Jamila prays that God would “expose the brokenness in those dark and deep places that no one else can see” and help everyone “know without a shadow of a doubt” they are His daughters—how does that prayer portray God’s intentions toward hidden sin and shame, and what would change in our churches if we expected God to deal with us that personally?

**Direct Answer** Jamila’s prayer portrays God as intentionally going after what is hidden—not to crush His people, but to bring them into assurance (“You are Your daughters”) and redemption “anywhere and any place that we’ve been.” If churches expected God to deal that personally, honesty, dependence, and a culture of repentance-and-healing would likely replace image-management. **Support from Transcript:** • Jamila asks God to “expose the brokenness in those dark and deep places that no one else can see,” implying God sees and can reach what people conceal. • She ties exposure to identity and comfort: “help us to know… that we are Your daughters,” and “Remind us… we are loved with Your everlasting love.” • She frames God’s intent as rescue: “You offer redemption… for anywhere and any place that we’ve been.” • She prays protection and clarity as Darla shares, suggesting spiritual danger but also God’s guiding care (“write Your words on the tablet of her heart”). • The prayer includes global suffering (Ukraine) and a desire for repentance: “we pray that men would call on Your name.” **Discussion Follow-ups** If God exposes hidden places to redeem, what kinds of testimonies or con

Darla describes being “terrified” when she sensed God saying, “Take your hands off of your life… give me your husband and your children… and your emotions,” especially after a background where God was mainly “judgment and… law”—what picture of God makes that surrender reasonable, and what picture of God makes it feel dangerous?

**Direct Answer** Based on the speaker’s teaching, surrender becomes reasonable when God is seen as a loving Father (“Daddy God,” “Abba God”) who redeems emotions rather than merely policing them. Surrender feels dangerous when God is mainly imagined as a judge whose primary posture is “judgment and… law,” so giving Him control feels like inviting harm. **Support from Transcript:** • Darla says Jesus “came to set us free” and “didn’t come to take away your emotions, but… to redeem them,” which makes surrender sound safe and purposeful. • She describes God as relational: being brought “into a right relationship with Daddy God, with Abba God.” • She admits surrender is “terrifying,” especially “if you’re coming from… a past where God is a God of judgment and of law.” • God’s request is personal and total: “give me your heart… your husband and your children… and… your emotions.” • Her burden and song emphasize Christ’s freeing intent: “He sealed my pardon… He made me free.” **Discussion Follow-ups** What practical experiences (answered prayer, conviction without condemnation, wise counsel) help reshape a “law-only” view into a Father-and-Redeemer view? How do our church emphases rei

Darla says Job’s words, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him,” became her motto when she couldn’t even muster “mustard seed” faith—what does that reveal about faith as something we ask God for rather than manufacture, and how does that challenge common evangelical instincts about assurance and “strong faith”?

**Direct Answer** The transcript suggests Darla treated faith as a gift to request from God—she openly asked Him to supply what she could not produce. That challenges the instinct to treat assurance as a personal achievement, because she describes trusting God even while feeling weak and frightened. **Support from Transcript:** • Darla repeatedly spoke Job’s line to herself: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him,” showing faith functioning as a chosen dependence, not a confident feeling. • She admits her faith “wasn’t even” the size of “a mustard seed,” contradicting the idea that real believers always feel strong. • She prayed directly: “God, just give me even that kind of faith because I’m not able to… bring up that faith on my own strength.” • She summarizes God’s response as simple invitation: “That is His heart. He wants you to ask. Ask for it.” • She also prayed, “Give me the faith of a child,” linking faith to humble reliance. **Discussion Follow-ups** How might church language about “strong faith” unintentionally shame people who are obeying while afraid? What would it look like to normalize praying, “Lord, give me faith,” as part of daily discipleship?

Darla warns, “Don’t take my words at face value… do as the Bereans did” and says she “trembles” because women can be “gullible”—how does this way of teaching assume early Christians tested doctrine and authority, and what practices would a serious group need today to actually live like Bereans rather than consumers?

**Direct Answer** Darla assumes faithful listeners do not grant automatic authority to a teacher; they receive teaching with openness but verify it “diligently” by Scripture. To live like Bereans today, a group would need deliberate habits of Bible-checking, discernment, and accountability rather than passive agreement. **Support from Transcript:** • She explicitly references Acts 17: “do as the Bereans did… listened with open hearts and then searched the scriptures diligently to see if it was truth.” • She tells the audience, “don’t take my words at face value,” indicating teaching must be tested, not merely admired. • She explains her seriousness: she “tremble[s]” because women “tend to take words” easily and can be “more gullible.” • She urges a process: “hold them up to the light of God’s Word” and “ask Him to… give you discernment” and “how to make those changes.” • She warns against being shaped by persuasive speech instead of Scripture-anchored conviction. **Discussion Follow-ups** What would change if every lesson ended with group members opening Bibles to confirm key claims? How can a group invite questions without becoming cynical or combative?

Darla critiques purity culture’s implicit promise (“follow the formula… guaranteed a wonderful marriage”) and tells the story of a woman who later said, “I regret it… I wish… I would have never listened to all those lies,” then walked away from faith—where does Darla locate the real failure (God, purity, or idolatry), and what would repentance look like for Christians who built a “formula” theology of obedience?

**Direct Answer** Darla locates the failure primarily in idolatry and “formula” thinking—turning a good, true idea into a guarantee and then blaming God when life stays broken. Repentance would mean rejecting legalistic guarantees, returning to Jesus as the goal, and seeking purity as “freedom and joy” in relationship with Him, not a transaction for outcomes. **Support from Transcript:** • She describes the promise: if you “kept yourself pure enough… you were guaranteed a wonderful marriage,” and notes many found “it didn’t turn out that way.” • She recounts a woman who said she regrets waiting and then “ended up walking away from her faith completely.” • Darla says, “there was truth in what she had been hearing,” but “she took something and she made it her idol.” • She critiques “following the formula… [to] guarantee happiness,” and warns that when it fails people “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” • She re-centers the aim: Jesus “is here to… guide you into a life of purity… not… legalism and law and broken dreams… [but] freedom and joy.” **Discussion Follow-ups** Where have we subtly taught: obedience equals certain results? What would it look like to confess “I made puri

Darla says emotions are a gift and points to Jesus weeping, overturning tables, loving deeply, and being tempted with doubt—how does Jesus’ emotional life redefine “spiritual maturity” compared to the idea that being spiritual means becoming emotionally flat or “monochromatic”?

**Direct Answer** Based on the transcript, Jesus shows that spiritual maturity is not emotional flatness but redeemed, rightly-directed emotion—grief, anger, love, and worship under God’s control. Darla argues maturity looks like stability and surrender, not shutting feelings down into “monochromatic” numbness. **Support from Transcript:** • Darla calls emotions “a gift of God” and says without them life becomes “monochromatic… everything one color.” • She points to Jesus: “He wept over Jerusalem… turned the tables… in anger… loved His disciples deeply.” • She notes Jesus was tempted: “Satan tried to play those mind games with Him,” yet Jesus modeled holy emotional life. • She concludes there’s “a time for righteous indignation… deep grief… deep love,” implying emotions can be righteous. • She challenges the spiritualized numbness approach: people “shut them down” because emotions are painful, trying to “make ourselves emotionally monochromatic.” • She testifies God brings “stability” and refines emotions through “radical trust,” including being “washed… with worship.” **Discussion Follow-ups** How do we tell the difference between Spirit-given stability and mere emotional suppre

Darla lists ways people avoid emotions (work frenzy, social media, food, shopping, unhealthy relationships, romantic media, porn, masturbation) and calls herself “a living, walking testimony” of trying nearly all of them—what do these escapes reveal about what we believe God will not be for us, and which “security blanket” is hardest to imagine surrendering?

**Direct Answer** The transcript suggests these escapes reveal an unbelief that God will meet us in pain, loneliness, and unmet longings—so we self-medicate instead of bringing our hearts to Him. Darla frames them as “security blankets” that feel safer than surrender, even though they lead to “broken emotions” and relationships. **Support from Transcript:** • She lists avoidance patterns: “work yourself to a frenzy… self-medicate… social media, food, shopping and unhealthy relationships… romantic books and movies… fantasy and porn and masturbation.” • She calls herself “a living, walking testimony” of trying “pretty much every one of those things.” • She describes the fruit: “broken emotions, broken marriage, broken relationships, broken friendships.” • She says people run until life is “a miserable mess of pent-up emotions” that “boil over.” • She ties freedom to surrender: “When we finally stop running… you’re ready to allow Jesus what He does best… redemption.” • She warns surrender “will cost you… your security blankets, your pride,” and require “a hard look at… what’s driving your emotions.” **Discussion Follow-ups** Darla doesn’t rank which escape is hardest; she names many

Darla argues that freedom requires digging into roots (“anger and bitterness and trauma”) and says conservative churches can overburden unpaid ministers, so “seek… professional Christian counseling” when needed—how does that challenge a culture that equates spirituality with handling problems privately, and what would a healthier early-Christian-style community care structure look like?

**Direct Answer** Darla challenges the idea that “real spirituality” means managing wounds quietly; she insists some issues require help to “process abuse” and uncover roots, and that it’s not shameful to seek outside support. A healthier care structure would share the load through trusted Christian helpers and accountability rather than expecting a few ministers (or individuals) to carry everything. **Support from Transcript:** • She says freedom requires digging to the root: “roots of anger and bitterness and trauma driving their emotions,” and warns if you won’t “dig down deep… you’re not going to find freedom.” • She directly advises: “seek help… no shame in getting professional Christian counseling.” • She notes the practical limitation: conservative church ministers “aren’t paid” and juggle “full-time living… raise a family… shepherd a church… and then fix the brokenness.” • She affirms ordained ministry can help, but adds: “if you’re not getting that help… seek it… from… a Christian… you can trust.” • She repeats this in relation to trauma: “someone to help you process abuse.” **Discussion Follow-ups** What would it look like for a church to openly recommend counseling wit

S2S Sisters: "The Battle for Emotional Purity" by Darla Weaver

13,850 views • Mar 12, 2022

Description

March 5, 2022

Strength to Strength Sisters welcomed Darla Weaver for a practical topic for women of all ages.

