I am a fifteen year old rockstar with a gold record and hundreds of sold-out concerts all over the globe and I believe in chastity. Not something you hear every day, is it?
As I sit here on my brothers' and my bus, I'm thinking about what my silver purity ring really means to me. And I'm really thinking about it, not just spitting out the "It's a promise to myself and to God" line that I have for years or talking about the word "poned" that's inscribed around the band. What does purity truly represent? According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, it means "chastity in conduct and intention; abstention from sexual intercourse; and personal integrity." But to me, it's so much more than that. It is a way of life and a promise to God, myself, and my future wife that I will keep my virtue intact and that I will reserve that one special part of myself for the person I love.
Because to me, sex is much more than physical pleasure. It's the ultimate way of expressing a love so deep for your partner that you want to share a bond with them in a way that you never have before. It's a way of creating a human being in the image of God out of the passion of love. It is beautiful and should carry a deep emotional and physical connection that only a man and his wife, his eternal partner and soulmate, could ever share.
So by being chaste and wanting to save myself for my future wife, does that mean that I will never kiss a girl, have a serious girlfriend, or enjoy my career? Definitely not. I still wear fashionable clothes and play my guitar and hang out with girlfriends and all the things that other teenagers do. My beliefs merely mean that I will find that one woman, the right one for me, and I will commit myself fully to her and our life together in Christ. I will not give the sacred parts of myself up until I know that I have found my equal, and to use the words of Jerry Maguire, the one that completes me.
It is natural for one to question how I can say that I am saving myself for this one special woman when, in fact, I do not even know who she is. One thing I do know, though, is that I will love whoever she is with all my heart and I will want her to have every part of myself. I believe in that certain true love that is complete and everlasting and I know that when I find that love in a woman, I will share every single piece of myself, mental, physical, and emotional, with her and only her.
These days there are so many people out there, teens and adults alike, who are giving themselves away to people they don't love. And it's not just in Hollywood, it's everywhere. You hear about Jamie Lynn Spears and Nicole Richie and people like them getting pregnant before marriage, but what about the people in your city, in your town, in your school? USA Today recently reported that over 90 percent of people have sex before marriage. My brothers and I hope that we set an example for that other 10 percent, and even the rest of the world, that are like us, struggling with the big, bad world out there and still trying to keep our morals and our beliefs intact.
Plus, being chaste eliminates the normal problems that many teens face. If a person knows what they want and makes their intentions clear, it sets the boundaries and gives both people involved in the relationship a sense of what to expect. It certainly doesn't get rid of the hormones or the temptations, but it definitely eases the confusion and uncertainty normally involved in a relationship.
With my father being a minister and with my own beliefs, I have grown up with the phrase "true love waits," hearing it over and over again, so much so that it has become sort of a mantra for me. "True love waits" is a huge part of my life, influencing my choices and decisions more than I would have thought possible for just a simple three-word phrase. It means so much more than just those three words though. To me, it contains everything. My beliefs, my choices, my religion… True love waits. This I believe.