Our beautiful daughter and several of her equally beautiful (and handsome) friends went thru the True Love Waits seminar over the weekend and I just wanted to publicly commend them for giving up their Saturday (and Friday night and Sunday morning :) to participate in the program. Our girls had even initiated the process on their own (not knowing, of course, that it was going to cost them a weekend :). I was also very impressed by the sacrifice from parents outside of our church (also giving up a weekend) in order learn how to help their teens stay committed to abstinence. On Sunday morning, the 9 Exeter kids (83 total teens completed the conference, 10 from Exeter - one was unable to attend the ring ceremony) stood in front of our congregation and pledged to wait until marriage for an intimate relationship; it was a VERY brave thing to do.
I know there are many who think these programs don't work...and certainly nothing in our culture is persuading teenagers to rethink their sexual choices. We have a national problem with STD's and teen pregnancy and we don't seem to get the correlation between sexually explicit television COMMERCIALS (let alone programming, movies, and music) and sexual activity. Note to doubters - the correlation is real and it is strong and it can't be wished or rationalized away.
Will all these kids make it to their weddings unscathed?....possibly not. But we've at least armed them with something besides 'Just say no' or 'Use a condom' in order to fight the prevailing societal pressures.
Our hope is that when they are tempted or find themselves in a compromising situation, they will remember their Lord, their maker, their first true love and will pause. They will have the strength to step back and realize that they have value far beyond their sexuality. They will remember the covenant they made and it will enable them to be make the wise choice.
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It was pretty brave of them to do that. We owe it to all of them to pray for them and encourage them! I hope they'll all help each other to keep this commitment!! I'm proud of each of them!
(Michael, by the way, put his ring on a chain to wear around his neck. He is such a "Lord of the Rings" fan/nerd! I love him!)
Oh, and I love this picture of Annie!
Jean,
We have had two go through this process. You and Jim had three in one weekend! What a tribute to you and Jim faithfully leading your children.
It was a great weekend for all.
Steve
Good for them, I went to a private Christian highschool and even though premarital sex still happened it was not the norm and it was not considered 'cool'. I think so much has to do with expectations. If you think oh my kids doing to do it anyway...then they probably will. Expect great things from our kids, expect them to have self respect and self control and they are much more likely to do just that. Good for you and even better for you kids!!!
thanks Kim! I agree with you about high expectations. I think our kids do TRY to live up to the standards we set. It's amazing how many friends of ours have set the bar pretty low. If our kids fail, and they will, at least they will be shooting for the stars :)
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