On Valentines Day, Danny and I were speakers for a large Christian school’s chapel.  They split the guys and girls up and we could have “heart to hearts” with the students. Now, I am a through and through “christian school kid”.  I know the walk, I know the talk, I know the things that most of the girls struggle with, I know the do’s and the don’ts. So as Danny and I separately breached the topic of purity, I knew the crowd and I could share very openly of my testimony, the story of God bringing Danny and me together, and the ways God mercifully kept us pure for one another.  BUT THEN, I had a Valentines Dinner for the girls in our neighborhood on Friday night.  We had about 15 seventh through twelfth grade girls there and we did a Bible study on love.  Then I basically shared what I had shared with the Christian school girls.  But boy was it HARD..I had the widest spectrum of backgrounds to contend with…everywhere from girls who were raised in Christian homes, to girls who were sexually abused IN their homes, to girls were already raising their own babies in their homes (he was the only boy allowed at the dinner :), all members of a community in which the definition of sexual purity is ‘not sleeping with another guy behind your boyfriend’s back’.  Several are not even Christians, and yet I was talking to them about one of the “rules” of Christianity???…or is it not a rule but a very tangible and vivid picture of the Gospel? The God who created the joy of sex, created it as a shadow of the joy we can have in fellowship with Him, fellowship that came about only through the self-sacrificing love of Christ. This Gospel is what is reaching hearts and changing lives. I could see it in their eyes as we meditated on what REAL love is, according to God. I could see it in their smiles as I shared about how Danny (the most tangible exhibit of grace in my life) wooed my heart, I could hear it in their voice as a girl pulled me aside afterwards and said “Even though I’ve messed up in the past, this gives me hope to start over and trust God in the future”  PURITY! Because the Pure One came to purify.  PURITY! Because as Christians, the world we defy.  PURITY! something to give only to that special guy. PURITY!To receive the gift, and offer it back to the Most High