Dear Church Family:
This is not an easy letter to write. In fact, if I knew any of you would be reading it I probably wouldn't be able to write it at all. It's certainly not anything I can say face to face.
For the past year and a half I have been attending services and some of you have started to notice that when they post new member announcements my name never comes up. Some of you have started to notice I don't take communion when it is passed around either. There is a reason for both.
Some of you also know that I am not really one of you no matter how we both try to act otherwise.
I come among you as a single, never married woman who has long since passed the bloom of her youth. There are a lot of things I don't tell you and one of them is that I am lonely. Most of you are married. You do not (at least not yet) know what it is like to come home and not hear another live human voice until it is time to go to work in the morning. That the majority of phone calls I receive are from telemarketers trying to sell me something. You don't know that because I don't want your pity. My life is what it is and I have learned to deal with it.
But--there is something I do want to say to all of you because you are my friends. I've been to several churches in my life, ranging from Catholic to Pentecostal to Lutheran to now this one. And in each one I have heard the same thing regarding sex. Wait until marriage.
Rightly or wrongly I bought into that idea. And I waited. I waited all through my 20's. I waited all through my 30's. I waited all through my 40's. I am in the middle of my 50's and I am STILL waiting. I have never once shared my bed with another human being. Meanwhile those who tell me to wait go home at night where their beds are not empty.
I am not complaining. I am stating a fact. I listened to you and I believed you. And not once in any of the churches that I attended did anyone say, hey, I have someone I'd like you to meet. I think you two would really hit it off together. I look around and I see couples. There are no unattached men. Unattached women, yes. Unattached men, no. It is no different here.
It's not your fault. You can't produce what does not exist. So I am not blaming you. But I am going to say something that may hurt you. Listen up, anyway.
Right now I am not actively looking for a partner. But I have come to realize that if I do find one the odds are very good that he will not be from this church and that he will not be a "believer." I don't know where I will meet him (or if I will meet him) but I know where I will NOT meet him. And if that happens, you will lose me. Because I am not going to throw my chances of finding love and companionship out the window because of some archaic teaching that I ought to save myself for marriage. I am no starry-eyed teenager wearing a purity ring. I've been out there and I know that there are damn few men who believe in waiting for marriage and those that do are already married. At this stage of my life I am not likely to find a man my age who is a virgin. You say I am worth waiting for. What that means in reality is that I might as well resign myself to the fact that I will be waiting the rest of my life and I will be the only one waiting because no one else is.
So I am warning you--eventually you will lose me. I can't in good conscience say the words you want me to say because they would be a lie. Yes, I know there will come a time when I will have to make a choice; I just don't know when or how it will happen. But I am not going to lie to you. Much as I have enjoyed your friendships I already know what my decision will be if it comes down to that and I know why I am making that decision. It will not be an easy decision. It will sadden me greatly. But I must be true to what I have learned about myself. I am no longer willing to live by certain rules because I have tried to live by them and they haven't worked for me. Given the choice between chastity and love I am going to choose love. And if I am wrong, then I will bear the consequences. But I no longer want to continue living a half-life. I am no longer going to sit it out rather than dance.
This is not an easy letter to write. In fact, if I knew any of you would be reading it I probably wouldn't be able to write it at all. It's certainly not anything I can say face to face.
For the past year and a half I have been attending services and some of you have started to notice that when they post new member announcements my name never comes up. Some of you have started to notice I don't take communion when it is passed around either. There is a reason for both.
Some of you also know that I am not really one of you no matter how we both try to act otherwise.
I come among you as a single, never married woman who has long since passed the bloom of her youth. There are a lot of things I don't tell you and one of them is that I am lonely. Most of you are married. You do not (at least not yet) know what it is like to come home and not hear another live human voice until it is time to go to work in the morning. That the majority of phone calls I receive are from telemarketers trying to sell me something. You don't know that because I don't want your pity. My life is what it is and I have learned to deal with it.
But--there is something I do want to say to all of you because you are my friends. I've been to several churches in my life, ranging from Catholic to Pentecostal to Lutheran to now this one. And in each one I have heard the same thing regarding sex. Wait until marriage.
Rightly or wrongly I bought into that idea. And I waited. I waited all through my 20's. I waited all through my 30's. I waited all through my 40's. I am in the middle of my 50's and I am STILL waiting. I have never once shared my bed with another human being. Meanwhile those who tell me to wait go home at night where their beds are not empty.
I am not complaining. I am stating a fact. I listened to you and I believed you. And not once in any of the churches that I attended did anyone say, hey, I have someone I'd like you to meet. I think you two would really hit it off together. I look around and I see couples. There are no unattached men. Unattached women, yes. Unattached men, no. It is no different here.
It's not your fault. You can't produce what does not exist. So I am not blaming you. But I am going to say something that may hurt you. Listen up, anyway.
Right now I am not actively looking for a partner. But I have come to realize that if I do find one the odds are very good that he will not be from this church and that he will not be a "believer." I don't know where I will meet him (or if I will meet him) but I know where I will NOT meet him. And if that happens, you will lose me. Because I am not going to throw my chances of finding love and companionship out the window because of some archaic teaching that I ought to save myself for marriage. I am no starry-eyed teenager wearing a purity ring. I've been out there and I know that there are damn few men who believe in waiting for marriage and those that do are already married. At this stage of my life I am not likely to find a man my age who is a virgin. You say I am worth waiting for. What that means in reality is that I might as well resign myself to the fact that I will be waiting the rest of my life and I will be the only one waiting because no one else is.
So I am warning you--eventually you will lose me. I can't in good conscience say the words you want me to say because they would be a lie. Yes, I know there will come a time when I will have to make a choice; I just don't know when or how it will happen. But I am not going to lie to you. Much as I have enjoyed your friendships I already know what my decision will be if it comes down to that and I know why I am making that decision. It will not be an easy decision. It will sadden me greatly. But I must be true to what I have learned about myself. I am no longer willing to live by certain rules because I have tried to live by them and they haven't worked for me. Given the choice between chastity and love I am going to choose love. And if I am wrong, then I will bear the consequences. But I no longer want to continue living a half-life. I am no longer going to sit it out rather than dance.