What happens when we bring God into the secret longings of our heart? What does emotional purity look like for a young woman? How does God fit into that vulnerable part of our life and what do we do with these desires for intimacy and connection?

Join us as we talk about God’s heart for purity, His desire for a relationship of intimacy with His daughters, and the why’s behind His standards of holiness.

An interactive question-and-answer period follows.

Mothers, please be conscious of the age and maturity of your listening daughters. Thank you!

https://strengthtostrength.org/the-battle-for-emotional-purity/

🎧 Audio Player with Transcript

🎧 S2S Sisters: "The Battle for Emotional Purity" by Darla Weaver

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Welcome to everyone. We are so excited to have you all here. My name is Jamila Kurtz, and I live in the country of Kenya. I've lived here for nearly seven years with my husband and nine children. I'd love if you all could join me in prayer for Darla before we start today.

Father, we come to You, and we're so grateful for this time and place. God, You know the troubles it seemed that we had to get here, but we're just trusting You, Lord, for the outcome. I know we're treading, Lord, today on Satan's territory, and I'm especially praying protection over my friend Darla. Lord, for her thoughts and her emotions as she shares. God, I just ask that You would write Your words on the tablet of her heart.

Help her to share only the message that You have today for us, Your daughters. Lord, we pray for believers all around the world, and especially, Lord, we pray for those who are displaced in the country of Ukraine. God, we pray for peace, but most of all, Lord, we pray that men would call on Your name. We pray, God, that all of us could have our hearts wide open so You can expose the brokenness in those dark and deep places that no one else can see. God, help us to know without a shadow of a doubt that we are Your daughters. Lord, and You offer redemption, Lord, redemption for anywhere and any place that we've been.

Remind us, Lord, that we are loved with Your everlasting love. In the name of Your Son, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Okay, Darla, take a deep breath, relax, and we're all excited. Thank you, Jamila. Thank you. Can everyone hear me good?

Yes. Can you see me? Okay. I am still looking at Jamila's mainly. Let me see if I can... All right.

All right. I have my box of tissues here, and maybe I will need them, maybe I won't, but this is a topic that is very precious to my heart. I probably said that the last time when I was talking about grace because that is a topic that is also precious to my heart.

You know, if I look a little tired, it's because I am. I went to bed late last night and wasn't able to sleep and woke up at around 5:00, 5:30. It was such a heavy burden on my heart for all the brokenness that's in the world. You know, if you have the whole Ukraine situation and brothers and sisters in Christ hurting, but what's even harder is the ones who aren't born again who are hurting. And then just life itself, there's so much brokenness in our world. There's brokenness in the church, there's brokenness in our homes and in our marriages, and it just overwhelmed me when I woke up. I just... Yeah, it was really heavy, and I just really was crying out to the Lord, and He gave me a song, and it's a song that we all know.

You know, I will sing of my Redeemer, and the chorus goes, "With His blood, He purchased me on the cross. He sealed my pardon. He paid the debt." And this is the part that always gets me emotional. He made me free. You know, that is His heart, and that is my heart cry today when I think of speaking. I don't want you to remember me, but I want you to remember the hope that Jesus Christ came to give each one of us. And one of the things, you know, we think about, especially as women, clearly we are emotional beings. I think, I mean, all human beings were created with emotion, but women seem to have a little extra dose of it, which is what makes us amazing mothers and wives and friends.

There's just something about a woman friendship that is very precious, and I think some of it is because of the emotions that God has given us. And then sin came into the world, and along with love and joy and peace and rest came fear and anger and lust. But that's why Jesus came. He came to set us free from those kinds of emotions. You know, He didn't come to take away your emotions, but He came to redeem them and to bring us into a right relationship with Daddy God, with Abba God. But first, it means surrendering every inch of our lives, everything, and holding them with an open hand, and that includes our emotions, to a loving God.

And you know, that's terrifying. And when I first realized God was saying, "Take your hands off of your life," you know, I was born again, I was a believer, I had experienced salvation. And then God said, you know, He's like, He tapped me on my spiritual shoulder, and He said, "But I want you to give me your heart. I want you to give me, I mean, I want you to give me your husband and your children, and I want you to give me your emotions." And that's very terrifying, especially if you're coming from any kind of a past where God is a God of judgment and of law, and that's what was focused on in your life.

And that's when you think of God, that's what you think of. And that's very terrifying to think, "Okay, God, here I am." Years ago then, as a new Christian, there was a verse in Job that just jumped out at me and grabbed a hold of my heart, and it became my life verse. I never really thought of it as a life verse. And recently, I was listening to someone share, and they mentioned a life verse, and I thought, "I never really had a life verse." But then the more I thought about it, this is the verse that for the first how many years as a new believer trying to figure out what it looks like to serve God as a, instead of out of fear, but serving Him out of relationship.

And that is, you know, in Job, he was a righteous man, right? And he literally lost everything because of his righteousness, because of his worship, because of his actions and his walk of faith. God allowed him to be tested, and it became literal. He literally lost everything except his life, but to the point where he wished he could die, really. And he said, this is what he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." And that became my, like, motto. And I would literally speak those words to my heart, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." Because I was so afraid to let go, to trust God to that kind of degree.

It was just a whole new experience for me. And there were days where I didn't even have enough faith to be even called the size of a mustard seed, you know, a very tiny little mustard seed. My faith wasn't even that big. And so I would say, "God, just give me even that kind of faith because I'm not able to, you know, bring up that faith on my own strength. Please just give me that faith." And that is His heart. He wants you to ask. Ask for it. Just that simple. I want faith. And that's the second part of my prayer has been, "Give me the faith of a child." And He's also given me the emotions of a child too sometimes.

So that kind of goes along with it. I do want to say before I go any further, don't take my words at face value. You know, I tremble a bit inside, and this is one of the reasons I woke up very emotional and heavy because when you, you know, as women, we are created with deep and vulnerable emotions, and it's a very serious responsibility to be teaching in this manner because we want to, we tend to take words that, yeah, we just, we want to believe we're gullible. We tend to be more gullible than our husbands tend to be. And I take it very seriously, and I don't believe God takes it lightly. So do as the Bereans did in Acts 17, where they listened with open hearts and then searched the scriptures diligently to see if it was truth, to see if those teachings lined up with the Word of God.

And so today I'm asking you, don't take my words at face value, but hold them up to the light of God's Word and ask Him to show you His heart, His truth, and to give you discernment to change what needs to be changed and then how to make those changes.

Another thing I want to mention before I go further is mothers with daughters. You have an incredibly precious opportunity to be the one to shape your daughters' minds and hearts and thoughts on this subject. It's an incredible responsibility, but what a gift. You're the one who spends the greatest portion of their lives with them and model for them what it means to walk in freedom and joy, not perfection, because perfection isn't the goal. I will never be perfect. That doesn't mean that I don't strive and I strive for that goal, but my goal isn't to be the perfect person. My goal is to glorify Jesus Christ and allow Him to shine through me because if I'm aiming for perfection, Darla becomes the object.

Darla becomes the goal. Transparency, a heart and longing for truth, openness, and discipleship is the goal as a mother for their daughters. If you're not in a good place emotionally, get help. Your children are worth the investment. I haven't done this perfectly. I only have one living daughter. I have one daughter with Jesus.

But my daughter knows me inside and out. She knows the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we have experienced a lot of life together, and it's a gift that I will never, I don't think ever get over the miracle of. And it's something that's just so precious. So I'm just, I'm begging you today to please build that relationship with your daughters. I'm going to be very straightforward today. I'm going to touch on some sensitive topics, but I'm also praying that I can do it with discernment and with sensitivity. You know, in our conservative cultures, we tend to be very reserved about things like emotional purity or purity in general or the facts of life.

It can be really hard because many of our parents, our mothers may not have had the freedom to talk about it. And so we learn things the hard way. And while there's certainly a place for discretion, again, talk to your daughters. If you have younger daughters listening and anything that I bring up raises questions in their minds, talk to them. Have that discussion with it. Use it as a springboard to have those discussions. So moving on, and I remembered I just forgot to look at my time to see where I'm at. Okay.

So I started about 3:15, I think. So I would love to, I would love to be in a room with all of you. I'd love to be sitting in a circle because I'd love to ask you that when you think of emotional purity, what comes to your mind?

I asked a couple of different people this recently, "What do you think of when you think of emotional purity?" And it was interesting. One person immediately was like, "Well, it means fantasizing on unhealthy things, you know, typically sexually." And another person was like, "I don't really know what I think of when I think of emotional purity." And that was something that I really, really wrestled with, where to take this. Where does the Lord want me to take this? What does emotional purity really even mean? You know, maybe you're married and you wonder how emotional purity applies to you.

So often we tend to think that when you say the words, "I do," that, and you begin your happily ever after, that your battle for emotional purity stops. Or perhaps your emotions have been dulled throughout the years. Maybe you've walked through pain and abuse and, or just life, the cares and heartbreak of life. And the only way you know how to deal with it is to ignore your emotions because you're afraid of being hurt again and afraid of being vulnerable. I think there are a lot of people that are in that place because it's the only, it's the only place they know how to be where it feels a little bit safe is to just kind of step on it, step on the emotions.

What about the young woman who longs to experience that intimacy, both emotionally and sexually with a husband who is dreaming of that special day when she says, "I do"? And then you have the older single who has worked hard to keep herself pure in the hopes and dreams of someday meeting that special someone, but somehow that special someone never got the message and never showed up for her. What's she supposed to do with all her dreams and her longings inside of her? Is it so wrong for her to dream and fantasize about it?

Maybe rage against God for not giving her what she longs for?

And I know I'm speaking to probably mostly an Anabaptist background, not necessarily, but you know, for some, for some hearing the term emotional purity can bring up a lot of raw emotion and cause us to flinch. I don't know how many of you remember the purity culture of the 90s.

And definitely this was not an Anabaptist culture, but the purity rings where virginity to marriage was the goal. And somehow, if you obeyed God and kept yourself pure enough in your emotions and your body, that you were guaranteed a wonderful marriage and a man who never stopped loving you, except that for many of them, it didn't turn out that way. And I've heard heartbroken stories just in the not far past of marriages that are disintegrating. They started out with that hope, and it didn't turn out like they thought.

