Everybody has secrets, some more than others.

We keep certain secrets hidden from certain people. As Christians, I believe we hide more stuff than most.

My secret: I'm not a virgin. Didn't expect that? Yeah, me either. My whole life, I was always labeled as the "good Christian girl."

You know the one, with the straight A's, the perfect home life, always hanging out with the lonely kids and never misses a Wednesday night youth service. I had a reputation to keep, and man did I try my hardest to keep it. Little did anyone know, that good Christian girl was struggling to have a relationship with Jesus. Struggling to feel real love, his love.

There was a deep void in my heart that I was so eager to fill.

At first, it started off with small things like working extra hard to get praise on the soccer field or buying the nicest things to get noticed at school. Little did I know that all those small things were starting to tell me lies about myself that would carry well into my teenage years.

At 16 years old, I was so desperate to be loved. My heart had been through a lot in a previous relationship and when a new, promising one presented itself I was eager to take the leap. There are two reasons that God will let somebody enter your life: they are either going to be a blessing or a lesson.

Blessings present themselves in the purest form of love, Christ-like love. Lessons, however, often come in the form of lust and mine was no different. I let things go too far, too fast and I spent months and eventually years convincing myself that what I was doing was ok because it was out of "love" and I planned on marrying this boy, so it really wasn't that big of a deal, right?

Wrong.

I ended up fighting far longer than I should have and normally would have because I lied to myself and told myself that if I didn't marry this boy, God wouldn't love me anymore and I couldn't be a Christian anymore. Today, I laugh writing that because of how far from the truth it really is.

Now that I've pointed out the lies I believed at 16, let me tell you about the truth I know at 19. Romans 8:1-2 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."

Isn't that crazy? It doesn't seem that simple, but it really is. Once you make the decision that you want to be free, all you have to do is repent and let Him do the rest. We serve a God that loving and that graceful.

To all my ladies out there, I promise you that there is a God-fearing man out there that is going to show you the same love that Christ has shown us. A man that will respect your body, be eager to spend time with you, pursue you, and most importantly protect your heart.

Don't believe the lies that you tell yourself or the lies that the world tells you.

Our God isn't of this world and our truth shouldn't be either. There is nothing you can do that will make him love you any less or show you any less mercy. Start feeding your mind the truth and you will wake up one day and believe it.

As hard as this was for me to write, knowing that I'm disappointing so many people that I care about, I know that I'm not called to keep my battles a secret.

None of us are.

God pulled me out of a hole that I thought I was going to be stuck in forever, and that testimony deserves to be shared. My past has no say on the person I am today and what the King of the universe says about me. So today, I bought a purity ring. I prayed over it and I slipped it on my finger.

My past isn't pure, but I made a promise.

A promise that no matter what temptation comes my way, I am going to give it to God. I'm going to do things the right way, his way. From now until there is a wedding band on my finger, I will proudly wear my purity ring as a tangible symbol of the promise I made and what it took to get here.

As much as I wish I could give all of me to my future husband, I don't regret my past because I know that God is going to take it and touch so many lives. Here's to the start of a revival, of a lesson being turned into a blessing.