I remember sitting in my sixth grade classroom listening to my first chastity talk.  A young woman spoke to us about virtue, waiting for your soulmate, and finding true love.  At the end of the talk, each of us received a red sticker that boldly said “I’M WORTH WAITING FOR!”  I wore the sticker proudly, thinking, “Yeah!  I’ve got this!  I’m waiting until marriage and so will the person I’m going to marry!”  Turns out, that’s easy for a sixth grader to say.

            I think it’s safe to say that most Catholic and Christian teenagers and young adults (heck, even the not-young adults!) struggle or have struggled with chastity.  Actually, most people in our culture aren’t struggling with chastity.  They’re just ignoring it or laughing at it.  And that can be rough for those of us who really want to believe and are striving for what that little red sticker said.  That we are worth waiting for.  That marriage is worth waiting for.  That HEAVEN is worth waiting for.

            For years after that first chastity talk, chastity was a breeze, because I wasn’t dating, and no one was knocking down my door!  It’s easy to be chaste when you’re single, not ready to mingle, and you go to an all-girls high school.  Then, college happened.  I went to a public state college, and suddenly, there were attractive guys EVERYWHERE.  And some of them even showed interest in me!  That was the first time that had happened to me.  Now the challenge of chastity became real.  Virtue, strength, and temperance were finally put to the test.

            I wish I could say that I was always strong in the face of temptation, or that I had that little red sticker framed somewhere prominent in my dorm room as a reminder of the promise I had made to myself and to God.  But it turns out chastity is way more difficult than I thought it would be.

            In retrospect, I made several fatal mistakes.  I was setting myself up for failure.  The number one factor in chastity, other than ourselves, is the other.  Am I using the other as an object of pleasure?  Are they using me?  A dating trap that I have fallen into time and time again is that the guy I would start dating would say he was totally cool with chastity, and then slowly, my walls would come down, boundaries would get pushed, or sometimes totally crossed.  Then one of two things would happen: I would throw my morals out the window altogether and begin a vicious cycle of resentment and regret, or I would pull back the reigns and stick to my guns, and the guy would back out because it was simply way harder than he had originally thought.

            And therein lay my problem: I was dragging my boyfriends along behind me in this battle for chastity, when in reality they didn’t want to be fighting in that battle in the first place.  They said yes to the idea of chastity because I asked them to, not because they wanted it for themselves.  And I could not blame them for that.

            I was in a cycle of relationships like this for five long years.  I would invest my heart in someone who was willing to give chastity a try for my sake, they would realize after months or years that it was too difficult, and I would end up with my heart smashed.  I remember sitting at Mass the day after a particularly hard break up and just crying my eyes out from Mass’s start to finish, thinking “Why, God?  I’m trying so hard.  Is this fight even worth it?”  

            I am sure many of you are in this same spot.  You try to be vulnerable and let people in, and you give of your love and your heart, and you strive for chastity but you fail, or you cannot seem to find anyone willing to walk that road of chastity alongside you.  I see you.  I’ve been there.  And I am so sorry that your heart has been wounded and that someone did not value you enough to help you in your journey to heaven.

            But I can promise you this: that is not the end of your story.

            After that day of crying at Mass, I wrestled with God over this.  What’s the point of chastity?  Why am I fighting so hard for something that no one else seems to care about?  Why not just abide by what the rest of the world says is fine?  The vast majority of the culture laughs at the idea of sex as something meant solely for marriage, so why can’t I feel that way?  And no surprise, God won that wrestling match.  I knew in my soul that chastity was the surest way to real love and heaven.  And so I recommitted myself to it, promising myself that if I were to date again, it was only going to be with someone who wanted chastity for himself and on his own, not because I asked him to.  It had to be someone who was running this race already, on his own.  It had to be someone who would run alongside me, not someone who I had to drag along begrudgingly.  

            Then, out of nowhere, came my husband.  We met on a random secular dating app that I had downloaded on a whim.  I was just looking to dip my toes in the dating pool again when I came across his profile.  His bio mentioned that he was looking for someone who “shared his faith.”  That seemed promising, but I had certainly dated Christian guys who didn’t believe in chastity.  But as we started to go on dates and get to know each other, it became obviously clear: this was a man with his heart set on the Lord, who was striving for heaven, and who was not interested as using me as an object but rather loving me properly.  Our dating track record was certainly not spotless, but any time we crossed a line or blurred an edge, it was Paul that would turn to me and say, “OK, we need to go to Confession.  Let’s go.”  And we would go immediately.  It was Paul that would say, “Can we pray together?”  It was Paul who would tell me that I am beautiful and amazing, not because of what he could get from me, but because he saw me as unique and unrepeatable, the way God sees me.

            So, to the ones ready to give up on chastity: I beg you, please don’t.  Hold on.  God is molding you and shaping you into the saint He knows you can be.  He is building you up in the temperance and self-mastery you are going to need during marriage, especially during times when you and your spouse may need to be abstinent.  If your vocation is marriage, your future spouse is out there.  God is molding them too.  You are not too old.  You are not unlovable.  My husband was 32 when we got married, and he constantly says that he would have waited until he was 80 for me.  If your vocation is marriage, please believe me when I say that God has a perfect plan that is so beyond your wildest dreams, and He is so excited to unfold it for you, but only in HIS perfect timing.  Stay grounded in your beliefs, and please don’t settle for less than holiness.  If I had given in and abandoned chastity, I would have ended up marrying someone else who did not care about my holiness or my soul.  Chastity is the only way to find someone who cares about your soul more than anything.  Do not give up on chastity.  It is the road to love.  You really are worth waiting for.