And they're left wondering if God is who He says He is. And if the whole idea of purity is a joke to keep us away from the intimacy that we all long for. I read a testimony. I wouldn't even call it a testimony. It was really sad of a woman who said, "I grew up in the purity culture, and I kept myself pure, and I did all the right things. Me and my boyfriend, it was really hard, but we saved ourselves for our marriage, for our wedding night." And she said, "You know, I regret it. I wish, I wish so bad I would have never listened to all those lies." And my heart just broke for her because there was truth in what she had been hearing.

But she took something and she made it her idol, so to speak. And when it fell apart, when it didn't turn out the way she thought it should, she ended up walking away from her faith completely. And that's what happened. You know, humans love to take something beautiful. I've done this in my life. You take something beautiful and you turn it into a god, a beautiful work that God does in our hearts. It just seems to be human nature. We build maybe a whole culture around it, and there's truth in there. But we think that somehow following the formula is going to guarantee happiness. And then when it doesn't work out like we think, we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And there's countless stories of that. And I pray today, I pray today that what you will hear is Jesus Christ is here to show you and guide you into a life of purity. But it's not a life of legalism and law and broken dreams. It's a life of freedom and joy, even in the middle of living in a broken world. So what if I told you that emotional purity should not be your ultimate goal? And what if I, what if I said that experiencing emotional intimacy with a husband or even a close friend should never be your ultimate goal?

And that God is even now longing to meet you in your deepest emotional needs, longing for an intimate relationship with you that will change everything about your life and how you view your emotions. He's also longing to give you power over your emotions, even while bringing you into depths of worship that will cause great emotions to wash over you. That blew my mind when I started tentatively trusting God in a whole new way with my very inner thoughts and with my emotions. I somehow kind of thought, I guess, that when you get really spiritual, you don't need emotions or your emotions are so like even calm. Okay, so that does kind of come into play.

I mean, as you mature in your faith, I'm a more emotional person, so I tended to be like, ooh, like this, up and down, up and down, up and down. And I could change throughout the day and depending on, yeah, hormones and stuff. And the Lord has really brought a stability, which is His heart. But I didn't know that living a life of radical trust means that your emotions become defined or refined in a whole new way. And then He meets you at some of the most precious times, and He washes you with worship and love, and He fills your heart with the emotions of worship. So let's talk about the fact that emotions are a gift of God.

There are some young people who sometimes are like, "Why don't God just take away my emotions? If I'm not allowed to go places where I'm not supposed to, then why do I even have them?" But you know, emotions are a gift. Without them, you would be living, and I would be living in a very monochromatic world, neutral and interesting, everything one color. I mean, sure, you wouldn't have hurt and anger and emotional wounds, but neither would there be love and tenderness and excitement and joy and peace. I mean, you think about the time that Jesus spent on earth, and if you go back and read scriptures over and over, you see that Jesus lived with great emotions.

He wept over Jerusalem. He turned the tables over in the temple in anger. He loved His disciples deeply. That's why He died is for us. And so He experienced all these emotions, and I know that Satan tempted Him with doubt.

We see that in the scripture. Satan tried to play those mind games with Him, but Jesus was a perfect example of how to walk in emotions. There's a time for righteous indignation, and there's a time for deep grief, and there's a time for deep love.

But a lot of times, people, because we don't want to deal with our emotions, it's too painful, or we don't think they are what they ought to be, we shut them down. And so we work really hard to make ourselves emotionally monochromatic. Grieving, work yourself to a frenzy in order not to feel the pain.

Angry, hurting because someone has wounded your soul. Self-medicate yourself with social media, with food, with shopping and unhealthy relationships. Frustrated because life, whether married or single, hasn't given you the romance and intimacy you hunger for. Bury yourself in romantic books and movies and fantasy and porn and masturbation and any of the escapes I mentioned before.

I'm a living, walking testimony of someone who tried pretty much every one of those things, although social media was, I was before, social media was not back in my day before Christ, thankfully. You know, and in the end, what did any of them give me? Broken emotions, broken marriage, broken relationships, broken friendships.

We run, we bottle up, we cover up, and we don't stop running until our life is a miserable mess of pent-up emotions that have this unique way of boiling over at the most awkward and unopportune times. That's how it works.

But there's hope. When we finally stop running, give up trying on our own strength, then you're ready to allow Jesus what He does best. And that's redemption. But I'm going to come back to something, and that is, again, it comes down to surrendering our lives and our emotions to a loving, loving God. So, but it's going to cost you everything. It's going to cost you your security blankets, your pride.

This is one of the hard ones. It's going to cost you looking. It's going to mean you're going to take a hard look at what's at the root of what's driving your emotions. There's so many testimonies of people that realize there were roots of anger and bitterness and trauma driving their emotions. So if you're not willing to dig down deep and find out what's driving you, if you're in a place that's not emotionally healthy, you're not going to find freedom.

I mean, it means recognizing that you're without Jesus, you're an unholy emotional mess. I mean, let's be honest, I'm a mess with Jesus. I was really a mess without Him. So let's bring it down to where the rubber meets the road.

How do we not live in a monochromatic world, bubble, but remain emotionally healthy and stable? And I want to also say here that if you're someone who has experienced deep wounds and trauma in your life, seek help. There's no shame in getting professional Christian counseling. Something that's really struck me recently with working with some sensitive issues, people that are close to my heart, I say, you know, I find it interesting that in the conservative churches, and I'm talking from a conservative Mennonite background, so you have to understand where my perception is coming from. I said, you know, most of our ministers in the churches aren't paid.

And so, and I'm not saying we should or shouldn't, I'm just saying they're not. And so they're trying to make a full-time living, raise a family, shepherd a church, and then fix the brokenness in the lives of their people. And it's a lot for one person or two people, maybe if you're fortunate you have three ministering in your church, three people to do. And I'm not saying God can use ordained ministry to help people walk through trauma. Amen. But I'm saying if you're not getting that help from someone locally, seek it from someone who is a Christian, someone that you can trust, someone to help you process abuse if you're suffering.

So I'm going to start, I'm going to start with the one that we typically tend to think of when we think of emotional purity, and that's fantasies, whether that's emotional connections or sexual fantasies and things like that. I'm going to start with that because that's the big one, right? That's kind of the one that I think a lot of people tend to think of when they think, what does emotional purity look like? You know, for years as a young woman before and after marriage, I was a huge reader. I was passionate about reading.

And so I filled my mind with all kinds of romantic stories of passionate love. And you know, I did what every young girl tends to do. I imagined myself in those stories along with allowing my mind to freely check out the opposite island church where the young man's at.

And I just want to say something here.

I struggled a little bit putting this in, but I feel like it's something I need to say. For some women, the struggle is towards other women. We'd like to think that we don't have to concern ourselves about same-sex attraction in the church, but I can assure you we do.

We're all born broken. And for some, their brokenness involves being attracted to the same gender. And if that's you today, I just want to tell you to take courage and know that you are loved and that God's heart is to write a beautiful story of redemption and hope. That's what He does. That's what He does. That's what He came for.

So it never crossed my mind as a young woman with my unhealthy reading habits, addictions, and fantasies that I was creating emotional and mind patterns that were incredibly destructive and that would haunt me, not just after marriage, but even after salvation.

So Marlon and I, you know, we get married. I was 20, he was 21, and we're in love. We're going to have the best marriage ever.

And as quickly happens when there's two people who are serving themselves, not each other, not Jesus, that new romance, I quickly wore off. It was actually rather astonishing how quickly it sort of started. I mean, when you live with someone, you see everything. And this man that was just so romantic and so wooing and so butterfly-causing. And then you live together, and he has annoying habits at the table, and he doesn't, I don't know, pick up his dirty laundry or I don't know, whatever. And he has some habits that remind you of your dad. And it's just like, it just stops being quite as romantic as what he thought it would be. I truly, in my mind, this was going to be the day I got married.

That wasn't the peak. That's how the rest of my life was going to be. It was going to be this like mountaintop of romance. Actually, when it really came down to it, it was going to be an experience of Marlon loving me. I was all about me. He was going to woo me. And so we got married, and my husband's a typical male. He's like, "Got the girl.

Got my independence. Now let's make some money." And I'm like, "What about me?" And he's like, "Oh, I love you too. I do love you." But I felt like he was more interested. Like, I don't know. It just wasn't the same as when we were dating when he was actively wooing me.

And so, you know, what happened? You can imagine it wasn't very long after marriage when I found my emotions wandering. And it's interesting. It's not coincidental, but how many other men are out there happy to take advantage of that? And I was so vulnerable in so many ways. And I got a job several months after marriage, and, you know, I got paid attention. And I was a girl who had a loving home. I had a loving father, but we're from Germanic backgrounds. And so saying, "I love you," isn't something that's done.

And so when I was paid this kind of attention by a young man, it made me feel special and beautiful and powerful. So my emotions were like, "Ooh," all over the place. And our marriage quickly started spiraling, as you can imagine, into a very, very unhealthy place.

I started flirting became a second habit to me. It became part of my identity. And I had lots of emotional affairs in my mind, and I would have never admitted it or even understood what to call it. But in reality, you know, Jesus says if a man even looks on a woman to lust, he has committed adultery. That's exactly what I was doing. I was looking on a man to lust. It may not have been the same way as a man looks at a woman. But, you know, the way that a man looks at a woman, men are attracted more by physical sight, not that they aren't by the emotions too, but first off. And women, when someone pays them attention and makes them feel special, that's where they have to really guard their hearts because that's where we're vulnerable, especially much.

So I meet Jesus at 25, get born again. Thank you, Jesus. He also saved my husband. So we're a young couple, born again finally. And for 25 years, I had left my mind go rampant everywhere. Never once even thought to bring my thoughts under subjection. Why would you even want to? It was, I thought, way too much fun to live the life I wanted to live. And it wasn't actually. It ended up being a trap and horrible. So I met Christ. And so I read 2 Corinthians 10:15, which says, "Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." Wow.

