I've been with a lot of guys in high school, and I have a horrible reputation. I am going to college in the fall, and I'm looking forward to starting with a clean slate. Is it possible to become innocent again?

The first thing to understand is that your innocence is not determined by what others think about you. Therefore, don't give any human being the power to determine your value. With that having been said, I can certainly understand your desire to have a clean slate in the eyes of others. This, too is possible. I had a friend in college who looked up to a young woman I will call “Rachel.” She was a resident assistant (RA) in my friend’s dormitory and was a campus leader. My friend always admired her purity and innocence. One night this RA shared her life's story with my friend. Rachel had been sexually active throughout high school but turned her life around. My friend was astonished as Rachel opened her heart and revealed how she became a different person. Now Rachel is married to a great man, and they have begun to raise a beautiful family.

This young woman is living proof that it doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters is where you go after having learned from those experiences. Do not let yourself fall into despair, thinking, “I already gave my virginity away, so what does it matter now? Once it’s gone it’s gone. What good guy would want me now?” One young woman said that after she lost her virginity, “I’ve never hated myself more. But it was done. My virginity was gone. Never could I get it back. It didn’t matter after that, so sex became an everyday occurrence. My only fear was losing Bobby—he was the first—and even if he treated me badly (and there were those times), I was going to do anything I could to hang on to him.”[1]

In order to avoid this downward spiral, decide how you want people at your college to look at you four years from now when you graduate. When you get your diploma and walk across the stage in front of your classmates, what kind of woman do you want to be remembered as? Your slate is clean heading into college. Now fill those unwritten pages of your life with good things, smart choices, and happy memories. You still have your entire life ahead of you.
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[1]. Josh McDowell, Why Wait? (Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Book Publishers, 1987), 159–160.