The Reasons Behind the Choices

When I wrote Choices, I thought about some of the different reasons girls have for making the choice to engage in premarital sex; the reasons I knew of, at least.
LaKeeta: The girl who isn't feeling loved, so she has sex with a guy not because she really wants to do it, but because she’s hoping she’ll get pregnant. Her thinking is that she can bring someone into her life who will love her.
Hope: The girl who needs to prove that she’s more mature than people give her credit for, and she thinks that having sex is the way to do that.
Angel: The girl who is searching for the affection and attention she’s not getting at home, so if she has to have sex with a guy to get him to give her the time of day, then that’s what she’ll do.
Shauntice: The girl who wants to remain a virgin until her wedding night, but then she begins to feel so strongly for a guy that it just isn’t as easy to abstain as she thought it would be.
Girl in the mall: The girl who just doesn’t know how to say, “no”, so she gives in to the pressure.
Now as for abstinence, the reason I used was God’s will. God would like us to wait until marriage to have sex, so Bridgette abstains from sex in obedience to God. Shauntice also chose abstinence to be obedient to God, but she got off track for a moment there. Bridgette is the one who never compromises her beliefs. She feels so strongly about abstinence that she breaks up with a guy she really likes when he tries to push her further than she wants to go.
Lately, I’ve been thinking that I should have had a character practicing abstinence not because God says it’s the right thing to do, but because she just wouldn’t want to be with any guy in that way unless she was married to him. Because I’m sure there are unmarried people who are choosing to abstain from sex without even thinking that it is God’s will. Not to say, I don’t care about God’s will, because I do, but Choices has non-Christian as well as Christian characters, so besides being entertaining, my stories must be real, and the reality is - not everyone in this world makes choices according to what God wants. That would be great, and I’m sure the world would be a much better place if everyone did, but that’s just not the case. In fact, even Christians – those of us who should be living each day according to God’s ways - don't always think of His will with every choice we make.
Thank God for His grace and mercy.