I read that. I believed it. I believed the word of God. But man, is that hard to do. I struggled terribly. I repented, confessed. My poor husband. I used him like a Catholic priest. I just constantly was confessing. I'm sorry. I think maybe I had a thought about someone. And I realized I had to find a healthy balance here. I was going to drive my husband crazy. But I wanted, my conscience became oversensitive. And so I was like, but I want to bring my thoughts under subjection. But what do you do with the conscience then that goes into hyperactivity? And I was still learning how to live under the power of the Holy Spirit and how to ask him to empower me.

I think I feel like I'm a little better. Sorry.

Yeah. I wanted nothing more. I wanted to rise up to this glorious place of complete and total freedom. How amazing would it be to be a Christian to never struggle? That's what I wanted. You know what? I wanted God to touch me with his magic wand, the Holy Spirit, and to do a miracle. I wanted to be set free forever, instantly. What a testimony. What a testimony that would be. But that's very rarely how God actually works because we need, he wants us to learn spiritual disciplines and how precious those battles that are won, how precious those victories become. And you're much less likely to slide back when you fought so hard to get to where you're at because you own it.

So instead, God began showing me how I could use, how I could choose to bring my emotions under the power of the Holy Spirit. So the daily choices that I made, what kind of books I read, what kind of magazines I looked at, what kind of music I listened to, basically where I allowed my mind to dwell had a major impact on my emotions. And as I lived according to Philippians 4:8, I slowly, slowly began to bring my emotions to the obedience of Christ. And this is, I realize I did not read the verse. Philippians 4:8 says, and this is a verse we all know. If you grew up in any kind of a Christian home and went to a Christian school, you know this verse.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, true, honest, just, whatsoever things are pure, there's a big one, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Because my mind before Christ had been steeped in pornographic material, my emotions and mind had a nasty way of turning on me. And I hated it as a Christian. More than once, I had horrible dreams of violence and sexual immorality.

And I, different times, yeah, various times I went to Marlon and I said, "I'm having these reoccurring dreams. What's causing it?" And he would say, "Okay." He knows I love to read. So he's like, "What are you reading?" And I never again deliberately picked up a book that had any kind of material that I used to read. Never. After I was saved.

But sometimes we kick spiritual doors open into our heart and life that we're not even really aware of. You know, something that we don't hear a lot of talk about, it can make some of us a little uncomfortable. And that is the fact that we are wrestling against a world that we can't see. Now, I don't personally think that there's a demon behind every bush. But the scripture is clear.

According to Ephesians 6:12, we are wrestling, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

A year or two, I would say after we were born again, I was still in the thing of the Lord was still renewing my mind, and I was still learning how what impact things on Marlon and I went to the chiropractor. We both had a treatment, and I was waiting for him out in the waiting room, and there was a magazine laying there, and it's a magazine that, I mean, I'm sure we're all familiar with. It's not a bad magazine. It was good housekeeping. I mean, good housekeeping.

Me, I wanted to be a good housekeeper. And besides, I love reading and I'm bored, so I didn't have an iPhone yet. So good housekeeping it was, and I was reading it. Yeah. And it started shortly after I started having these really weird dreams, and I went to Marlon, and he's like, "What have you been reading?" I'm like, "The only thing I can think of is a good housekeeping magazine." And he said, "Honey, you can't." And I was like, "But how pathetic is that? What kind of a, I mean, I feel stupid. What kind of a person can't read good housekeeping?" And he's like, "Well, clearly you're one of them because he said it was a trigger.

Whatever it was, the advertisements. I mean, let's be honest, there's a lot of good articles and good housekeeping, but there's also garbage. I mean, what are they promoting? I mean, look at all the advertisements. It's not, you know, whatsoever things are pure and just and holy and all those kinds of things." And he said, "For you, it was a trigger." And I was like, "Okay." And so we prayed about it. I said, "I repented. I'm sorry, Lord." And boom, dreams stopped. All right. So then a number of years go by. I'm a strong Christian now, right? I'm the big girl.

And I was looking for some new reading material. And there was this really famous author, Christian, yeah, Christian romance author. I mean, good, good, not like weird Christian romance. And so I started reading it. I thought, you know, I'm a tough Christian now. I've matured in the Lord, and I can do this. And so I started reading it. It was really interesting.

And very quickly, I began having just horrifying, horrifying dreams. And I was like, "What is going on?" Like I would wake up just like shaking, and they were very demonic and intertwined with sexual stuff. And I was just like, went to Marlon again, and I said, "I don't know what's going on. I'm not living in sin." And he's like, "Honey, what are you reading?" And I'm like, "Are you serious?" And he's like, "Yeah, what are you reading?" And I said, "Well, I'm reading this book, but everyone is okay with this book. Like there's nothing wrong with it." He's like, "Really?"

And no, he said, "For you, you can't. It's a trigger for you." Because of my love for reading and my hours, I was 11 when I read my first pornographic book. And I'm not talking softcore grocery romance books. And he's like, "This is a trigger for you, and you can't." And so we got on our knees, and I repented, getting pretty good at that. I repented and just asked the Lord to shut that door into my heart, into my dreams. And again, instantly, the dream stopped.

There again, I've mentioned this before in some of my talks, and that is mothers, guard your daughter's reading material. That's huge. I'm not even going to tell you what to read or what not to read. Go to the Holy Spirit. Go to your husband. Seek him for wisdom. But our daughters' minds, our minds are so impressionable, and our emotions are so impressionable. You know, because here's the thing. What you're choosing to fill your mind with is what we become.

Feed your mind trash, and your mind and emotions become trash. Struggle with fear of the future, become obsessed with the news. There again, nothing wrong with reading the news. But for some people, they can't handle it because it triggers anxiety and fear.

You will enable your emotions to be controlled by fear and doomsday. We would like to say sometimes, at least I would. I told Marlon, "Well, I'm a Christian. I've been a Christian for 20 years. I can handle this stuff. And sometimes I can." And then sometimes I can. He's like, "You're just not as tough as you think you are. Like you're vulnerable. So recognize it and be okay with that. Do you want to feel like you can never be good enough, beautiful enough, or have your act together enough?" Well, feast on social media. And again, I'm not saying social media is wrong, but feast on it. Make that your soul food and all those perfect, beautiful accounts, and your mission will most definitely be accomplished.

You will hate your life, and you will hate your house because there's some beautiful homes on there, and I have to guard my heart. I have to guard my emotions. Now, someone told me recently, they said someone who was not from a conservative Christian background, she said, "I've discovered something, and that is that people, especially," she said, "I think the Mennonites, they like to have a formula to do something. Do X, Y, and Z, and it'll all work out. It'll fix you." And she's like, "It just doesn't help God works."

And that's my heart today. Not to give you a list of rules to follow that's guaranteed pure emotions. But again, seek a relationship, an intimate relationship with God. That's what he wants for you. That is his heart is one of relationship. Listen to and listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. Now, he tends to have a quiet voice.

He's very persistent. But the Holy Spirit doesn't scream in our ear. Not typically. He's that quiet, still warning, that quiet, still voice. And so here's the trick. You got to stop long enough to listen, and you have to turn your heart, bring your heart into subjection to Christ before you can hear that voice of the Holy Spirit. So for the young and older, unmarried women listening, your desires for love and companionship to be romanced and held closely, to be pursued and wanted is a gift.

It's a gift that God has placed deep in your heart, and it's something to be treasured. Without those desires, there wouldn't be marriage, or if there would be, it would be for convenience. And we all know how exciting that would be.

So is it wrong to be attracted to someone? I've heard these questions. Is it wrong to feel attracted to someone? Or should you, you know, when you see someone and you're, "Wow, I'm really attracted," you stuff them down and like, "Oh, you're a bad girl to even think those things." You just ignore them and pretend they don't exist.

Or is it normal and okay to let your thoughts imagine what it would be like to be that someone special in that young man's life? My husband, you hear me refer to my husband different times because he's definitely a wise man in my humble opinion. But he says that in life, there's usually two ditches. There's a ditch on either side of the road. And I would say both of those are ditches.

One side, deny that you are attracted, refuse to think about it, refuse to talk about it, refuse to acknowledge it, just stuff it down, pretend it's not there. And the other side is to just let your mind wander and fantasize and imagine. I would say both are ditches.

Recognize your attraction and take it to the Lord. That's right. Talk to Jesus about it. You think he doesn't care? You think he doesn't know?

He's created you with these desires, and it's not to sit on them and pretend they don't exist. He's created you with that desire for love and the desire for intimacy with another human being, and that's good and that's healthy.

Thank him for that gift, and then bring him into that deepest longings and desires of your heart. It's simple. Ask him to show you how to handle those feelings. A caution I do want to throw out is I would really strongly caution you about telling even your close friends about that attraction that you feel or who you think your future husband might be or who you think maybe God's will might be for you to marry. If that's where you're at, it's either someone like that. I would encourage you. I pray you have a kind of relationship with your parents, with your mom or your dad, that you can sit down and say, "I'm really feeling these attractions.

I feel these feelings. I don't know what to do with them, and I just want to be accountable to you." And if you don't have that with a parent, then find an accountability partner, someone who can keep you accountable. Make Jesus the focus of your life and heart, not your emotions, not your desires, not your dreams about this young man, but make Jesus the center and the focus. Bring it back to him. You know, as you seek a relationship with your creator, you will find him showing you his heart, and I can assure you that there's no human, male or female, that can match what that is like. Talk to him. Talk to Jesus as you're driving, as you're working in the shower, as you lay awake at night wondering if there's ever going to be that special someone on the other side of the bed when those feelings and thoughts just overwhelm you and just flood through your life.

Bring him into it. Pray. Start singing songs of praise. Get a little charismatic. Get a little more than a little more charismatic if you need to. Worship. Worship God. Worship him for who he is.

And if you find yourself, this is where I think every woman is going to, if she's honest, will admit, there's times that you find your emotions in your mind floating away into like some fantasy dreamland, is what we do so well. Don't waste time in condemnation either.

Bringing your thoughts into captivity doesn't happen overnight. That's something that really shocked me. I just thought there again, I get spiritual and I thought that'll just happen overnight, but it doesn't. It's a discipline. It's a spiritual discipline. It takes time. And then ask Jesus to free you from condemnation, but ask him to bring you conviction. Condemnation destroys you and pulls you down and tells you what a horrible person you are. Conviction points you to Jesus.

