The Lure of Temptation

Last month I had the opportunity to watch Tyler Perry’s latest film entitled, “Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor”.  I hesitated on giving early commentary on the film mainly because I wanted to give late movie goers a chance to get out and see it.  I’ve always been one to greatly appreciate a film that forces me to think.  I walked away from this film stumped (in a good way), for a number of reasons.  I watched the film with my young adult daughters and it instantly sparked interaction.  I appreciate the way that Tyler Perry is always ready to delve head first into those societal issues that many of us would like to turn a blind eye to.  Temptation is a word that we can explore here for hours on end.  It’s that distracted place that a person in a committed relationship allows themselves to go. It’s definitely not a realm support by our Higher Power.  Temptation can be the onset of complete and total destruction.  Distractions within a relationship are born from many things.  The relationship may have fizzled out due to the high demands of life.  It may be the need for one person in the relationship to fill a void and in doing so they choose a negative way to act that out. Some partners feel as if constant communication is too much of a task and they shy away from it.  Isolation is the complete opposite of oneness in a relationship.  It’s oneness that a couple needs to move forward collectively.  Couples can argue over the silliest of things.  Because we’re all created differently and clearly raised differently, we all have different ways of communicating and dealing with conflict.  Some of us our confrontational while others run from conflict at all costs and in turn sweep things under the rug.  The door that leads to temptation opens the minute that we stop talking.  When we stop talking, we stop communicating.  This works the same way in regard to our relationship with God.  The Bible makes numerous mentions surrounding temptation. Any Christian practicing a faithful walk with God knows that there is a daily deliverance that we need in order to stay away from it.  In Matthew 6:13, the Bible says, “And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one”.

In Perry’s film, he builds upon a concept that I too have always believed in.  Experts in any area gain their expertise through the practice of real life experiences.  People who have applied-knowledge tend to excel and at times even have an advantage over those that have only had the opportunity to study the practiced material in textbooks.  This idea is seen in the film with Jurnee Smollet’s character, “Judith”.  Judith is a marriage counselor in the film and ultimately she gets a little too close to one of her company’s clients.  She’s eager to jumpstart her career with the wealth of knowledge that she accumulated obtaining her Master’s Degree in Counseling.  As a Christian woman that is herself married in the film, she feels highly prepared to open her own practice and to give the world her all.  The adversity she constantly faces in the film is coming to terms with the reality of her simple life.  The young couple are in their mid-twenties she and her husband Brice played by Lance Gross, are just barely making ends meet. Her headstrong, moralistic stance is strong early in the film as she refuses to adhere to the modern chic/sexy dress code of the matchmaking office she’s employed at.  We have a woman with a vision fresh out of graduate school who wants to counsel couples and help them to stay married.  Sounds simple enough right? Hmmmm, the plot is well set because we see that Judith is feeling underappreciated by her young husband.  He’s early in his career as a pharmacist and in many ways he’s just trying to establish himself as a man.  We can feel the genuine love he has for his wife who was also his childhood sweetheart.  Brice can’t afford fancy nights out for his wife, he forgets her birthday and he has this innocent way of diminishing her dreams without meaning to do so. The story takes a dark turn when Judith is given an assignment at the office that forces her to work very closely with “Harley”, played by Robbie Jones a very famous, young billionaire entrepreneur in the film.

Harley is overly charming and extremely vocal in expressing how much he admires a woman of Judith’s caliber.  He plays up the victim role in his past relationship which he claims as being the reason why he’s still single.  Harley in essence is the boyfriend that every woman wants. He’s attentive, encouraging and supportive of future endeavors.  He makes being in a relationship what it should; an exercised team effort. Their forbidden romance spirals out of control quickly.  Like many that fall into the lure and then later the trap of temptation, things get rather messy. Harley goes from charming and having sincere admiration to an aggressive pursuer whose only mission is to remind Judith of what her husband doesn’t do for her. The biblical theme of Adam and Eve began running through my mind; as I closed my eyes still hopeful that Judith would stay strong.  Poor, poor Judith, she gives in to all of her tempter’s whispers for control and she soon finds out that he isn’t who he originally presented to be. Brice begins to catch wind of the affair as does Judith’s mother who is a Christian pastor in the film (played by Ella Joyce).  We watch in awe as Judith begins to lose herself. She changes her style of dress, the way she wears her hair, begins abusing alcohol and cocaine and as if most disheartening she begins sleeping with Harley.  There’s this underlying theme of, “Is the grass really greener on the other side”, we soon see that clearly that it isn’t.  Perry shows us that it’s a small world and many things really do come to light full circle.  Brice happens to be working with a new staff member at the pharmacy that’s on the run from her abusive boyfriend that recently infected her with HIV.  Do I need to say anymore?

