The 13th Article of Faith continues with, “We believe in being . . . virtuous . . .”
Virtuous can be defined as living a morally upright life. It means having moral and ethical values and standards. It can also mean living a chaste and morally clean life.
Remaining virtuous and chaste in today’s society is extremely hard, especially for teenagers. So much peer pressure is placed on our youth to succumb to immoral and unrighteous behavior. Good is called evil and evil is called good. Instead of respecting those who choose to remain chaste, peers taunt, ridicule, and otherwise humiliate them.
My daughter was enrolled in a health class at the high school. She learned valuable information about eating healthy food and about diseases. Of course, the class also included Sex Education. Most of the time was used by Planned Parenthood to push its own agenda. While abstinence was mentioned, it was lip service at best.
In Colorado, state law permits Planned Parenthood to distribute birth control to minors without parental consent. Our previous principal (who was reprimanded, but not fired for downloading and sharing pornography on school computers) instituted a student health center at the high school. While the health center offers physical exams for kids participating in sports and testing for strep throat and other ailments, it also offers pregnancy testing, birth control, and counseling (translation: abortion counseling). To receive regular care from the health center, a parent must sign a permission form, but any student can access the health center one time without parental consent and without informing the parents.
Promiscuity is so rampant that my daughter has only one friend who is not sexually active. In fact, she knows girls who regularly go to Planned Parenthood and even obtain the “morning after pill,” which is a form of abortion. No one thinks anything about it. These teenagers are exchanging partners, participating is lewd acts, and then going to Planned Parenthood to get rid of any child that may be created by their behavior. The worst part is the general acceptance of this behavior.
My daughter did not want to attend Planned Parenthood’s agenda in her health class so she left each day to go to the library. How did her peers react? They called her names, made fun of her, and told her she was being ridiculous and “missing out.” Fortunately, my daughter has stood firm in her decision to retain her virtue.
In my own experience in high school, I was also ridiculed for being virtuous and having morals and standards. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to look at our society and see that it’s ripening for destruction because we have lost our moral compass. Nothing is wrong anymore. We condone homosexuality. We think nothing of teenagers engaged in sexual activities. We allow innocent babies to be sucked from a woman’s womb simply because that baby is inconvenient.
Most of the ills of our society can be traced back to our apathy toward virtue and chastity. What has happened to being virtuous? When did being moral become bad? Why has our society lost the values we once cherished?
An immoral society can’t survive forever. Until we, as a society, once gain embrace virtue and chastity we will suffer the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah.
Return to the neighborhood.
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Showing posts with label Chastity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chastity. Show all posts
Friday, September 26, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Honest, True, Chaste
The 13th Article of Faith is quite long so I’m going to explain it over several posts. The beginning states, “We believe in being honest, true, chaste . . . .”
Honesty encompasses many aspects from telling the truth to keeping vows and covenants to sins of omission. Being honest establishes trust. Dishonesty breaks that trust. Many years ago, a woman in my ward approached me and asked if her daughter could do some service for me since I was a young mother. She suggested that her daughter could babysit each week while I ran errands.
I allowed the young woman to babysit and I used the time to go grocery shopping and do other errands. After a few weeks, I noticed that a bottle of my perfume was missing. I figured one of my kids had moved it somewhere. The next week, I noticed that my walkman was gone. Again, I figured my kids were the culprits and I’d find it eventually. After I returned home the third week, I discovered that my bathing suit had disappeared. It finally hit me. My babysitter had been stealing from me. I was shocked, but promptly ended her service and never again allowed her to babysit. She lost my trust.
Some years back, members of my community started a rumor about me. The rumor had no basis and since I tend to confront issues head-on, I went to the sources of the rumor. Of course, the people denied any involvement, but I knew without any doubt, that not only had they been involved, but were in fact lying to me at that time as well. They lost my trust.
Honesty is the basis of trust. Once that trust has been destroyed, it’s very difficult to rebuild it. We must be honest in all of our dealings. If we’ve been dishonest, we should rectify the situation as best we can as soon as we can, but understand that it may take a long time to re-establish trust.