It gets down into the very root of your heart, and it might hurt like mad, and it rips everything out, but it is free. And at the end of the day, it brings you into worship, and it brings you into such an awe of who God is. That's conviction.

One of the dangers of emotions that have been fed by the world and our own lusts is an impatience and unwillingness to wait on God's timing. You know, for many singles, especially if you grew up in the church or in a church or in a Christian family, they might be a virgin in that they've never had sexual intercourse with anyone, but in reality, they've already had sex in their hearts.

I'm just going to say it like I see it right here. I'm going to say the word. I'm going to say that masturbation, which is very common among conservative married and unmarried women way more than we want to admit, is not God's answer why you wait for him to write.

If you're married, it's not the answer if you're not satisfied in the bedroom. It is incredibly addictive, and it will block you from experiencing true intimacy. It's a counterfeit.

Think about this. You want emotional purity. That's not going to help. That does not go hand in hand with emotional purity. And I can share. I don't have time to share a lot on my side of things. I've shared this before.

I was addicted. And then after I got saved, I knew I wanted free. And so I went to a dear sister in Christ, and I was absolutely mortified. I was so embarrassing. I've never heard anybody even admit this in their life. But I wanted free. And I said, "Okay." And I sensed there again that quiet, gentle, persistent nudging of the Holy Spirit.

So I went to a dear sister in Christ, and I said, "I've got a problem, and I want you to pray for me." And to her credit, she didn't gasp or freak out or anything like that. She said, "All right, let's pray." And she put her hands around me, and I prayed. I repented. I confessed it. And I said, "Jesus, help me because I can't help myself." And that's exactly what he did. And by the grace of God, I walked in victory. And so when I hear of women struggling, I get it. I get it. If you're single, you're lonely.

Maybe you think it helps. It doesn't. It doesn't help. And if you're married and you're so lonely, it doesn't help. The core of it is still, it's not about serving and glorifying Jesus Christ. It's about serving yourself.

So what do you do if you're caught in that? There again, confess. Start confessing first to Jesus and then to the appropriate people. Your husband, if you're married, an accountability partner if you're not. And maybe if your husband is not in a place that he's willing to walk through this with you, then an accountability partner also. Like whenever the Lord opens up, maybe public confession. Okay, so I say this carefully. There's things you can't say in public confession.

But there are times in my life where I have struggled, especially in areas of more like fear and control. Oh, that's a big one. Where the Lord has prompted me to confess in more of a public setting.

In our church, we have weekly communion and time of confession. And I remember in Boston, that's where we started doing that. And can you just say, "Ouch"? That was hard for me at first. I was very afraid of trusting anyone like that.

And again, there's appropriate things to share and not to share in a group like that. But I have discovered that if I really want freedom in my life, I will get freedom to whatever level I'm willing to be honest about. If I'm willing to be honest about who I am and what I'm struggling with, and I'm willing to confess either personally to someone or in a more public setting, God will meet me there. Is it humbling? Oh yeah. I have ugly cried more than once.

But it breaks the backbone in our life often of sin. There's power in it. And that's why the scripture talks about that, why it's so important. There's something else I want to say. If you have failed in your past, if you have truly repented, you are not damaged goods.

Yeah, there's consequences for sin. But even those consequences are capable of bringing us to the foot of the cross. And our God is so big that he can even redeem the ugly. And as you repent, he will continue to bring your emotions into a place of rest. Isaiah 43:25 says, "I," and it repeats itself. So when the scripture says something repeatedly, it's making a statement. It's something you should pay attention to. So it says, "I," comma, "I am he."

I, I am he who blots out the transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Hebrews 8:12 says, "For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." There's just two, that's just two verses. There's just, I went down through and I'm like, there's like tons of verses about how God forgives and he forgets.

You're not, you know, bringing your sins to Christ and bringing them under the blood of Jesus. Not only will it bring your emotions into a healthy place, but it frees you. It frees you. It sets you free. And God forgets them. You're not, you know, you're no longer that damaged. I mean, we're all damaged in the sense that we're human. And so I'm not going to go theological there. But with Jesus and because of his finished work on the cross, you're not identified by who you used to be and by what your bondages used to be. So moving on, be very careful about building emotional connections with a person of the opposite gender that is not your husband or your fiance.

It can seem so innocent, but I can assure you, it's a dangerous field of emotional explosives. Ask me how I know. I find it really sad, really, the amount of young people that think nothing of having these deep, heartfelt conversations with the opposite gender. And they somehow think they're not going to build emotional connections.

I wouldn't want Marlon. I mean, I don't want him having deep, heartfelt, intimate conversations with another woman. He wouldn't think of it alone. Neither should I with a man alone. Don't do it. You're messing with fire. We are emotional creatures. God made us that way. And guess what? Satan capitalizes on it. And he loves to get his foot in there. I don't care how strong you think you are. He loves to get his foot in there and mess with our emotions. And so guard yourself, whether it's in person or on the phone.

Keep it, be just very careful about building those deep emotional connections with someone that's not your husband or your fiance. When I was a young woman, I paid a very heavy price for building that kind of relationship with someone that was not for me to build with.

I devastated people close to me in my life. And it took me a long time to get past that when it broke up and we broke up. Here we go again. This afternoon sun is something else. Okay.

Young women, single women, if there's a young man who wants to have that connection with you emotionally, he loves to hang out with you and get into deep, long conversations, but he's not willing to commit a relationship with you. He's not willing to go further. Don't.

You can be friendly, okay? Absolutely. But don't let your emotions build connections with someone, having deep, intimate conversations with someone that's not yours. Now, if you start a relationship and you're learning to know each other, that's a whole different story. That's a commitment that has begun. But it's just as we are so emotionally tender. And someone else, the person that you're talking to, may not even think twice about it. But we have to guard ourselves. And so I'm not saying you're unfriendly and snotty. You can be friendly and warm. But just when you find yourself emotionally connecting on a deeper level, just be careful. Maybe make yourself accountable to someone. Just say, "Help me to be accountable so I know if I'm going farther than I should be."

That's a key thing I believe in emotional purity for a young woman. Something I want to throw out here.

Also, be very careful with this. While social media and this is for those of you who will be listening someday who can't see this, I'm holding up my phone, my cell phone. Social media, WhatsApp, texting, they can all be good things.

I do all of those. I'm thankful. I'm blessed for it. But it has a huge potential to be a curse. And it seems like we somehow have in our modern culture, it feels like it doesn't matter if it's through a phone. So we wouldn't let a young man take our daughter out for coffee just to have a casual, with no interest in ever taking it further, to have all kinds of deep emotional conversations, but never anything further. It's no different if you're doing it on a phone. The heart is the same. The dangers are the same.

Me being a female and generally more emotionally gullible, I could be relatively easily convinced that something is more innocent than it is. But my husband is not so easily fooled. And for years, he has warned his children, "Just be careful."

Sure, you can text a friend, but just, especially the opposite gender, just guard your heart. Be careful. That's not a way to start a relationship. And be careful also, wives, about telling your children or your husbands that you think he's too strict. Now, just want to put a little note in here. There are men that are narcissists that way overstep their bounds. I'm not talking abuse, emotional abuse, or someone like that. I'm just saying it has been very easy for me to be like, "Marlon, are you?" I think maybe you're overreacting. You're being too protective. This was especially a few years ago. But our older children have actually thanked him for the warnings that he has given and for helping them to protect themselves.

That's something that I think as moms and as wives, we have to be careful not to tell our husband he's being too strict. Just be careful because our men just have a way of sometimes often they have a way of just cutting through this stuff that our emotions get all messy and involved in.

There is a healthy way, and I mentioned this before. There is a healthy way to relate to the opposite gender in a wholesome way. I'm not trying to advocate some kind of weird interaction where you can't even look a man in the eye without being afraid it's going to cause some kind of sin. It's not at all what I'm talking about. Those of you who know me well, you know that's not how I operate.

Not at all. It's absolutely possible to hold a conversation with the opposite gender and not have it be weird if you're in a healthy place. I'm talking about deep emotional talks and heart-to-hearts and that kind of thing. Just very, very, very dangerous. And be very careful. But in a healthy place, you can absolutely have in a mixed setting, you can have wholesome, healthy interactions that are God-honoring and protect your own heart. But again, each person with each woman's emotions are triggered by different things.

What may trigger one person will not trigger me. And what triggers me may not trigger you. And so ask God to give you discernment. And if you find yourself struggling with emotional connections with someone that's not your husband, ask him to show you where that link is open, where that door has been opened into your heart and life. Typically, there's somewhere where you've let your guard down. Maybe it's just seemingly innocent conversations, chatting back and forth, not even deep emotional conversations, but it may just be chatting back and forth on a regular basis. And I've known this from experience. Just something to watch for. So learn what your triggers are and ask your husband and accountability partner to keep you accountable in that.

Another thing I want to talk about, let me see here. Wow, my time is almost up. It is totally possible to have an unhealthy emotional friendship with a close female friend. I'm not talking about sexually. I'm talking just about an unbalanced relationship. I don't know if any of you have experienced this. I have in my life in the past, specifically before I was saved, where I was very, very, very, very close with a friend. She was my best friend.

We did so many things together. My husband at the time was a long-distance truck driver, so he'd be gone for half a week or a week at a time. And so even though she lived a couple of hours away, I would go spend a week or more at her house.

And she was like a sister to me, and I was like a sister to her. But it wasn't healthy. I quickly became controlled. I was a people pleaser. I like to make people happy. And we had a lot of fun together, and I trusted her. And because I wasn't born again and I didn't have the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, I didn't know what the warning signs were. I didn't know that when I started thinking to myself, "If I ever leave Marlon, why would I want to leave Marlon?" But if I ever leave my husband, I would go to her. She would be my safe place. And what's really heartbreaking is that today she and her husband are divorced, and I don't believe either of them even make a profession of Christianity.

