Nothing Gray About It

Chapter 1

Appeal to the Audience

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

—Matthew 22:37–38

Imagine you were given a rare jewel by someone. It was a gift you did not earn or even deserve. The jewel came with simple instructions, to guard it carefully. It became your most prized possession. You took great care of it at first because its value was priceless. Its worth far exceeded anything else you owned. But slowly, over time, you became lazy with the care the jewel required. One day the jewel was left out in the rain where the dark skies and pounding rain struck it. The wet and sticky mud covered it. Particles of sand scratched the delicate surface. Rocks fell on it and chipped away its luster. It was stepped on with hard soles of a shoe, which embedded it further into the ground. It was trampled on day after day until it was no longer even visible. The worst part wasn’t that the jewel was left in the rain, scratched, or chipped, but that it was forgotten. Completely forgotten were its value, worth, and beauty. The simple instructions to guard it carefully had not been heeded. 

Each of us has been given a rare jewel. The Creator has given us each a heart. It has come with simple instructions. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” The heart is the very essence of who we are. It is the reason we cry with a friend or hurt with her through a loss. We feel the weight of a situation deeply and respond with joy, pain, grief, or anger. You may be a new mom with young kids in diapers or a mom who carpools kids to school and sports activities. Perhaps you are a mom whose children have left for college or who are now married with kids of their own. Maybe you are a newlywed with no children yet. You may still be single or recently back to singlehood. The stage in your life does not matter, because you are a woman. As women, we were created with emotions and minds that are beautiful. God designed us this way—as beautiful creatures that cry at the drop of a hat and love with every ounce of our hearts. Demonstrating emotion is one difference that separates us from our male counterparts, who usually do not feel or demonstrate emotion so profoundly.

Of course, even Jesus felt and outwardly demonstrated emotion. Scripture tells us Jesus wept over the death of a friend and felt the pangs of loneliness. He showed anger when His people were treated unfairly and had compassion on the sick. Emotions are a God-given gift. Without them, we would be callous, cold, and indifferent. We would be like robots unable to feel or respond to anything or anyone. However, with our unique ability to feel emotions so deeply comes an incredible vulnerability, an emotional vulnerability that can take us to dangerous places and lead us into sin. 

Do Women Struggle with Pornography? 

Most of us have decided on what we believe is pornography. However, if we really understood its definition, we would realize it is far broader than our understanding. In reality, pornography is anything that entices us in impure ways leading to physical or emotional gratification. Pornography satisfies our physical or emotional appetite in unhealthy, inappropriate, and sinful ways. Most women have larger emotional appetites than physical appetites. Women need and want their emotions satisfied. When their emotional needs are satisfied, this usually arouses their physical appetites. Since the emotions require satisfaction, pornography is not just limited to physical impurity. It also includes emotional impurity, especially for women.

An emotional impurity is anything that arouses and satisfies the emotions through inappropriate means. An emotional impurity can take place in many different forms. It can be as simple as being gratified by viewing romance unfold on television or social media. It can be as involved as living out a fantasy life in our minds. It can even be as complicated as an emotional or physical relationship with another man.