My girlfriend, whom I thought I would be marrying, broke up with me
Question:
I have reached out to you before. My girlfriend of two years and I recently broke up. We were involved in fornication. I am feeling so guilty and have asked God for forgiveness. I believe He has forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself. Will my choices have an impact on my future relationships when trying to find a wife? Will a woman love me if she knows I'm not a virgin? I can't help but think I have ruined my life. No woman will ever want to be with a man who gave his body to sin. I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I committed fornication with one girl, who I thought I was going to marry with all my heart, and she broke up with me for reasons I still do not understand. Will there be a woman in my future who will love me despite my past?
Answer:
Among the many reasons why people should not have sex before marriage is because you cannot guarantee that you will marry the person you are having sex with. To say that you knew you were going to get married is a common self-deception. For mankind the future is unknown. You intended at that moment in time to get married, but intentions are not reality.
The truth would have been that if you were so certain you would marry her, then you should have done so first before taking off your clothes.
If you are committed to finding a good Christian woman, then, yes, it does matter that you are not a virgin, but it is a problem that can be overcome. Your willingness to put worldly desires over Christ's laws says a lot about the person you used to be. However, you can learn your lesson and become the man Christ wants you to be. Unfortunately, if you give up on yourself, there are far too many women who don't care and will drag you into their beds married or not. You made mistakes in the past, but you don't have to let those mistakes rule your future.
As I've told others, the concept of forgiving yourself is foreign to the Scriptures. Technically, it cannot be done. Forgiveness is about releasing a person from a debt owed to you. You cannot owe yourself a debt, so it isn't possible to release yourself from a debt that cannot exist.
Guilt is what you should feel after sinning and realizing you are wrong. It is a part of what will discourage you from doing wrong again. You don't want to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, "having their own conscience seared with a hot iron" (I Timothy 4:2). The fact that your conscience is bothering you means it is still working and has not yet become calloused.