There are unhealthy female friendships that can happen all the time. We look for our friends to fill our emotional needs. Instead of going to Christ first, go to him because no human on earth can fill all your emotional needs, not your husband and definitely not your best friend. God wants to use them to help fill needs in your life, but they should not be your main source to fill you.

If you find yourself feeling threatened by a friend having a meaningful relationship with someone else, take a step back. Take a good, long, hard look at your heart. Why do you feel that? Why couldn't she not go have a meaningful friendship with someone else also? Is there a chance that perhaps you're being controlling, that there's an emotional control going on in your heart towards her?

But in the same token, if you feel like this friend is controlling you, if she's jealous over you, and I'm not saying jealous in a healthy way, because there is a healthy jealous. God was, he's jealous over his people. I'm jealous over my children and over my husband, not jealous in the fact as of, like, I want to control them. No, no, no. That's a bad kind of jealousy, a controlling kind. But a jealousy of, "I love them and I want to protect them from her." I'm not talking about that kind of jealousy. Someone that you feel manipulated by, I don't care how sweet or how spiritual she sounds, you need to take a big step back and reevaluate.

And that can be horribly, excruciatingly painful. But it's so necessary because it will drain you dry and it will mess with your emotions if you're in that kind of relationship.

Again, remember, all of our emotions and desires for friendship and love and acceptance and meaningful relationships, that's beautiful. That's a gift from God. And that is exactly why Satan works so hard to destroy that, to destroy you. He is after you. We are in a war for our souls, and we're in a war for our emotions. And so he hates God, and he hates God's plans, and he's hell-bent on proving that God's a liar.

And so what he does, he takes something beautiful like our emotions, and he messes with them. And then he throws condemnation when we mess up. And you say, "See, you're not really that different after all."

So a few more emotions I want to mention before I quit here. These are also a part of emotional impurity, and that's anger, fear, control, envy. I found this interesting. I found this quote on a website. It was like a scientific way of looking at emotions. It was like science and what's been shown through science. And it says, "It's a proven fact that negative emotions stop us from thinking and behaving rationally and seeing situations in their true perspective. Any hormonal woman would say amen, and every husband, if they had the courage, would say amen."

That is so true. There's times when Marlon, he's so gentle, but he's like, "Maybe we need to take a step back from the emotions a little bit." And I have learned over the years to do that to myself. When I find myself getting overwrought and upset, you know how inside you feel this emotional just, "Ah," it's like washing over you. It feels like you can't control it. I tell myself, "Darla, take a step back a little bit and reevaluate the situation. If these emotions are coming out of you through this situation, then there's a heart issue with you. Even if the situation is wrong, even if the situation isn't what it should be, if it's causing these kinds of reactions in my heart, anger and frustration and all those kinds of emotions, then I need to take a step back from my emotions."

And I've done this. One of the ways I do this is I get a piece of paper. I'm kind of a journaler. I don't know. Just goes by my moods. I don't know. Time of life. But if I'm going through a really difficult—and I like to write—if I'm going through a really difficult time in life, what I'll do is I'll sit down with a piece of paper, and I'll just write down my emotions. I'll just write down how I'm feeling. Sometimes it's in the form of a prayer. Sometimes it's just, "What are the facts that I know about something? What are the facts that I know? What are the facts that I'm supposing? What's objective versus subjective?

Do I know something to be true in this situation, or am I assuming something because this is how I feel?" And that has been immeasurable in helping me to take a step back and think logically instead of emotionally. Our emotions are a gift, but when they get in the way in some of those situations, they're no longer a gift. They're just a hindrance. Another way I've done is I'll just do it in my head mentally, and I'll just be like, "Okay, Darla, what's driving this intense emotion?" And I've learned to speak—I was going to say speak slowly—be slow to speak.

And when I'm in a room and there's a heated topic that comes up or maybe a controversial one, uh-oh. I was the worst for years. Something controversial comes up, and I'm just right there. I've got my opinions. And then emotions get involved. And then if I'm challenged, then you throw a few tears in. What a mess.

And I've learned over the years when I feel that emotional just welling up inside me, I feel myself getting tight up the back of my neck, and I feel myself getting flushed and kind of hot. That's a warning sign for me, "Darla, this is not the time to talk. Be quiet. Just be quiet." And some of you will be like, "Well, I wouldn't dream of talking if I felt that way." Well, for me, that's my time. Usually, I like to talk because it just feels so good. And I have such—yeah, it just feels I got this. And yeah, I've repented so many times. I had to go back and say, "I'm sorry. I spoke out of turn."

And you know what? There again, it's a spiritual discipline. And gradually over the years, still learning. Just had to go back recently in a situation to be like, "I believe I spoke out of turn. I spoke too quickly. I'm sorry."

But it's a spiritual discipline. You develop spiritual muscles. And I cannot tell you the amount of times that after a situation has calmed down and after my emotions have simmered down, that I have been like, "Thank you, Jesus. I kept my mouth shut because this would have been really awkward."

So those are things that I have done to help bring my emotions under control.

So our emotions all play off of each other. Fear and control go hand in hand. Anger and lust are best friends. One negative emotion leads to another, destroying everything in its path. And here's another key that I have found to help me control my emotions, and it's called gratitude.

Choose gratitude. You're feeling really depressed? Choose gratitude. One morning, I was having a really hard morning. I was feeling emotional. I don't remember what I was going through, but I was hurting. But I'm still a mom. So I had to go downstairs and be a mom. I couldn't hide in my room or go to the coffee shop. So I went downstairs, and I was like, "You know what, Darla? You need to sing some songs. You need to sing songs of praise."

And so I started singing the song, "Put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Because I have found just pick songs that talk about the things I'm struggling with. Struggling with fear? Find a song that's praising God for His faithfulness. And so I'm singing the song to myself, and I have my back turned to the children. I'm working in the kitchen saying, "Hoping no one notices that I'm crying." I'm not sobbing. I just have these tears trickling down my face. And my 13-year-old son comes up behind me, and he goes, "Whoa, Mom's having a good morning this morning." And I turn around, and my poor boy, he looks at his mom, and there I am with tears just running down my face.

And he's like, "I am so sorry. Maybe not a good morning after all." And I said, "You know what? No, it's going to be a good morning because I'm going to choose. I'm choosing gratitude. I'm choosing praise." I have discovered that to be an incredible tool in my life to overcome anxiety, fear. I have a tremendous imagination. I mean, maybe 10 years ago, there was talk of North Korea shooting missiles over to the US. And at the time, we lived in Snyder County, Pennsylvania. I was convinced that one missile from North Korea was going to land in my front yard, and the weavers would be obliterated first. And I find myself just struggling with fear.

And I'm like, "Marlon's like, are you kidding me? Why would they target Pennsylvania?" And I said, "I don't know. It's fear. Sing. Put songbooks over." I'd have a songbook in front of my kids. I did that for years. Or put music on. I don't care. Start singing songs of praise, songs of joy. It's amazing what that does to a heart. Start thanking God. Thank Him for the valley you're going through.

There's something powerful about it that makes Satan back off, and it also brings your emotions. It brings it into a captivity of Jesus Christ versus yourself, which is always bad. It's been 20 years since I'm a Christian, and I've been walking with Jesus for that many years. And there's been—oh, it's been a ride. There's been amazing mountaintops and victories won. And there's been seasons of hardship and loss and seasons where I got angry with God.

I yelled at God one day. Everything was falling apart. My mom was dying.

Acts of obedience that we knew that God was calling us to. I assume that when you obey, everything falls into place like some kind of amazing story. And in our case, it seemed like we walk in obedience, and everything just flushes down the toilet. And I was at the end of my rope. And I said, "God, I thought I could trust You, and I am so angry right now."

And I was thinking to myself, "I'm going to be really sorry for saying that." But I was honest with Him. And I came back around later, and I said, "I'm sorry I lost my temper. But you know what? God did not condemn me in that." We don't stay in that place of anger. But anger is a normal emotion when you're going through a really difficult season. Recognize it. Talk to God about it. You can't hide it from Him anyway. So you may as well be honest. Tell Him about your anger and your fear. Tell Him you're deathly afraid.

That doesn't make you not a Christian. That doesn't make you a loser. It just means you're being honest. And those emotions are normal reactions to situations in life. I guarantee the believers in the Ukraine have their struggle with fear.

But what the important thing is that you bring it to the foot of the cross. You throw your arms around Jesus, and you say, "Please help me. Replace these emotions with the emotions that you want me to have. Show me how to be your daughter. Show me how to walk without fear. Give me courage when I am afraid." That's what courage is, after all. It's doing something even when you are afraid. That's courage. And that takes God in my life because I'm a wuss, and I would hide. And so, God, give me the courage to walk in obedience, whatever it is you're calling to.

In closing, I want to say something that Corrie Ten Boom said. For those of you who don't know who Corrie Ten Boom is, I'm sure most of you do. But if you haven't read her book, The Hiding Place, go get it. Listen to it. Read it. One of my favorite authors, one of my heroes of the faith. And so when I get to heaven and after I throw my arms around Jesus and after I worship Him and I see my babies and my mother and people I love, I would love to—I would love to meet Corrie Ten Boom. I don't know how it'll be in heaven. I don't know how it'll be in the new heaven and the new earth.

But if it's like that, if we do know who each other are, I want to talk to her. And she went through hell on earth and was in a concentration camp during World War II, and I believe it was Germany.

And afterwards, she had a ministry to people who had gone through the concentration camps. And she even had a ministry to some of the Nazis who had been in charge of some of those camps.

And this is what she shared with someone who was struggling. "Once Satan has been cast out of your house, out of the house of your life, he cannot return as long as you walk in obedience. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. However, that does not prevent him or his demons from standing outside the house and shouting through the window saying, 'We're still here.'" Oh, how will I know that? But hallelujah. We know Satan for who he is, the prince of liars. He is not still here. He has been cast out. So whenever you hear one of those old echoes in your life, you need to stop right then and say, "Thank you, Jesus.

You have bought me with your blood, and sin has no right to sound off in my life." I have read that over many, many times, and I claim it. Speak those words aloud. "Thank you, Jesus. You have bought me with your blood."

