Category: Be honest.

“I felt like the last virgin in Los Angeles my age…” -Jasmine Henderson

God has brought some incredible people across my path… the body of Christ astounds me. One of my most recent encouraging connections has been with Reality Check – an organization, and really, a community dedicated to sexual integrity education. I am so inspired by our Reality Check team – their stories and their desire to live life, and specifically relationships, to the fullest. What that means ultimately, is living according the the Creator’s design. However, life is messy and we’re prone to make mistakes… and that’s where Jesus comes in.

No one speaks more candidly and beautifully about all of this than my new friend, Jasmine Henderson, in her book, A Broken Vow. Jasmine is a Christian woman who became pregnant at 25 and is now a single mom…. and yet, there is so much more to her than that brief summary statement. Her journey has been filled with trials, joy, courage, perseverance and a renewed purpose.

I cannot recommend her book  A Broken Vow more highly… as a 24 year old single Christian woman I could totally relate to much of Jasmine’s story– her struggles and her temptations. This book is incredibly important for women – and men – of all ages as we battle insecurities and culture’s ideologies in the search for true love. Check out this excerpt, one of the parts that struck me the most, as Jasmine shares:

“…just as God had a plan for purity in my life, Satan had a plan for destructiveness. Right from the beginning he saw where he could get a foot in the door, and I remember gathering books on sexual purity and on dating to assist me and keep me strong. So how did I break a promise I had faithfully kept for twenty-five years? Satan’s plan is patient, and I found that it didn’t happen just all of a sudden. When I look back, I had set myself up to fail, chipping away at my promise piece by piece…I didn’t tempt myself by watching porn or reading racy novels. My pitfall was watching and reading the exact opposite…stories about love. Every story I heard about, read, or watched, only caused me to be aware and long for what I was missing. Sex is meant to be an expression of love. Yes, I wanted to have sex, but more importantly, I wanted to have love. In my pursuit of happiness and love, I started to slowly give up my boundaries…” -A Broken Vow, pg. 30-31

Jasmine’s reason for writing and publishing her story is to encourage “open and honest conversations about sex” because “sex not only affects our lives but the lives of our families…our future.” She poses the question, “How many more broken homes need to rise up, how many more baby killing abortions have to be performed, how many more orphanages and foster homes need to be created, how many more neglected and passed around children have to suffer before we realize that it’s not just about us….not just about what feels good in the moment?” And Jasmine begs culture to understand, “Sex is bigger than you.”

Hope you are as encouraged and inspired by Jasmine’s courage and determination as I was… You can find her book, A Broken Vow, on Amazon and CreateSpace.