Uncensored Interview | Is Sexual Purity Possible in a 7-Year Courtship?

For the next few weeks, Myss Lafunky and her team will be publishing true-life interviews with Christians about their courtship and their views on sexual purity. It promises to be interesting and informative. Let's start with the first interview.

Myss Lafunky (ML) would like to welcome Shade (SD). Shade is a Christian married woman, blessed with an adorable daughter and does various charitable work within her locality. 

ML: Tell us a little bit about yourself apart from what I have mentioned already.

SD: I was born into a semi-Christian family as my dad happens to be a Muslim and my mum is a Christian. Daddy was never home as a military man so we were all brought up in the Christian way.

Mum taught us the study of the word of God with lots of scriptures in our heads but that was just basic head knowledge although it  boosted my faith. In 1995, I gained admission into one of the best secondary schools ever; I was in boarding school. After a couple of weeks of starting secondary school, a Preacher (Pastor Banjo Adesanmi) came to my school to preach and the Holy Spirit convicted me during his preaching and I gave my life to Christ in October 1995.

The fellowship activities in my school gave me a very strong spiritual base back then. We had secondary school clubs like the "praise club", "royal teenagers" by BLW (Christ Embassy) and the likes. We were given responsibilities and always saw ourselves as leaders who must not even break school rules as simple as taking contrabands or talking in the exam hall. We were encouraged on chastity and I remember having a brooch that carried an inscription "WWJD"  meaning, "What Would Jesus Do". Back home, mum encouraged us to attend weddings especially engagements parties and then told us that we must not allow anyone to touch us if we want to have a glorious day.

After secondary school in 2001, I joined Winners Chapel church and the spiritual understanding of so many things dawned on me. I saw more light in scriptures and thus grew immensely in faith.

ML: What does sexual purity mean to you?

SD: Sexual purity in my own understanding is simply staying completely chaste in every way. Fleeing every appearance of evil as the Bible calls it... Not even the evil itself.

ML: Who made the decision to practice sexual purity when you courted and how did it go?

SD: My husband (then fiancé) made the decision on sexual purity. I guess I was more concerned about being a virgin till my wedding night so I really did not mind every other idea of kissing, necking, petting and the likes as long as it did not involve sexual intercourse but my fiancé took a stance against everything even before we had met.

He actually drew up a long list of the do's and don't and asked that I signed it.

So, the many rules kept us guarded even though it did not go down well with me. Some of the rules were: 

• No public or private display of affection
• No seeing each other after 8pm
• No kissing... No petting, no necking
• No sleep overs at all
• No being together without a 3rd person being around us
• Monthly fasting & prayers
• Monthly discussions on what happened in the month (if he did something that I did not like or if I did something that he did not like).

ML: Were you tempted at all? If yes, how did you overcome it? Or did you not overcome it?

SD: Oh yes, we were tempted numerous times, in fact very tempted. I even broke the rules a couple of times too. I can remember one time when I kissed him. His roommate had just stepped out for a while and so he was caught unawares and could not break it off immediately. I can still remember that he screamed at me and I was busy laughing at him though I apologised afterwards.

On another occasion, his roommate mistakenly took the house key with him when he travelled. My fiancé returned late from work and had nowhere to go and I welcomed him to my house. I told him I would be a good girl but he insisted he wasn't going to stay except I slept in my friend's room. I agreed partially. However, when he was fast asleep,I crept back to my room and he did not notice me until the early hours of the morning when I flung my head on his chest and wrapped my hands around him.

ML: Any regrets?

SD: Hmm...well, I initially had regrets after I got married and it wasn't easy coping with the idea of sex. I felt immense pains after each trial and it took over 1 week before I even allowed penetration at all. The romance aspect was my favourite but penetration was a capital NO go area for me. It finally dawned on me that I had to adjust to this new lifestyle. Times when my husband wanted sex in the middle of the night when I was busy dreaming of one huge contract. He would touch me and I would scream to be left alone, at times I pleaded or even faked tummy pains /headaches.

