Mike & Brooke Overholt, Boiling Springs, NC
Abstinence should reside much deeper in our decisions that merely to avoid possible consequences such as contracting HIV or gonorrhea. It must be a goal to achieve for what can happen: the incredible intimacy that marriage is to give to both individuals.
Mike, 23 years old
full-time student and husband
Abstinence is much more than “abstaining from sexual relations outside of marriage.” I find myself very frustrated and angered when abstinence is watered down to that definition as if to say that STDs and pregnancy are the worst things that can happen to a person. They are bad and even deadly at times, yet the loss of a person’s intimacy to someone else is far greater. Abstinence should reside much deeper in our decisions that merely to avoid possible consequences such as contracting HIV or gonorrhea. It must be a goal to achieve for what can happen: the incredible intimacy that marriage is to give to both individuals. Not only can diseases be contracted, but memories of previous sexual encounters are burned into a person’s mind so that any love-making in a marriage relationships becomes blurred with those images that can and will cause intimacy to be very painful.
I chose abstinence for several reasons. First of all, I desire to follow Jesus Christ’s example as explained in the Bible. In spite of this, seeing the consequences that many other people have faced told me that sex is not something to be taken lightly, but it is something to be handled with extreme care. The scars and pain are clearly seen in the breakups of people who have messed with this in a very flippant manner. Beyond questions, the best analogy to keeping sex for marriage came from a man named Tommy Nelson. He said that it is ridiculous to build a fire in your living room. Why? Because it will burn down the entire house. Yet, if you build this fire in a fireplace, it makes perfect sense, because it not only is safe to those living in the house, but it also provides warmth and security for those near it. Sex outside of marriage is like building a raging fire on your coffee table only to watch it reduce the entire house to smoldering ashes so that all you have left is the lonely chimney standing as a memorial to the way that it could have been.
Even with this knowledge, passion for someone you love is hard to tame. Being accountable to someone close to you gives you strength to face this with confidence. Allowing other people to take a part in your dating experience provides a much better environment to build a relationship as well. This can be done through group dating and family outings if possible. You will actually get to know this person more genuinely.
Brooke, 21 years old
full-time student and wife
For me, abstinence was a choice I made a long time ago at the age of 12. At the time, I thought sex was just "yucky,” but as I matured – physically and spiritually – I discovered the importance of saving myself until marriage. The cost of having sex with one or more people I wasn’t going to marry went further than possible pregnancy or STDs. I was most aware and afraid of the possibility of losing bits and pieces of my character, reputation and heart. I did allow myself to compromise and cross over some of the boundaries I had established for myself before I married Mike, but I did manage to hang on to my virginity. On our wedding night I admitted that in some areas I didn’t have much to give, but I did have my sexuality to offer him. He knows me better than anyone now and all that I have is his, including my body.
Teaching abstinence is vitally important, especially during a time when society says to try it for as long as it feels good and then when the feelings run out, move on to something else. Of course pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are cause for concern and protection. However, I think a better approach, and one that I tend to stress, is the responsibility of self-control and the character it requires to remain pure. Regardless of religious beliefs or even moral stances, abstinence should be presented as the ultimate way to respect your future mate; a gift to be given to only one person at the perfect moment, not to some guy during a drunken stupor or even a steady boyfriend of only 16 years of age. Sex is precious and right and natural and even “holy,” but it is to be shared between two people, husband and wife, that’s it. The youth and even older singles in the world today need to understand the importance of valuing themselves enough to have self-control and character, and valuing their unknown spouses enough to remain untouched.
The hardest moments of my life so far were looking into the eyes of my future husband and telling him all the areas in which I compromised with another man. I wept telling him about the intimate moments I shared with someone other than him, and I apologized for robbing him of so much of my heart. I would love to be able to stop other young girls from allowing their standards to fall to the wayside, even for just one moment, at the cost of hurting the one man they truly do love. I would say that the decisions we make right now effect every decision that follows. Even if a girl is only 15 years old, the decisions she makes right now in her life WILL effect the people who are in her life 10 years from now, especially her husband.
My husband is a gift I don’t deserve with grace and forgiveness I have never known before. I am thankful that I did have one thing left to offer to him . . . the rest of my heart and my virginity.
Please correspond to the DC Office through our main location in SD. Abstinence Clearinghouse DC Office
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20004
(202)204-3055
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Mike & Brooke Overholt, Boiling Springs, NC