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"Tell us how you've changed in this new year, Seol-hwa." A group of ladies sat around in a circle, with cozy pillows, journals, and small pocket bibles around them.
"How have I changed?" Warm patient eyes belonging to Kim Chun-ja looked at her as she thought about her question. It was Confession Tuesday which meant that every woman had to come clean about one thing. It could be about anything, good or bad. Long as they shared it. Somehow, thank God, she'd been skipped as the conversation had erupted into a sort of New Year's Resolution lane. But, now on front street, she was sweating.
"I've stopped hoeing." She started and if you didn't know why that was celebrated with claps and sounds of joy then you were in the wrong place. Smiling at the support and jubilation, she felt her cheeks grow warm.
"Um... yeah so I don't have the desire to do that anymore. I still struggle with masturbation but I guess that's lessening too in frequency."
"We're so proud of you, Seol-hwa. It took me years until I finally was set free from self-gratification."
"What made you stop?" Another woman asked now, a newer face to the group.
"I think a misconception in the Christian walk is that well masturbation isn't in the bible so it isn't bad. Touching yourself is better than going out there and having a bunch of sex, right? I thought the same thing once." Everyone was quiet as the woman, Ahnjong, continued.
"One night, I'd been out with a guy I really liked and I came home really hot and heavy. I could not stop fantasizing about him.. what I wanted to do with him. I fell into my normal routine, you know. The desire to pleasure myself was so intense but that night, for some reason, my fingers never made it down there. Not all the way, anyway. I couldn't move them from my stomach."
"Woah,"
"The Holy Spirit," The attractive woman smiled, nodded in agreement.
"I remember it like it was yesterday. I heard the voice of God come into my ear. He told me one simple thing. He said that my body was not mine to touch and bring pleasure to. That right and privilege alone, he said, belonged to my husband."
"Amazing!"
"God is amazing!" She heard Ahnjong's words and received them, running them over in her mind.
"He reminded me of 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
