The other day, I was driving and saw a dead-end sign. I didn’t think about driving down that road because I knew I didn’t want to have to turn around, but I started to think about the dead-end signs the Lord has put in our paths by way of commandments. They are not suggestions. They are danger signs with real consequences.
I have lived long enough to have traveled far enough down life’s road to be able to look back and say I know how to avoid the dead ends, dangerous detours and shortcuts that turn into superhighways to nowhere. I have seen enough potholes and washouts to know not to go down roads like that again. I have seen cars careen into deep canyons to crash and burn with no easy escape. I know better than to travel at breakneck speed and to disobey traffic warning signs. You could say, I stand at the top of a winding canyon highway and can see the dangers facing the cars traveling far below. I have my cellphone, and they have theirs, but somehow there’s a disconnect, especially with younger drivers. They turn off their phones, wave and smile. “This is my journey. You are too old to understand what I am facing. Roads are different now. Rules of the white-haired generation don’t apply today.”
My vantage point at the top of the mountain makes me acutely aware of the gifts my parents gave me when I was growing up. I made mistakes – a lot of them – but I was never one of those cars that crashed and burned because my parents helped me make decisions before I got behind the wheel of my own car. They took me down many imaginary roads and taught me the consequences of each ending. I could see the tragedy and triumph of choices others made. I didn’t have to travel those roads in real life, and their examples made it easy to follow. They taught me the eternal road signs and traffic safety rules contained in the scriptures. There came a point when I had no desire to make bad choices. I wanted to listen to the cellphone calls from the top of the mountain, and it saved me much sorrow and heartache.
Today’s youth are bombarded with sexual innuendos, images and advertisements everywhere. Sex before marriage is paraded as the way to make the proper choice of a soulmate. The logic of the time says, “Try it out. Use it for a while. If you like it, keep it. If you don’t, take it back for a refund and a new product.” The trouble with that line of thinking is you give away the gift you can never give again in the same way. The gift becomes less valuable the more times you give it to another person.
“You don’t understand; we love each other,” is the clarion cry. Love is not heat of passion. Love is not the warm feeling of happiness when you are around your lover. Love is the price you are willing to pay for your soulmate’s eternal welfare. The key word is eternal. How long will you love him or her? Love is commitment from sunrise to sunset and every dark hour of the night. Love is picking up dirty clothes, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, raising children, forgiving dents in the car and learning patience. You can’t learn those things by sleeping with a person in a trial period of “If you mess up, I’m gone.”
When my mother married, it was only a few months before my daddy was called into the military. He went voluntarily, not waiting to be drafted. Mother was to spend three years without him. She was pregnant with their first child when he left. After the baby was born, she was still a young attractive woman who could have fallen prey to the whims of any lonesome cowboy, but her commitment to marriage and my dad was impeccable.
Chastity was not just a good idea before marriage, but it was the lifeblood of the marriage covenant. She shut the door to any other prospect. She was true in the face of years of uncertainty. She didn’t know if he would ever come back. Many soldiers didn’t. No one knew how long the war would last. When true love is involved, it doesn’t matter. You are true, no matter what. My father in far-away England could have made excuses, but he too knew the meaning of true love. He returned, never having broken his marriage vows.
My parents’ commitment gave me the courage to be true to my future spouse for 38 years before I married him. I didn’t know who he was for all of those years. In fact, it was only a few weeks into a whirlwind courtship that I was able to put a face on the person I had chosen to bestow my gift of fidelity, but it was worth the wait.
What about him? Was he faithful? Yes. I never had to worry about where he was or who he was sleeping with because I knew his commitment to me was real. I didn’t worry about my husband cheating on me. He had been faithful to his first wife with unending devotion. At one point, she was riddled with cancer. Her hair was gone, and she was an emaciated shell of a woman. She said, “You just need to divorce me and find another wife who can take care of you.” He said, “It is enough to have you here. Even if you can’t do anything, I want you here with me.” He was true to the very end.
That is the man I married. I didn’t have to worry about him, and he didn’t have to worry about me cheating on him. I had lived 38 years knowing that one day I would meet him and give myself wholly and completely to our marriage; that day, I could tell him with complete integrity that he is my one and only for eternity. Trust is the very fiber and substance of our marriage. It would not have been that way without the gift of chastity.
The modern world scoffs at the idea of waiting until marriage. “You need to ignore the detour signs and dead-end signs and go in on your own.”
Sadly, the philosophy of the world is a smoke screen to hide the real truth. The world doesn’t tell you about the shattered lives, the children growing up without fathers or the rampant diseases that last a lifetime. The world doesn’t tell you that commitment is the key to a successful marriage. It is not a matter of making a choice at the supermarket tasting table.
We pay thousands of dollars for the bloodlines of our horses, dogs and cats. It is vital we choose the best and are willing to pay for it, but do young people today spend the same time worrying about the bloodlines of the people they find at the tasting table at the supermarket? Do they think of what they are passing on to their children? I’m afraid many of the younger generation close their eyes and drive past the railroad crossing bars with the lights flashing scarlet and the bells dinging, “Danger!”
What if you have already been to the tasting table? What if you have already been hit by a train? Is there any way back? Dead-end roads don’t have to be the end. Through God’s grace, you can turn around and get back on the road to safety. Yes, God in His infinite mercy gave us the gift of His son, who died on the cross to atone for our sins. Turn to Him. Pray. Read His word. He will help you pick up the pieces of your shattered life. He will help you fix what is broken. He will help you right every wrong. He can help you get back to a safe road. God can change your heart and give you a new mind. He can take away sorrow and turn it into joy. I know this because of the mistakes I have made. I’ve had my share of detours and dead ends. God is faithful and has kept His promise:
… though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
—Isaiah 1:18 KJV