We must also be true to our covenants and vows. We must be true to our word. When we say we are going to do something, we need to do it. We must be true to our family and friends so that they know they can always depend on us and trust us.
The Lord delights in the chastity of women. Our society has denigrated to the point that chastity is no longer respected and in many instances is ridiculed. When I was in high school, an adult in a position of trust constantly belittled my desire to remain chaste. He told me that I was missing out on life by being such a prude. He said life was meant to be experienced and I was limiting my experiences. As I look back now, I’m so grateful I did not give in or listen to this individual because the decision that I made to be chaste before marriage has brought me great comfort.
Adherence to the Law of Chastity provides physical and spiritual protection that is so important today. Our society calls for sex education in our schools to teach our youth to be “safe.” What this education fails to teach the youth is the damage that premarital sex does to their spirits. The ability to create human life is sacred and belongs only within the bounds of marriage. When this procreative power is used under any other circumstance besides between husband and wife, catastrophic results occur. One only needs to look at the broken homes, teenagers having babies, rate of abortion, drug use, alcohol use, and divorce rate to see the effects of a society that promotes immoral behavior.
One of the greatest ills of our society today is its lack of respect for the proper place for sexual relationships. Our society’s disrespect for the sacred power of procreation will eventually lead to its downfall.
Return to the neighborhood.
Honesty encompasses many aspects from telling the truth to keeping vows and covenants to sins of omission. Being honest establishes trust. Dishonesty breaks that trust. Many years ago, a woman in my ward approached me and asked if her daughter could do some service for me since I was a young mother. She suggested that her daughter could babysit each week while I ran errands.
I allowed the young woman to babysit and I used the time to go grocery shopping and do other errands. After a few weeks, I noticed that a bottle of my perfume was missing. I figured one of my kids had moved it somewhere. The next week, I noticed that my walkman was gone. Again, I figured my kids were the culprits and I’d find it eventually. After I returned home the third week, I discovered that my bathing suit had disappeared. It finally hit me. My babysitter had been stealing from me. I was shocked, but promptly ended her service and never again allowed her to babysit. She lost my trust.
Some years back, members of my community started a rumor about me. The rumor had no basis and since I tend to confront issues head-on, I went to the sources of the rumor. Of course, the people denied any involvement, but I knew without any doubt, that not only had they been involved, but were in fact lying to me at that time as well. They lost my trust.
Honesty is the basis of trust. Once that trust has been destroyed, it’s very difficult to rebuild it. We must be honest in all of our dealings. If we’ve been dishonest, we should rectify the situation as best we can as soon as we can, but understand that it may take a long time to re-establish trust.
We must also be true to our covenants and vows. We must be true to our word. When we say we are going to do something, we need to do it. We must be true to our family and friends so that they know they can always depend on us and trust us.
The Lord delights in the chastity of women. Our society has denigrated to the point that chastity is no longer respected and in many instances is ridiculed. When I was in high school, an adult in a position of trust constantly belittled my desire to remain chaste. He told me that I was missing out on life by being such a prude. He said life was meant to be experienced and I was limiting my experiences. As I look back now, I’m so grateful I did not give in or listen to this individual because the decision that I made to be chaste before marriage has brought me great comfort.
Adherence to the Law of Chastity provides physical and spiritual protection that is so important today. Our society calls for sex education in our schools to teach our youth to be “safe.” What this education fails to teach the youth is the damage that premarital sex does to their spirits. The ability to create human life is sacred and belongs only within the bounds of marriage. When this procreative power is used under any other circumstance besides between husband and wife, catastrophic results occur. One only needs to look at the broken homes, teenagers having babies, rate of abortion, drug use, alcohol use, and divorce rate to see the effects of a society that promotes immoral behavior.
One of the greatest ills of our society today is its lack of respect for the proper place for sexual relationships. Our society’s disrespect for the sacred power of procreation will eventually lead to its downfall.
Return to the neighborhood.
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