Something that Marlon has told me different times that I was struggling with my emotions to come out of emotional impurity, and that was, "Darla, that's not who you are anymore." That was the old Darla, and she's been buried with in death and baptism and risen in new life to Jesus Christ. That's not who you are anymore. And today, if you know Jesus Christ, if you've met Him, that's not who you are anymore. Satan can try and convince you that he has a hold of your life. That's what he wants to do. He's a liar.

But because of Jesus Christ, he has no right there anymore. And today, if you don't know Jesus Christ, if you don't know Him that way, then ask Him to be your Savior. Go to Him in all your mess, all your emotional mess and your brokenness. Don't clean yourself up. Don't waste your time. It won't work. Go to Him exactly as you are in all your ugliness and ask Him to make you new and to renew your emotions and become a new person in Christ. Wrap your arms around the feet of Jesus and refuse to let Him go. No matter your past, no matter your present, no matter your future, run to Him. Cry out to Him and surrender every particle of yourself to Him.

Then, and only then, will your emotions become a powerful tool for the kingdom. Amen. I'm finished. Thank you so much for that, Darla. My heart is overflowing. But I'd love to hear from all of you. Who's going to be the first with a question?

Maybe not even a question, maybe a testimony of how God has delivered you. I just want to say thank you, Darla, for sharing that.

I can see a lot of similarities in my own life with your story.

I grew up in a Catholic home, so I did have some of the teachings of Jesus.

But I had a lot of worldly influence and went to public high school. And I watched movies, and I, too, read a lot of those romantic books. And my heart was not pure. I mean, I thought it was pure. I was a virgin. But like you said, that Jesus said, "If you look with lust at a woman," so I think the same can be said. If you think with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. And so I really appreciate you sharing that. I, too, was convicted after my husband and I were married.

I don't think I struggled quite as much as you did, quite as deep as you did, but I did struggle. And like you, my husband was a long-distance truck driver, and he was gone for weeks at a time. And I think the Lord used that time that he was gone just to break me and to make me rely on Him and His mercy.

I mean, it didn't make me perfect. He's still working on me. But it did create a work in me in that

I came to rely on the Lord instead of my husband to meet my spiritual needs. And I didn't hear the first bit of your message, but I have young children. And I'm just wondering, what is the best way to monitor? I look through my daughter's books. I trust her judgment. Now she's 15.

My husband is on board with me. What is the best way to make sure that you're not bringing these things into your house that seem like they could be good, but they're not? I mean, we still go to the public library, but we try and bring home books that are of good value. How do you make sure that those things don't come in? And if they do come in, that they're acknowledged that these are bad.

I think, for one, it is a thing of just having those conversations. We teach our children from a pretty young age, especially because we have 10 boys. And that is, when you see something inappropriate, you bounce your eyes. And it's the same way with your mind. When you read something that isn't appropriate, we need to turn away from it. So it's become like this—my children know my testimony. They know my story. I've not tried to hide from them. I mean, I'm just like, "This is what it did to me.

It nearly destroyed me." And if you want a happy, healthy relationship someday, it starts with having happy, healthy habits and, well, obviously, a relationship as you come to the age of accountability with Jesus Christ. But so we've talked about the dangers very straightforwardly.

And we also talk about the fact that families have different standards. Not everyone's going to have the same standard in their home. So you may go to a friend's house, and this has happened to us, and they have books that we have chosen not to allow. And so we say, "That's not your place to judge them." Obviously, there will be some exceptions to the rule where there's really inappropriate. We haven't had that happen. But where there's books that we have chosen not to have in our home and someone else does, we were just like, "Hey, we haven't chosen to do these books in our home, and this is why." And so we have those conversations.

What it will do to your mind. And our children want to have a heart—especially younger children. They want to do what's right. They have a heart to follow mom and dad. And if they trust you, they have a relationship with you and your husband, they will trust you when you tell them. And so for us, we've definitely brought books in already that I thought I was being careful, but obviously wasn't careful enough. And there's been various times that some of my children love to read. They're just avid readers. I can't keep them in books. And then some of them don't like to read as much. And they'll be like, "Hey, Mom, you know what? This book, I just came across a word.

I don't think it's good." Or, "This book." And I even have one of my older sons is a reader. And he has actually proofread some of his younger brother's books. And he's like, "I thought an author was okay." And he was like, "Mom, I don't think I'd be comfortable. I wouldn't feel good about this." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

And I thanked him for protecting his younger siblings. It wasn't anything gross. It was just something that he didn't feel was appropriate for a 13-year-old brother to read. He just was like, "I don't think he should read this." And I was like, "I'm glad to know that. I wasn't aware of that. Thought I had checked it." But sometimes in the busyness of life as being a mom, things slip past. And so you use it as an opportunity to teach. That's how I look at it. Use it as an opportunity to teach and to talk about why this isn't good. And I have never had a child—I can honestly say he has never argued or been like, "No, I want to read it."

Because they're like, "Oh, well, they've heard our testimony, and they've seen the destruction in family members' lives who have chosen to lead lives of rebellion and sin. And they've seen the ugliness of it." And I think living in a city, it makes it a little more obvious when you look around. This is what happens. It's heartbreaking. We don't try to have a heart of judgment. We try to have a heart of compassion. But sin will take you farther than you want to go. And we have found that our children want to be protected. And so if we aren't protecting them strong enough, we apologize and tighten up a little bit. I don't know if that answers what you're looking for.

But the library can be a hard one. My 14-year-old twins, they don't even go in the teen section of the library. They don't want to unless I'm right beside them. And I've decided that's not even worth it. We live in Providence, extremely liberal city. Teen section is horrific. And so what we do is we order online books. And then we just pick them up. And that way, they don't have to even be tempted in those kinds of ways.

Because where I found a lot of my books as a young person from the age of 11 to 16 when I could drive was at the library. My mother always checked our books before we left, but she forgot to check what we were reading while we were there. And I was very manipulative and deceptive. And that's where, for those years, I found a lot of my reading material was in the hour that the family was at the library. And so we just—and just cry out to God for wisdom to show us how to protect them and what that looks like.

Thanks. That definitely answered my question. Okay. Okay.

Thanks, Katrina and Darla. That was really good. Does somebody else have another question, another thought to add?

I would like to just thank Darla. You did a very good job for sharing. I don't know how it's for other people, but I know for myself, I grew up kind of in maybe the disillusion of that it's only a man's problem to struggle and to be tempted and not a woman. And therefore, I didn't know how to deal with a lot of things for a lot of time in my life. And I am very thankful that I got help. And yeah, I just really appreciate this kind of topic to help women, girls, so we can be pure as women.

There's a question that came in through the chat for Darla and also for any of the admins that want to pitch in here. Wondering about reading material. And so, Darla, I'm going to phrase this in two phases. Do you have any recommendations for how to address this conversation with your daughters? Is there any books, any resources that you've found that have talked about emotional purity, especially relating to your daughters? And then also, would you mind sharing what you personally have found as maybe inappropriate? I know every family divides that differently on different authors. But maybe if you could give us some of where you've drawn the line, some good book recommendations, and then some that you would stay away from.

Yeah. So I was fortunate or blessed as a child, or yeah, that my mom was not afraid to have these kinds of conversations. I want to answer the first question first, the one about any recommendations as far as, or yeah, suggestions on how to discuss this with your daughters. And so I grew up in a home where my mother—I was literally the only girl that I knew of in my church growing up and in my youth group as a young person whose mother had these kinds of conversations with her daughters.

I thought it was normal. And my friends were like, "What? Your mom discusses these things?" And so for me, as I became a mother, then I found it a lot more natural to talk about it with her. And it was something that I was very, very passionate about. Because even though my mother was open with us and we had—she's the one that told me the facts of life and things like that, I still fell into great sin. And so my burden was, I know you can have that conversation and your child can still fall. They can still choose to do wrong. And that doesn't necessarily mean you haven't done your part. It means that they're humans and they're going to need to get born again.

And if they are born again and they fall, then they need to learn repentance and to get back up. And so, first of all, not to live in a cloud of condemnation that we have this expectation that if you do everything right, and as a mom, you talk to your daughters that somehow you're guaranteed they'll never struggle. That's not the kind of world we live in. Our children are going to be extremely tempted. And sometimes they make really bad decisions. And that doesn't mean that you haven't done your part. It doesn't mean that it's all your fault. It's a heavy load to carry.

But for me, I just made it a part of our natural discussions. I've asked Emily that question if she remembers the first time we started talking about this. She's like, "Not really. It's just a part of growing up, the facts of life." And then if you live on a farm, you're going to see the facts of life pretty quickly. And it's a great opportunity to talk about the natural biological way that conception happens.

And then as they get a little older, you're going to start talking about—Emily was five, I think, when I was like one day I was like, "Emily, you're becoming a young lady, right?" And Emily was—she was all girl. She's like, "Yeah, I love being a young lady." And I was like, "Okay. So young ladies need to act like young ladies." And I know there's this kind of—I think in today's modern world, sometimes we want to react against that. We think, "Well, it's not fair that a little girl can't do all these things that a boy can do." Well, they can mostly. And by the way, please put leggings on your daughters with their cute little dresses.

Leggings are a must. But it was my heart to teach Emily to embrace femininity. And one of the ways I did that was teaching her at a young age, her dress—I don't care if she's wearing leggings. Her dress needs to stay appropriately down. That's just how it is. It's part of being a little girl. But also not to be running around and jumping on men's laps, even if she loves them deeply, like uncles or trust friends. You know what? Do you see mommy sitting on someone else's lap? No.

So you're becoming a young woman. I want you to learn. And that's partly also to protect herself. Because I have people in my life very close to me who were deeply wounded and abused by the most trusted family member in their life. And so it wasn't that I was pointing fingers at anyone. Of course, her daddy was the exception. And we made that very clear. Daddy can—and she never even—I didn't go into great detail why. I just was more, "You're becoming a young lady. And so act appropriately. We don't just go running around and jumping on guys and trying to ride piggyback on the back of guys because you think it's funny and you see your little brother doing it.