Judith ultimately becomes a seasoned marriage counselor because she can now relate to some of the real issues that married folks struggle with.  By the films end, she is somewhat crippled after a monstrosity of a beating inflicted by Harley.  She is HIV positive and she is very divorced from Brice who remarries and has a child with his new wife. Brice does not contract the virus. This is the unfortunate reality of how destructive the path of temptation is.  The shocking blow of Harley, Judith, and Brandy’s character all having HIV is a very hard pill to swallow, while still indulging in buttered movie popcorn. The twist nearly blew me away! I love that Perry made the consequences so extreme.  We live in a risk taking world that I constantly see downplaying the harsh reality of real consequences.  God’s love and protection can be absent when our obedience to him is equally as absent.  People are constantly targeting what they want, exercising their power to obtain their target, and in return they are ending up with a heap of things that they don’t want including STI’s and lots of unnecessary drama. Married couples are falling victim to distraction and in some cases even boredom.  The numbers of new HIV cases in New York City alone is shocking; in Brooklyn, New York they’re astronomical. With rates so high, I guarantee you that each and every one of us knows a person living with the virus; whether or not they’ve disclosed their status to us or not.  Stay safe, stay protected and if you are in a marriage please don’t ever stop communicating with your spouse.  The minute the talking stops, the connection stops, and temptation might just be lurking around every corner. God Bless you all.

Much Luv,

After The Booty Call

This Spring I’d like to kick off a new relationship series.  I want to touch upon the good, the bad, and whatever else is in between.  It’s been a while since I’ve done this and my intuition tells me that now is the time.  Many readers have been here since I've started this crazy journey that I call my life nearly 3 years ago.  For that I'm humbly grateful and I have to truly send all of you my sincerest thanks. I've been very open with these pages and that will never change about me.  Through my ups and my downs, my highs and my lows, you have been here and that amazes me.  It's been an uphill battle filled with lots of growing pains, lots of tears, lots of shame and learning, yet lots of joy & plenty of God's Love. The positive feedback that I receive from the majority of you is what always keeps me coming back. I’d like to give way to this new series and extend my hand to those that need it the most. What I want all of you to know before we begin is that any relationship that isn’t deeply rooted in the Love of God is destined for disaster.  For my Ladies, this Spring I want to encourage you to have standards, set limits and know your boundaries.  Even more so, I want to encourage you to have high standards; the type of standards that demand a man’s respect and don’t give way to the social media traps that society has set us up for. Fellas, I challenge you to find that amazing woman that makes you want to give her your absolute best!  A Lady that makes giving her your best the most amazing feeling ever! I'm gonna dig really deep with this one.  Some of the content will be uncomfortable but we'll work through it together.  Enjoy…

I decided to write this post in an attempt to reach out to my young sisters.  Not insinuating that my older sisters aren’t still struggling with this one but I realize its way harder to teach an old dog new tricks.  Let me start out by saying that my booty call days are long behind me.  When God’s Grace touches the heart of a woman there’s an amazing transformation that begins to take place.  Sinful nature is avoided at all costs and God’s Love replaces self-hatred.  Situations that I would have compromised my soul for are no longer nor will they ever be options for my life.  I had a vision earlier today and I remembered my own booty call days and the emptiness that always followed immediately after.  There was definitely instant gratification that came from being in the company of and held by a man for one-night, a few weeks or in some instances a few months but the scars of emptiness left behind with these temporary relationships was never worth the pain.  Thinking back I can remember waiting anxiously for that after phone call or text message. Just something to wash away the shame and feeling of guilt that lingered that following day.  Realizing that I was sleeping with someone that refused to make a monogamous commitment to me as if I was on probation and they had to observe if I was worth the price.  Looking back I wish I had just one positively strong female in my life that would have said, “Baby, you are not a loaner vehicle to be driven around until this man decides if he wants to keep you or not”.

Being a writer gives me the opportunity to speak to so many women from so many different backgrounds. I get to hear their perspective of what a booty call is to them. It saddens me that across the board many women often try to sell me on the convenience of these short-term rendezvous.  “It’s convenient for me because I’m not looking for anything serious at this time.” is what I hear the most.   My thoughts are always like, “Huh, what in the hell is convenient about letting a man into your personal space, to defile your body, and then leave you emotionally malnourished with inconsistent communication, which often times is initiated at his leisure?”  My last booty call was the worse and was the “eye-opener”, or so to speak for me.  The young man was very much my junior in age and he had this youthful spontaneous energy that one just doesn’t have when one is a responsible adult holding down a home, a car, bills and most importantly children.  I admired his carefree way of being and his ability to completely abandon any emotional attachment to our situation.  On one particular evening we broke the entire frame of my bed and I remember thinking, “This is ridiculous, and this needs to end”.  This was the type of intimate and physical relationship that I’d want to have with my future husband not a man that’s leaving me completely unsatisfied emotionally when he walks out the door.