The first set of issues we had in our marriage was sex based... I didn't want to hear of it at all. I was given KY gel by a Dr friend to ease penetration. My husband is very gentle, understanding and romantic. He organised lots of candle light dinners in the house, poured red petals from the bathroom to the bed, bought me sexy stuffs to wear, told me romantic stories, prepared my body all day with erotic messages from work and all the rest and gradually I adjusted.

One day he screamed and said "I have been patiently waiting for these past 7 years and now you're acting like a child . . ." Those words hurt me and I cried myself for hours, I said I didn't want sex at all.

He came and apologised to me and said Okay... It's fine. Let's pray about it but I just couldn't pray. Each time I attempted sex, it felt like I was being tortured and it was just penetration. Nonetheless, I adjusted. 

By the 3rd month of being married, I was pregnant and I wasn't thrilled as I hadn't even adapted to the sex life before I had gotten pregnant and I knew I wouldn't even want to try sex with pregnancy as I was just trying to cope even wen I wasn't pregnant. 

Then one day I said to him: "You see the reason why your sexual purity stuff has not paid off". Maybe if we had been trying oral sex, fingering and all, my vagina muscles would have been expanded and there would be no need for the pains... And he said to me "love, we have something to bring to God boldly as a strong reason" and he also said "do you know how many destinies would have been moulded for our own good because we practised sexual purity?"

Meanwhile I had a programme for secondary school children on virginity.... (more like an abstinence club). It still hasn't started because I am yet to find someone of like mind or with same vision and I cannot do it all by myself.

My husband then asked: "Who would rather pass the message of sexual purity to the younger generation if not someone who had practised sexual purity during their courtship and knows it is very possible?"

So initially I had my regrets but along the line, better understanding dawned on me and it didn't look like a regret after all. 

In fact, I forgot to mention some things. The major thing that kept us strong was the fact that rumours were flying around that we had been sleeping together. You know as church workers in a very big church, people knew my fiancé and because of him, they knew me. I was part of the choir and I ministered on the altar and that made it worse. Many ladies in church and choir had eyes on him and they were out to frustrate me. Someone even wrote a petition against me to the church.

It was hard, I used to cry a lot when we heard all those stuffs and all, I even said I wasn't going to marry him anymore. BUT he told me one thing, he said the only thing we could do was to prove everyone wrong by ensuring that we stayed sexually pure and we would be able to boldly declare to everyone that we stayed pure and Satan would not have anything to accuse us of.

So the more the rumours went around, the stronger we became and the more determined we were to our decision.

Left to me... Sincerely I would have faltered long long ago but for my husband, it was a no no.

ML: Do you have any tips to share with our single readers about staying sexually pure?

SD: I'll share some tips that worked for us.

• We filled our times together with meaningful activities
• Like the saying goes "an idle mind is the devil's workshop"
• We drew up a long list of books on faith, determination, relationship, prosperity, leadership and the likes from different authors and had a mandate to read at least 1 per month. We did a summary of our books separately, then did a review when we met
• Majority of the books that I have ever read were during my courtship days
• We had prayer and fasting days too on a weekly and monthly basis (every Wednesday and last Sunday of the month
• We also had our relationship mentors
• We had late Pastor Bimbo Odukoya's books. Infact we sold some of her books in church.

I realised that if your spirit is energised, walking in the flesh is minimal (Galatians 5:16).

ML: Thank you for taking your time to answer all the questions. 

SD: You're welcome. Thank you for the opportunity, I'm honoured. You definitely are going places by God's Grace. May God bless your ministry.

If you have any questions for Shade or any contributions, please leave your comment below or send an email to trulymakingadifference@gmail.com

Myss Lafunky and her husband plan to explore some of the issues that may affect Christians that married as virgins and any other pertinent issues from all the interviews. This session will be posted after all the interviews have been conducted. We have about two more interviews to share with you.

Thank you for reading. Watch out for the next true life story about sexual purity next Monday.

Have a great week!