The Ring on my Left Hand

In middle school, one of the big things in my social circle was purity rings. Now, I’ve never been comfortable with the term ‘purity ring’. A ring doesn’t make you pure. Nothing magical happens through a piece of jewelry. Even wedding rings don’t somehow create a force field that stops someone from cheating on their spouse. Rings can be a way of physically representing a personal commitment. A commitment, in this case, to your future spouse, to yourself, and to God.

Sometimes I wear a ring that I consider, for lack of a better term, my ‘purity ring’. There are days that I forget to put this ring on, don’t feel like wearing jewelry, or I’ve eaten too much salt and it doesn’t fit quite right. This doesn’t make me ‘unpure’. I’m not a different person when I don’t have my ring on.

On the other hand (pun intended), wearing a ring doesn’t make me a better person. Purity is more than not giving in to physical sexual desires. It’s honoring your future spouse with your mind as well as your body. It’s taking care of yourself. It’s in the way that you act around other people and the thoughts that guide those actions. If watching a certain movie, TV show, or listening to a type of music cause you to fall into lust, consider changing those habits.