This week I had the honor of providing a guest post for Esther’s blog, For Such A Time As This.

Head on over to Esther’s place and check out all her awesome posts!  Thank you, Esther.

Happy St. Thomas Aquinas Feast Day!

God love and bless you,  Cindy

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The following note is a beautiful testament to the fact that the wisdom of Chastity is not just a Catholic thing.  The truth about our dignity and our design is written on our hearts. Joanna responded to the post “Stop Sleeping With Him” and she is a therapist who helps college-aged women. The note below includes her comments as well as a follow-up email exchange between us this weekend. She has a heart for young women and I feel so blessed to have met her.  Thank you, Joanna for taking the time to reach out with love and compassion!

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Dear Cindy,

I stumbled across your blog. I am not Catholic and am not religious, but I can’t agree more. I wish there was a corresponding value for secular folks without the religious connotation so it wouldn’t be rejected right away as being “prude.” I work with college aged women doing therapy with them and I cannot tell you how many times I want to shake them for being so blind to what they are doing to their self-esteem and perception of their own worth. Also, by doing things you don’t hold in high esteem, and behaving in a way that suggests you don’t value yourself, you start to believe it and actually lower your perception of your worth.

I was extremely promiscuous and the opposite of chaste. I thought it was the way to go. I had some fun, but now that I’m older I realize how much I wish I would have done less. I am very happily married to a man who fully respects me and chased me, and I am so fortunate, but I still wish I could know he was one of the only people. I know you mean chastity as you describe it and I mean acting much more in line with that value but not quite as strict, but it’s an important thing for women either way. As you said, men are the gatekeepers of commitment and we are the gatekeepers of sex. If we just give it away, we’ve got no cards we haven’t shown yet. We’ve gone all in and ruined his perception of us. The girls I work with are so confused when they sleep with a man the first night after drinking (being too drunk, another terrible thing for women), and he wants nothing to do with them while they hope they can have something.

As you said, it’s harsh, but men enjoy sleeping with easier women but they will never commit to them. They truly don’t see them as marriage material. It took me a long item to learn it but it’s never too late. Changing my viewpoint and wanting to be seen more as a lady and letting my strong man be a man has been an amazing life changing experience. Anyways, even though we have little in common in some aspects, I appreciate what you’re doing. I didn’t know it was such an epidemic that nice Catholic girls were staying single against their wishes. I feel like if they are patient, a real man will really appreciate and cherish them because of their value to not be used by so many men before him. That’s so hard to find these days. Early in my twenties I never would have understood or believed this, but at 32 it’s clear as a day. And I hope the younger girls don’t get hung up too much on finding a man- that is man repellant! Do your thing and good things will come sooner or later. I didn’t get engaged until 31.

It was so weird. I felt compelled (as you all would say, “called” :-)) to write that comment on your blog. Even if I can spare one young woman the feelings of isolation, rejection, and shame that can come with “giving it up” before a man has laid down his life for you, it would be worth it. I guess I thought maybe I could provide some insight from my unique perspective. I know some of my friends who are married and who only had sex with their now husbands or had very few partners sometimes ask me if they missed out. I can tell you as the cool, pretty, fun, popular party girl who also slept around, “NO, You did not miss out!” Honestly, the chances of having a rewarding experience with a man you don’t very well who you do not fully trust are slim to none. Physically it is not rewarding because it takes more effort and communication to make us feel good 🙂 and emotionally it is definitely not rewarding; it is the opposite of rewarding. It meets very specific, immediately gratifying needs, and if someone has those needs in the first place, I suggest they talk to  counselor or priest or friend or whoever, because to me that is spiritual bankruptcy. That’s what I was, spiritually and morally bankrupt. As a psychologist I learned that after sex, both sexes experience a release… For women, it is oxytocin, which strengthens our emotional connection to the person we just slept with and gives a strong desire to attach. Do you know what the corresponding hormone does in men? It makes them sleepy! If that doesn’t say it all right there…

But I get the sense that maybe sometimes even the nice and very faithful Catholic girls, like the ones who read your blog, wonder if they should just say “F it” and do what it seems like every other woman is doing or give in to a man’s pressure, and I felt compelled to say that THE GRASS IS NOT GREENER, and once you do it you cannot take it back. You can recover and grow and move past it, but you can’t reverse it. I look at it like the wrinkles I caused myself because I didn’t listen to my mom about not tanning and always wearing sun tan lotion. Now, I can do things to maintain my skin, but I can’t undo the sun damage and wrinkles. Having a lot of partners, or even more than one, in some cases, does not make you “damaged,” but you cannot go back. I hate that my sweet man, who knew I was a woman with a bit of a past but loves me anyways because he knows we have both changed, has to know he was not my only one.

