This is an illustration for my talk this evening. To see the rest of my notes, please follow the link.
During lunch yesterday I was distracted from time with my family by a facinating conversation at the table behind me. It was both a real live look into relationships and a sad story of bad choices.
Two young women came in and both were in their early 20’s. One wore the scrubs of a dental hygenist while the other one was just dressed in normal jeans and a sweatshirt. It drew my attention in that they were clearly happy to see one another, hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and were from the South.
After a few minutes of chatting they started to talk about the wedding plans of the woman in the scrubs. There was the typical excitement.
As lunch wore on the other young woman shared of her newfound love. She talked about her boyfriend and how they met at church. (Peeked my ears!) And then she talked about how she had waited for him her whole life and couldn’t wait to get married. Her friend chimed in, “I don’t know about you but I am in the same boat, I can’t wait to give my virginity to my husband in May.”
There was a cold silence from across the table. Then the optimistic chirp of someone trying to cover up her pain. She said, “You know, I always thought I’d wait to have sex until I got married, but I am just sure that Joey is the one.” She went on the explain that they hadn’t waited and that they were not only sleeping together but had moved in together “to save money to get married.” She then showed her engaged friend her “promise ring.” Her friend wasn’t unsupportive at all. In fact she didn’t miss a beat and the conversation continued on talking about their respective boyfriends.
As the conversation continued, the young lady shared with her friend how lonely she was. She wasn’t able to make or keep friends. “All I ever do is spend time with Joey. We both work and their’s barely any time for each other.” She talked about the friends at church who don’t seem to want to be around them anymore. She talked about the loneliness that now encompassed her life.
Later she talked about her last visit home. She had intended to take Joey down to meet her parents but he didn’t want to go since they couldn’t share a bedroom. So she went alone. She told her friend, “I wanted to stay down there for a couple of weeks, but I missed Joey so much… all I could do was cry.” She cut her trip home and quickly changed the subject to her college classes.
As Kristen and I talked about this conversation we had eavesdropped, we were both overcome by sadness. Here was a fantastic young lady, full of energy and potential, that had just given it all away. She and Joey had made a choice to do something that was outside of God’s plan for her, she knew it, and just chalked it up to “we love each other.” As a result she had lost all her friends. Her relationship with her parents was array. She was lonely. She had sacrificed her relationship with the living God for some relationship with a guy! It’s not that she didn’t know Jesus or wasn’t sealed by his blood, it is that there was no peace because there was rampant and unrepentent sin in her life! What she called good was destroying her and it made every fiber of my being ache. I was just sick for this young lady.
It is my fervent prayer that as we look to God’s Word about relationships we will take His loving Words for us seriously… even to the point of sacrificing what we want to please God with our whole lives.
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