Emotional Purity : An Affair of the Heart by Heather Paulsen.
Jennifer Jesmer (16) This month I read the book Emotional Purity : An Affair of the Heart by Heather Paulsen. This book is centered around Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
Many Christians are very seriously against sex before marriage, but don’t ever think of the harm that “recreational dating” can cause on a Godly couple’s future marriage. This book explains the problems with this kind of lifestyle and goes even further by explaining how to have “emotionally pure” relationships, dating or otherwise. Because even if a relationship between a man and a woman is “undefined,” and when you aren’t technically dating, your seemingly innocent relationships can become a lot more involved than you want them to.
Through personal examples, modern day parables and Scripture, this book reveals the importance for Christian singles to strive towards emotional purity. Christian singles seem to lack a sense of awareness of how their “innocent” male/female friendships cause a delusion. With the emotional free-for-all we have in Christian single circles, many are left wondering why they are broken hearted over “friendships.” The effects of accepting the attitude of intimacy without a commitment obviously devastate our culture. Heather argues that this emotional bonding without commitment is just as harmful as sex before marriage, and more common because most people don’t think about it. Practical solutions are given for this common, yet unspoken and largely undefined, problem that is running rampant. After taking an in-depth look into emotional purity and intimacy, the book talks about other related issues, such as envy, discontentment, feelings, expectations and God’s purpose for marriage.
Sometimes when you make friends with someone, you get more emotionally invested in them than they are in you- something you aren’t even really aware of sometimes. You spend more and more time with a person, talking with them, hanging out with them. Suddenly you are depending on them to make you happy, and when the relationship falls apart, or when one of you leaves, you are left sad. You don’t have to be dating officially to have this happen.
The important thing is to keep God at the center, rather than letting anyone in your life become your source of happiness. And when God wants you to eventually get married, you will be able to be totally committed without being sad about any past relationships that you may have subconsciously invested in, and God can be the center of your Jesus-centered house church.
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