My experiences make me who I am, so I value them, but if I have a daughter I will try to get the message to her. My poor mother tried with me, but I thought I knew way better and that she was a prude. So now I try to convey it to the women I work with. Even just getting them to commit to “no sex without being in a committed relationship” is a big first step. And I think nice God-fearing women who are not shut down so to speak are capable of way better.

Guys can be very convincing and the smoother and more cunning ones can smell a low self-esteem from a mile away. Some are well-meaning but still get swept away with their immediate wants. Project confidence and know your worth, and if he won’t be with you because you won’t sleep with him, you really dodged a bullet. Let him say whatever he wants to you or about you, (it’s just because he feels rejected and wants to protect his ego and maintain his pride), you retained your power and dignity, and he showed his true colors. Other people will know you would not go there with him and they will respect you, and the right man might hear that and be very impressed.

Another way it was put to me that really got me is that sex is not as big of a deal to a man because his “part” is external. Nobody is going inside his body when he has sex. For a woman, sex is like inviting a guest over to your house- it is much more personal to have someone in your home than to stop by someone else’s home. It’s someone in your space. When we have sex with men, we allow them in our house, and they just get to stop by if they aren’t planning on staying. That’s why it is more personal and intrusive for us if this isn’t the man we completely trust to take care of our house. Anyways, now that I’ve written a novel and told you my life story, please use whatever you like. As a reformed promiscuous woman please feel free to ask me if there is any topic with which you think my perspective might be helpful.

Take care!

Joanna

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God Love and Bless you!

p.s.s. Check out all my posts listed by category here!

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I was raised all my life in a Christian home. I always felt like Jesus and I were on very good terms, but one day, in 2008, I felt this need, this overwhelming compelling need to convert to Catholicism. There was really no basis, per say, for it, but I felt God calling me to make this change. If you know anything about me, you might know that I have a lot of grandiose ideas, but not so many of them are seen through to fruition. You see, I’m a perfectionist and if I feel there is one little hint of something having the chance to not being completed 100% correctly, I usually don’t follow-through… Bad habit, I know.

Converting to Catholicism was different though. I went through RCIA with a hunger for knowledge. When my very Protestant family raised concerns for my change, I was able to calm their ‘fears’ very easily and logically. When I was finally a confirmed Catholic on November 22, 2008, there was a sense of peace about me that I had never known.

I continued my Catholic walk, gradually losing that zeal for the Church I had had in the beginning. Over the years, I knew God had called me to become a Catholic because I was finally able to truly worship within the Mass – a feeling I hadn’t felt in Protestant church in some time, but there was something missing, it seemed. Why had God called me to become a single Catholic? I just didn’t understand.

At first, I thought, perhaps, I was called to become a nun. I reached out to several convents, read all of the brochures and prayed about each of the distinct vocations. But it still didn’t seem like that was where God was calling me. Then, one day, I was at work, and I felt God speak to me – It was more like a gentle nudging really. I was in front of my computer, and I felt God tell me to go to CatholicMatch.com. Seriously. I argued with him, audibly, at my desk for a little while. Then, finally, I gave in.

“Fine.” I said, “I am leaving this in your hands, God. My future spouse is in your hands. I have tried on my own, and I obviously can’t handle this task. You choose for me. You show me who you have in store for my future.”

And that, my dears, is history. I signed onto Catholic Match, and one week later received a message from a guy who seemed genuinely interesting. He wrote me the longest and most beautiful e-mails. It was so painfully obvious that this man truly had a heart for Christ, and when he asked for my phone number later that month, we had dozens of conversations that lasted for hours on end. Never was there a dull moment in conversation. Neither of us are (or were then) self-proclaimed ‘phone people’, but speaking to each other was always the high point of each of our days. I knew it to be true on my end, and it was pretty apparent from his…

I tried and tried and tried to find “the one” on my own – without God’s help. For years and years, I dated guys who seemed to have similar interests; based on ‘attraction’; who just ‘wanted to get married’; who were nice…It never worked. For one reason or another, I wound up 28 years old and scared to death I was going to be {gasp!} 30 and unmarried! That’s when I gave the reins to God, and allowed him to point me in the direction of my soulmate.

