can fill the void with love and in trust He will guide us to the one who is right for us.

And… He loves it when you stalk Him!