That's part of becoming a little older." And I tried to present it as a thing of beauty and it's a thing of excitement. And she truly embraced it. Now, maybe that was her personality. I don't have 10 daughters. I have 10 sons. So it became just a natural, one thing kind of leading to another. And of course, as she started heading towards those years where puberty and all that, we just started talking about how bodies change and all that. But there are some good—and I really wish I didn't think to put this down. There is one that a friend recommended called Passport to Purity. If you Google that, you can find that online. Or a Christian bookstore might have it.

And it's about teaching your child purity and the facts of life in an appropriate manner. I have never used it, but I trusted my friend who mentioned it. And there are some others. I just want to quickly check my notes on my phone to see.

I'm sure I have it on my notes somewhere if I can just look here quickly.

Yeah. And I would love to hear from some other people if they have some suggestions. That would be good.

This is why I should title my documents in my documents.

Debbie Pearl has a good one called Sarah Sue Learns to Yell and Tell. And it's about purity in young children and being aware of sexual predators. And yeah, one of the things that the little girl talks about is how she loves to wear her pantaloons underneath her dress. So my little one really appreciated that.

Yeah. Yell and Tell is one that we use with our boys. I didn't use it with Emily. I just ended up using the same. I just spilled some water here. I just ended up using the Yell and Tell book with her too. I think she actually was a little older when I discovered the book. But I would just sit down with my boys. And we would just sit on the couch. They loved it. We'd be like, "Just let's talk about this." And we'd read the book and we'd talk about what's appropriate. Because this was one of my biggest fears was having my children sexually abused. What if that would happen? And how could I ever forgive myself?

And I did come to a place of rest in that if God forbid that should ever happen, He is still able to redeem even that. But I would say that's an excellent suggestion. Just looking here.

On the chat, Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliott was also recommended.

Something too for anyone that maybe has not had the healthy past or had a healthy introduction to what sexuality is about, a healthy view of it, is Rethinking Sexuality by Dr. Julie Slattery. I've been really blessed by different of her teachings. And I feel she does a beautiful job.

And that would be for, I would say, a young woman. Like a young woman could maybe—there's also one for young women, actually. But I thought this one was actually more appropriate for our culture tends to be we're not sending our children off to public schools. And so the battle is a little different. We're all tempted with emotional fantasies and lust and all that. But it's a little different when you're going to a Christian school or your home school versus going to a public school. And so the book she has for the girls is called Sex and the Single Girl. It's okay, but it's geared towards those who are in high school, those who are going to a public high school.

And I felt that Rethinking Sexuality is actually a better one. And I think every mother and wife should read it. Yeah. I think it's an excellent tool.

I'm still not able to find my list of books here.

Yeah. I have children who write their little books on my Google Docs here. And so I'm trying to dig through that to find my untitled list of children's books. I'm going to have to change that. But yeah, I'm not able to find them right now. But there are a number of good books for younger children too. I'm thinking there's one called God Made You.

Yeah. Let me see if I can find it.

The other one I can think of is a series of books called God's Design for Sex. It starts for ages three to five. And I think it's by Stan and Brenda Jones. Anyways, it just starts off as a little story about

this little boy asking his mommy and daddy, "Tell me the story about me." And so they tell about how they got married. And so it goes from there. And so it's just a gentle way. And then how he was born and how his sister was born, but she was born by cesarean section. And it has very gentle pictures as well.

And then it goes up from there with another book from ages five to eight and then one from 10 to 14. So it's like a whole series for different ages.

Yeah. And another one for younger children is God Made All of Me, a book to help children protect their bodies.

And then there's kind of a series for that, God Made Boys and Girls Helping Children Understand the Gift of Gender. Yeah. And there's a number of those that have come recommended to me. But there again, I haven't used them, but they've come recommended from trusted sources.

Also on chat, there was one recommended from CLP by Steven Sandra Ebersol, God, Our Children, and the Facts of Life. And that one is a good one as well. Yes. Yes. I would agree. I have that one.

Thanks so much for those suggestions. It's always helpful to have good resources. And I really appreciate what you've been talking about. And I found my daughters are still teens. Their stories are totally told. But I love just being open. And I also love, Darla, what you said about redemption.

Sometimes I know for myself, I am the first daughter. I'm the oldest daughter in my family. I'm the first woman in a long line of women who didn't have a child out of wedlock. And I praise God for that. But I also, as I'm looking at my daughters, I believe that it's more than that, like you said. And I also love what you said about redemption.

And so I just encourage anyone who feels very broken—we're all broken—but to not come away from this with condemnation. I think Darla was so clear on that. That conviction does something different in our hearts than what condemnation does.

I don't want to rush anyone. Is there someone who just has a burning question or thought before we close the call?

I don't know, Lynelle, if there was anything else in the chat that you wanted to read.

The only one that I don't think we got to was specific reading material for the girls. Oh. Wow. Yeah. I would love to hear if anyone has any ideas on that. No. Oh, that's right. They had wondered if there would be what for books we don't allow in our home or what types.

And I'm always hesitant to share this because two things. Number one, I don't want to bring condemnation to someone who has different standards. I'm not looking to do that. That's not my heart. Or I'm sure people that would go, "I can't believe you let them read that."

And I guess you would call that fear of man. So we have chosen not to—now Emily's 20, so I don't look over her shoulder. I haven't for years because I trust her heart. And when they get to a certain age, there comes a place where you have to release them. They're going to do what they want to do. As far as it doesn't mean you stop discipling and guiding and talking. It just means that making a rule to a 19-year-old, if their heart is bent and rebelling, probably won't make a difference. But the books like—well, okay. So Jeanette Oak is one that was my big one growing up. And it's very innocent and harmless in many ways.

And so I'm not saying the book in itself is inherently evil. But there again, if that's what your children are mainly feeding themselves on, if that's what your young teens are mainly feeding their minds on, it's books like Jeanette Oak and Karen Kingsbury. One that I would put a pretty strong warning out is Francine Rivers.

She's a very famous Christian author. And I have actually read a couple of her books. I don't enjoy that type of book at all, typically speaking. I love a good memoir, like God's Smuggler and The Hiding Place. And I'm not even one that feels like the memoirs that you read have to be Christian. Obviously, there's language you have to discern through all that.

I just don't really care for Christian romance novels. And we've just chosen not to make that a part of our library because I don't want—we didn't want our children to just feed on something that isn't realistic. It's not typically how it kind of gives them an unrealistic view. Like I said, when I got married, I thought it would be glory, hallelujah forever. It was going to be this amazing romance story the rest of my life. And it actually has turned out that way by God's grace, but not in the way that I thought. It's about serving each other. It's about serving Christ and serving your husband. And so yeah, those are the books. Those types of books we have chosen to not—I chose not to bring to my home for Emily to read.

And she really doesn't have a big—she doesn't have a desire to. And then there are stories out there that have some romance that are true stories. I have no problem with—there's a set called—it's a set of books where the family lived in, I believe it was Norway, maybe. I'm just looking here.

I think it's called Mama's Way.

Yeah. It's called Mama's Way by Thyra. It's a Swedish name or a Norwegian name, so I can't even pronounce it. There's a set of them about her growing—the daughter wrote the book, and it was about how her mother and father met and their love story. And it's totally appropriate. It's a true story. And then it goes on into they eventually immigrated to the US. And it's about a set of three books. Those types of books, excellent.

But yeah, I don't have a whole list of books handy that I can just rattle off the names because my mind goes blank. And my daughter is also a reader. But it would be something interesting to have up on the website if someone would be interested in a list of healthy books for young women or for all women, really.

Thank you for that. And yeah, another one that's recommended on chat is Daughters of Promise magazine. That's an Anabaptist magazine. And then also Leslie Ludy has the podcast called Set Apart Girl. Yes. I'm familiar with her. Good.

Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate these resources. One thing I found with my daughters, I think you mentioned this, Darla, is encouraging reading that exemplifies a life of service, not a life of me being served by my dreams being fulfilled. And I think that is just so important for our daughters and for ourselves to just get off ourselves and just realize it's not all about me. So I was really glad for your reminder. I need to search my own heart in that.

Well, I'm just studying for—oh, sorry. I was going to say just studying for this. You know what? It's just a good reminder for me even to just take another look at what are my children, my younger children reading and just—it's so easy to let standards kind of slide a little bit, especially if it's so hard to find good books. And so why is it really so bad? And you do sometimes over the years change a little bit and shift. And so yeah, it's been a good reminder for me also to take another good, hard look at what's in our bookshelves.

Well, I'm sure all of our hearts are full. I have found this call to be deeply challenging. And wish it didn't have to end, but all good things come to an end sometime. And I think it's a discussion that we can continue with those around us, just encouraging emotional maturity and gratitude and just all those things. And I was just thinking for those of us maybe who are past 40, there's younger women in our lives. And those of you who are younger, there's older women. And I just think it's beautiful when we can just all share together and learn together.

We hope that all of you can join us for our next talk in April by Linda Miller. She's the wife of Ken Miller, who incidentally, it's very interesting, used to live in Kenya on Beauty and Suffering. We're looking forward to that talk, April 2nd, 2022. And it'll be at 3:00 PM Eastern Time, the same time as today.

So we'd love to have you all join us again. Before we end this call, Darla, I'd love to ask you to pray for us. Do you mind doing that? No, I would be honored. That's all. Father God, I just want to again thank you for this opportunity today, God. We thank you for the gifts that technology really does have for us, Lord. And we just praise you for being a God of redemption and of love and for creating us with these incredible emotions, God, that have so much can so easily control us, God. I just pray for each woman listening to this today, Lord. I just pray that you would show her how to bring her emotions under control of the Holy Spirit and that she would just sense your love and your commitment to her, God.

And Lord, I just pray that you would show each one of us how to bring these emotions captive to Christ and how to renew our minds and to just walk in freedom and enjoy, God. I just pray for anyone listening, Father, who is struggling and in a hard place emotionally, Lord. I just pray that you would touch them with your love, God, and that you would just give them the courage to be honest and real about who they are and their struggle, Lord, that you would bring a safe person to them so that they could confess and repent, God, and to help keep them accountable. And Lord, I just thank you for the miracle of healing that you have done in so many people's lives, God.

And we're just a continual work in progress, Lord. And I just ask you to continue working in each one of our hearts. And we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work.

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S2S Sisters: "The Battle for Emotional Purity" by Darla Weaver

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