From my first date with Craig, there was a tugging at my heartstrings that this one was the one. He took me out for dinner and drinks, and we laughed and talked and smiled at each other across the table for 4-5 hours. A very obviously inebriated man approached our table while Craig was in the restroom, and told me he just wanted to let me know how beautiful I was…Craig came back to this, and told me, shyly, “That man was right. You are beautiful.”

When I got home that evening, my heart was soaring. I felt like a 16 year old girl who had just been asked to prom by the football star – and it never stopped. That feeling is the same one I get even today when Craig has been on a trip for work, and comes through the front door, or when I am almost home from work and know he is waiting for me…I still get butterflies.

Craig planned our 2^nd date – we met one Sunday for a Bible Study at the Catholic parish closest to my (then) condo. I thought, then, “Wow. This has God’s writing all over it.” And I was so right. It was becoming glaringly obvious as to why God led me to become a Catholic those 3 years earlier. It was finally clear. He was preparing me for my holy spouse.

Craig and I didn’t even attempt to kiss until our 5^th date, two months later… but just one month after that, he told me he loved me for the first time – and it was genuine. We both knew – it was palpable – we had been in love from the first moment we set eyes on one another. He told me later he felt like I could be ‘the one’ even before we had ever met in person. He always made me a priority, and treated every situation we were in and every conversation we had as if I were his future spouse.

After eight months of dating, Craig told me, while overlooking the waves on a beautiful beach, that he wanted to marry me, and was actively ‘searching for rings’. On the one year anniversary of our very first date, Craig surprised the heck out of me with the most romantic and well-thought-out proposal, and (after I literally fell out of my chair and onto my knees beside him) I answered him, “Absolutely.”

Never was there a choice I was surer of. We were married just over 5 months later in a beautiful Catholic Mass, surrounded by all of our family and close friends. We have been blissfully married now for 16 months, and our love only increases day by day. I am blessed with a husband who is truly my partner, my very best friend, my holy spouse. I have every confidence this is the man God intended for me from everything about our relationship, from the fact we finish each other’s sentences to the fact he likes the cake and I prefer the icing. We are absolutely a match made in Heaven, by God.

I think there is no question that along with anything God-given comes superabundance – of things that matter. This isn’t to say that everything is always 100% perfect, or that God answers YES to everything we ask for. We have been trying to conceive a child for 16 months, to no avail. BUT, the faithfulness, the love, the trust, the peace, the joy, the kindness within our marriage and our relationship…It isn’t a human amount. It’s a God amount. And life within a marriage, within God’s plan? That’s like living life, no matter what storms may rain down on you, in a perpetual hug.

It is unbelievably apparent to me we were both hidden by the veil. I was a serial dater, and there were plenty of guys who I ‘could have seen myself with’, but no matter how ‘good the relationship was’, it was only ‘of this world’. Craig will tell you the same thing about his past, which tried to pull him away from the Catholic faith, and it turns out there certainly wasn’t anything ‘other-worldly’ about it, either. Nothing has ever even come close to comparing to the manner in which Craig courted me; the diligence he had to God; the pure love and compassion he showed me… All of it was different and indescribable. NOTHING of this world.

The world may have chosen differently for Craig and I. For Craig, maybe society would have chosen someone more outdoorsy, someone with a love for baseball and a penchant for cold weather (He’s from Minnesota and went to college at the University of North Dakota.). For me, maybe the world might have picked someone who grew up in the South, someone with the same love for all things southern and monogrammed, someone passionate about music and the opera, but even the mere thoughts just break my heart because the world would have been wrong.

God knows exactly what He is doing, and what is best for you. Wait on Him.

Craig & Pier are Catholic ‘newlyweds’ married in September 2012, seeking God’s Will and striving to serve Him in every facet of their lives. They author a weekday blog, chronicling their marriage journey and growing together in Christ. The couple lives in Dallas, Georgia with their precious fur-babies, Miss Daisy, Lucy & Caroline.

As you enter into the New Year, put your heart in the hands of our Lord. Forgive yourselves for the questionable decisions you have made in the past.  And, if you are currently in a relationship, ask yourself this question:

Am I a priority in his life or just an option?

Trial and Error

I just received an email from a girl who paid me a compliment which made me chuckle a bit.  She said, “I never learned all these gems you seem to know intuitively when it comes to with dealing with men and finding the one.” 

Oh boy, there is nothing intuitive about the “gems” that I share on this blog.  Each and every gem has been obtained by trial and error.  Mostly error. 🙂 I am sharing them with you not because I believe that you will avoid the heartache that these errors bring on, but instead so that you will be able to connect the dots and self-correct when you do err. 

