Have you ever given your heart to someone who didn't love you back? Do you feel like you've experienced heartache over and over again? If you are emotionally attached to someone, it's easy to cross the line and become emotionally intimate. Then if the relationship doesn't work out, you're left with scars on your heart. The church teaches us the importance of physical purity; but it teaches little about emotional purity. Christian singles often wear their hearts on their sleeves, which can lead to intense, emotionally intimate, male-female "friendships" with no commitment to pursuing marriage. People may have had several of these "friendships" and still consider themselves pure, but in reality they have given away pieces of their hearts that should be reserved for their future spouses. Emotional Purity will show you how to define and set boundaries in your relationships to avoid making the same mistakes. Learn how to guard your heart and keep it emotionally pure. Using fictional and real-life examples along with sound biblical advice, author Heather Arnel Paulsen outlines the pitfalls of undefined relationships and presents guidelines for living an emotionally pure life.

Have you ever given your heart to someone who didn't love you back? Do you feel like you've experienced heartache over and over again? If you are emotionally attached to someone, it's easy to cross the line and become emotionally intimate. Then if the relationship doesn't work out, you're left with scars on your heart. The church teaches us the importance of physical purity; but it teaches little about emotional purity. Christian singles often wear their hearts on their sleeves, which can lead to intense, emotionally intimate, male-female "friendships" with no commitment to pursuing marriage. People may have had several of these "friendships" and still consider themselves pure, but in reality they have given away pieces of their hearts that should be reserved for their future spouses. Emotional Purity will show you how to define and set boundaries in your relationships to avoid making the same mistakes. Learn how to guard your heart and keep it emotionally pure. Using fictional and real-life examples along with sound biblical advice, author Heather Arnel Paulsen outlines the pitfalls of undefined relationships and presents guidelines for living an emotionally pure life.

In her classic book, Elisabeth Elliot candidly shares her love story with Jim Elliot through letters, diary entries, and memories. She is honest about the temptations, difficulties, victories, and sacrifices of two young people whose commitment to Christ took priority over their love for each other. These revealing personal glimpses, combined with relevant biblical teaching, will remind readers that only by putting their human passion and desire through His fire can God purify their love. In a culture obsessed with dating, sex, and intimacy, the need for Elliot's freeing message is greater than ever. This beautifully repackaged edition will appeal to today's young people.

It took Brian, my husband, and me some time to grasp the idea of purity while we were dating. After reading our story, you’ll see that making the commitment to purity was just the beginning. We had tasted the forbidden fruit for a number of years. Then I got to know Jesus in a new and powerful way as I recovered from an eating disorder. Brian eventually followed, and we knew things had to change. We had the difficult task of trying to figure out how to have a Christian dating relationship, living in the Garden of Eden, so to speak, right next to the tree but resisting the habit and compulsion of reaching for that fruit. How close to the forbidden tree can you get? Can you actually hold the apple in your hand but not taste it? There is no hard-and-fast rule I can give you for where to draw the line. However, I will share with you some lessons that I learned to show you how to build your relationship together through Christian dating. I will describe some strategies to keep the pilot light of your passion lit but under God’s gentle control. Then, how does it work to take two imperfect people, joined under God to become one in a loving marriage?

In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women. In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Pure is “a revelation... Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account" (The Cut) of society’s larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).

In our postmodern world, we are so driven by our emotions that in living for the moment we've forgotten to guard our most precious treasure - our hearts. Young people may not realize it, but acts that appear innocent - such as e - mail and instant messages - can entangle our emotions and lead the heart to places it should not go. Most people...

Relationships can be confusing, and communication is a huge part of that confusion. I Don’t Get You aims to be a practical, accessible resource that helps readers navigate opposite-sex communication with intentionality. This booklet explores how God designed our hearts and the variations between men and women. Men and women relate, attach, and express themselves differently. Even what we think and feel during a shared conversation may be misunderstood. The 5 Categories of Conversation introduced in this booklet give practical and easy-to-apply guidelines for interaction. The material guides us to fulfilling relationships that respect emotional boundaries and promote healthy interactions. I Don’t Get You equips men to protect their own hearts and the hearts of women around them. It also reveals how we can intentionally pursue the heart of one special person. Women will learn to recognize the invisible emotional ties that easily form and to guard their hearts from uncommitted emotional intimacy.