Why would I compromise my standards?  Why was I ok with doing what everyone else around me was doing? Women tend to be nurturing and caring beings by birthright.  We’ll see one of our best girlfriend’s about to hit a brick wall and instead of slapping her with a dose of tough love reality we’ll play the devil’s advocate and say things like, “Girl, you have that young man sprung”, or even more dreadful, “Girl you still got it!”  To make matters even worse, we’ll pick-up the phone shortly after and tell another girlfriend how stupid we think the first girlfriend is.  Foolish encouraging words of self-destruction circulate around our friendships that aren’t submerged in truth.  Thankfully, I’ve learned to become my own best-friend in these instances and I found a lovely 25 year-old young lady to introduce to that particular young man.  I removed myself completely from the situation because in addition to selling myself out, I was also defiling my temple; the beautiful body that God has given me to share with a man that I’m fully committed to in God’s image of Love. The Bible sums it up very nicely in 2 Timothy 2:22 “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love and peace.

In this new age of Instagram and Facebook, I see how easy social media steers my young sisters toward soul-selling.  We take pictures of our every movement throughout the course of our day and in most instances we get feedback from men that are attracted to the physical assets we readily put on display.  How many, “likes” a young woman gets in an hour begins to become her validation of self.  How many men will want to link up with her based solely on her publically displayed sex appeal, image (or lack thereof), and the idea that her Instagram Love doesn’t cost a damn thing. This is where some of the most un-meaningful relationships will begin. We have set new lows for women in our society; talk of God and of the church becomes that of the radical Christian that no one wants to be associated with.  It’s way easier to do what everyone else is doing and continue selling out the one person that you need to rely on the most...yourself. One young lady in her late 20’s recently told me that her boyfriend, (whom she met on Instagram) actually “deserved” some sex from her after sending her flowers multiple times and taking her out on occasion. This is the mentally that we buy into when we refuse to pull out our pencil and paper and really reevaluate what our relationship goals are. In a society that is ravaged with the virus HIV how we’re not asking for a person status at the top of our goal list is simply absurd to me.

If the long-term goal is marriage or let’s say that the short-term goal is simply a committed relationship then I can promise you booty calls are not going to bring you any closer to either of the two.  Having sexual intercourse with a man is like allowing him an up-close and personal communion with your soul. Spirit to spirit contact is what leaves a woman feeling so empty after a booty call encounter.  The emptiness comes from the intertwinement of the two souls. We’re spiritual beings before anything else. Young men have become so desensitized to sex with young women that many times there is zero regard for any type of on-going communication after the initial encounter unless of course, it involves more sex. My analogy for this is just a sleeping subconscious that allows both parties to forget the true nature of what we were created as humans to do.  We were created to love one another. The sleepy state-of-mind that many of us are in prevents us from igniting that flame of God that lives right inside of our inner core.  I really need to start paving the pavement more often. I need to come up with a questionnaire for young couples that are participating in these non-contractual and dangerous sexcapades.  They’re unhealthy, unsafe, and in many cases they’re the root to why many of us have so many trust issues to begin with.

Finally, if you find yourself wondering what the next step is after the booty call. Then my advice to you would be to take matters into your own hands and make the next step. Ask God for the guidance that only he can offer and tell the young man that you’re involved with that you mistakenly lowered your standards but that moving forward you won’t be able to continue on that road.  You may have to simply sacrifice having anything with him altogether but I promise you that in the long-run nothing will feel better than having respect for yourself.  Let’s start spring off with the fresh renewal of Life that it represents.  Keep God’s Love first and you’ll always remember that His Love is all you need.  In times of loneliness, trust, lean on and talk to Him.  Remember that God wants you to have all the wonderful things that this life has to offer.  That includes a loving Husband to “protect”, “provide” and “profess” (Steve Harvey’s 3 P’s theory), his love for you. 

Wishing you colorful and passionate Love built on God’s rock this season!  I Love you all and want the absolute best for each and every one of you.  Let’s move toward love, marriage, family and stability. Let’s refrain from participating in booty calls. A season of building up versus spreading apart and tearing down!  Let's go Ladies...R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Much Luv,