If I have painted a picture here of my dating life that makes it seem that this was all “intuitive” (which means “known automatically”), then I owe you an apology.  Out of all the letters I receive from you, my readers, there has been nothing that surprises me.  I share anecdotes in these private correspondences which I don’t share publicly on the blog because they are sort of embarrassing!  I hope my responses ooze with compassion as well as the message that you are completely normal in your desire to be loved.  And, that your ‘errors’ are nothing new. 

So, back to the question:  Am I a priority in his life or just an option?

Me at 25 in need of Gems

5 Years ~ Ugh

Let me begin by telling a story.  I didn’t even include this particular aspect of my life in my book because it represents to me such foolishness on my part.  I still look back and wonder why I stayed in this relationship as long as I did.  The only thing I can come up with was that I did not have any other options.  Or so I thought.  Who knows how my life would have transpired had I asked myself the above question and then acted on the wisdom the answer would have revealed.

I cringe as I type but here it goes.  I started dating a guy when I was 25.  Let’s call him John.  The final breakup happened when I was almost 30. There were approximately 5 break ups that happened in those 5 years.  Now, keep in mind that I was away from my faith and I was not living a Sacramental life in Christ.  I was seeking God, but on my own terms.  I had a couple of control issues that I was working through which started in college and lingered through my 20’s.  Staying in the relationship with John only deepened the crevices where these control issues ran through my head and my heart.

The break up pattern looked like this:  He chased me.  I agreed to reconcile.  He treated me like an option.  I would get mad.  I would break up.  He contacted me and used his charm to convince me to give it another try. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

He Loved Me, But Not Enough

We met in college when we were both dating other people. His break up and my break up happened around the same time and presto, we began to date.  He was living about an hour away and back then long distance phone calls cost money.  I felt special that he would call me but it did not feel like he called me often enough. 

We would also see each other on the weekends.  But, not every weekend.  Interestingly, I knew his family really well but he had only met my family a couple of times.  His family lived in the same town as I did so it was convenient to include me in that aspect of his life.  But, there were times when he would visit his family and not even let me know he was in town.  Ouch.  Time to break up.

I Was Not A Priority

My commitment to Chastity was severely tested.  But, it was also a very effective litmus test.  I knew deep down that marriage was the only thing that could justify such an intimate act.  I knew that if I had shared that with him and he had not married me in the end, there would be hell to pay.  Mostly towards myself.

During this time, I watch others meet and marry.  I could see a marked difference.  I could see that I was being treated as an option and not a priority.  And, it made me mad.  So, I would point this out to John.  He would act hurt/confused that what he was offering me was not enough.  But I knew that he knew I was right. 

There were all sorts of excuses:  the distance, his job, his career, his immaturity.  Looking back, he was kind of immature but it is interesting that the girl he dated after me somehow cured this immaturity.  He made her a priority and he married her.

My Gems

This unhealthy relationship really did a number on me.  I continued to date other guys after John but it took several years for the Lord to heal me. I don’t blame John.  I blame myself. 

But, the errors resulted in gems. After John, I could easily spot when I was being treated as just an option by the guys I was dating. I was able to connect the dots and self-correct. 

It was not until I met Gregg that I realized what being made a priority looks and feels like.  There were no excuses.  There were no disappointments. Each potential opportunity to spend time together was capitalized upon. And, these opportunities required a plane and taking leave from work.  There was nothing convenient about that.

Gregg never tired of calling me.  He loved talking to me on the phone because he loved my voice.  I met his family and he met mine.  I met his friends and he met mine.  He was proud to have me as his girlfriend.  He displayed the maturity required to move things toward marriage.  He sacrificed his life to join it to mine.

So, I encourage you to ask yourself this question about your current relationship:  Are you a priority or just an option?  If you are just an option, break up and don’t look back.  Don’t delay your opportunity to be treated like a priority by the right man.  Don’t tie up your heart on a man who could take you or leave you.  Keep your heart free so that the Lord can move in your life and so that you can follow His will.  Keep your emotions holy so as to not deepen the crevices of anger, mistrust, self-blame and disappointment.

Allow Him to turn your errors into Gems!

God love you and bless you! 

p.s.s. Check out all my posts listed by category here!

If you have enjoyed my blog, please “like” my Facebook Page, The Veil and sign up to receive my blog posts automatically by clicking the rectangular “Follow” button. Please check me out and follow me on Twitter too! Thank you!