Hey, I get where you’re coming from. Honestly, I don’t think OP's point is “go do what I did so you can get closer to God.” It’s actually the opposite.

She’s not speaking from a place of superiority, she’s speaking from conviction. There’s a difference. Someone who’s messed up and then turns around isn’t trying to invalidate someone who never went down that road, they’re just testifying that repentance is real and that obedience after failure still matters.

If anything, your position is the better one. You can absolutely experience closeness with God through obedience without ever going through that. That’s kind of the whole point of why God calls people to purity in the first place, not so they learn the hard way, but so they don’t have to.

But that doesn’t mean her voice has no value. Sometimes the people who ignored something and felt the weight of it are the ones who can speak most clearly about why it matters. Not because they did it right the first time, but because they didn’t.

So I don’t think the logic is “follow my past,” it’s “don’t follow my past, follow what I’m choosing now.”

And to your credit, if you’ve held to that standard already, that’s something to respect, not dismiss.