overcome with shame and panic that God would curse me for what I’d done. I had let my whole family down. My parents. The church. Myself. I was no longer unsullied. It wasn’t just my actions that were so exceedingly sinful; it was the indefensible thoughts that had led me to them. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. According to Jesus, the fact that I’d had those feelings in the first place made me guilty of adultery.
I felt broken, but I tried to clean myself up as best I could, to pretend like nothing had happened. When he emailed a few days later—“You don’t understand how I think about you all day long.”—I couldn’t stand it anymore. I showed the message to my mom and begged for help and forgiveness. She was understanding and kind, but I thought I saw doubt in her eyes when I explained that I’d only hugged him twice, that I hadn’t done anything else (why would I feel so guilty and afraid if that was all we’d done?), and that pained me all the more. She sat down beside me and read me a passage from the book of Isaiah: Neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. My mama wasn’t excusing my behavior, but she was trying to tell me that she understood, trying to help me find comfort in the very likely scenario that I would be a “eunuch” for the rest of my life, trying to help me see that having a place in the house of God—His church—was better than having a husband or sons or daughters. She was preparing me to accept that this was a sacrifice I might be required to make for the kingdom of God’s sake, as several of my aunts had been called to do. I squeezed her hand and cried quietly, something I found myself doing each time I encountered that verse thereafter, without ever quite knowing why—just a nebulous, fleeting sense of loss that I neglected to pursue.
It was even worse when my oldest brother, Sam, called to talk to me. He’s seven years older than me, and I’d always admired and looked up to him as a near-perfect example of a true servant of God. He kindly chided me, and told me that I couldn’t pursue this. That by wanting something that God hadn’t given me, I was murmuring against Him. That the people in the Bible who’d murmured against God had been destroyed. That I needed to get back to single-hearted fidelity to God and put away this sin. Whether or not I ever got married was God’s decision alone, Sam reminded me. If He chose not to give me a husband, then I should be thankful, because then it would be my happy lot to serve Him without being encumbered by the cares of this life. He reminded me of the Apostle’s words: The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. We don’t get to be mad at God for not giving us what we want, Sam said. How dare we? God is Perfect, Sovereign, and Just—and we are His to do with as He pleases.
Of course it was true, all of it. I knew all the words by heart. Sam was right, and I was so grateful to my big brother for bringing them to my remembrance, for helping guide me back to sanity and away from sin.
We got past it. I didn’t bike by myself anymore. Of my own accord, I installed a tracking app on my phone so that I could show my mom where I’d gone if I ever had to leave the house unaccompanied. I wanted to be on the strait and narrow path Jesus spoke of, the one to salvation and eternal life. I wanted to prove—to myself and to