Life for you right now is Legos and Thomas the Train and Winnie the Pooh, but one day it will be cars and sports and the girls across the meadow.
You’re three years old and learning manners and how to make your bed but one day, there will be harder lessons: learning self-control when all of your body is crying out to be loved.
Life is easy and safe, son. But one day it will be exciting and confusing. And I ache for that day, because you’re my baby and one day you’ll be a man and I have dreams for you, but more than that. I have prayers.
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| via reckless youth instagram |
We read about David and Goliath tonight, and what it means to be a hero who stands up to the giants. And right now, being a hero means dressing up like Spiderman, but one day son, it will mean living like your daddy.
Because your daddy is my hero, and not because he saved me. No, only Christ can do that. He’s my hero because he saved himself for me, and that set the premise, son, for trust: for a marriage that is solid, and a husband who is pure of heart.
And I know “saving yourself” is not a popular term these days, because it’s not cool. But listen close, son. For these are things you will not learn in school. Sex is only for the giving. Never for the taking. It’s a gift. And gifts are precious to the giver and the receiver.
We have presidents who sleep around and preachers who do no better, and there are few men of valor. But you can look up to your father, son. Because he dared to be looked down on. He dared to appear foolish in front of his friends, because he knew that strength of the will is the most courageous feat.
I have a friend in university, and she’s waiting for her wedding day because “for the first time in my life,” she told me, “I feel very strongly that I have to be a Christian for another person, that I have to fill myself with strength and love so I can help (them) as best I can. Not in a bad or overly obligatory way, but it’s a sense of responsibility I’ve never had before. The more I think about it the more I feel that it’s that and not fear that will keep me from things like lust or sex, because those things hurt how I can help others.”
Your father said No more than once during high-school and university because he wanted his Yes to matter. And there’s only one woman worth saying yes to, son. The one who will vow to love you always, and if you don’t promise her with your body, your words hold no worth.
(Unless, of course son, the opportunity is stolen from you–your voice, taken–and I pray God, please no).
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| via reckless youth instagram |
When you were conceived you were given a soul, and this is not something you can see. But it’s as real as your skin, as real as the feelings that will make you want to be one with a woman, and this is good, son.
But like anything good, it is sacred. And it comes with a responsibility. It comes with a calling as deep as the generations which live in you, as the sons and daughters who will one day look up to you.
Proverbs 5 says:
running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
My prayer for you, my boy, is that you will be satisfied always, because there’s a kind of intimacy that the world is missing out on, the kind that imprints itself on one another and makes one body out of two people.
It’s not old-fashioned to abstain, son. It’s rare. And it’s what true love hungers for: the kind that will wait, that will stand up to peer pressure and billboards and Hollywood and believe in the God who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
The God who designed man and woman to leave father and mother and become one and create a family and this, son, is what today’s children are missing: a family. Because marriages no longer last. Because sex is no longer sacred.
I love you. And I pray for you, that you will shine, that you will be a man among men, a leader for others to follow, a Joseph who stands up to Potipher’s wife. The world needs more Josephs, son. It needs a few good men.
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| via reckless youth instagram |
And even as you sit on the floor playing Legos I know the decades are coming. So go in righteousness and peace, my boy.
With me cheering you on, always.
Love,
Mama.
(Readers– This letter is my prayer for my son, but I know I can’t control these things. All I can do is share my heart with him, and then trust. And I know that there are many {perhaps you?} who have had the choice to “wait” stolen … and my heart grieves over this. I am angry at whoever stole it from you, and I’m here for you, if you ever want to talk. I do believe in abstinence. But I also know that sometimes the choice is taken from us. No matter your story, please know? I love you. Always, e.)