It's a new year! Woo hoo!
I love this time of year.
I like making plans for how I want to live my life deliberately.
For the last few years I've tried to get the kids involved. Helping them think about what one thing they'd like to learn and then making a collage poster to hang in their rooms. It's not working for them because their brains are wired like squirrels.
It works great for me though.
I still need to get this years poster made but I've been mulling over life and I've got some great plans.
It just goes naturally that I'd think about the state of my marriage as I think about the state of things to come.
Part of me wished that I had a way to take the pulse of a marriage.
Simply, like a thermometer to check for a fever.
Simple, like an app on my phone that tells me the weather forecast.
Funny thing is, I kinda have that.
A couple years ago I took a great Christian lady to lunch and asked her the secret to a great marriage. She's an amazing lady. Some of you may know her, Nell Jackson. I want to be like her when I grow up. She has a strong family that is full of strong Christ followers. She had an amazing marriage right up until the day her other half passed away.
I don't remember her advice word for word because at the time it seemed like a nice thought. Now it's brilliance stuns me. Making me wish I had filmed the moment for the world.
In a nutshell she told me the secret to a great marriage is a husband that is crazy about you, and great sex.
I giggled of course.
I should mention that she's a great-grandmother. Tiny, sturdy, beautiful no-nonsense lady. She just told me great sex is her secret to a great marriage.
Ah the wisdom I missed because I wasn't listening with my heart.
Sex can be how you measure the health of your marriage. Now stay with me, I'm not going off the deep end here. I'm being serious. Sex in marriage is more than we've been led to believe.
Popular culture has warped our views of sex. We've lost intimacy in the process. We've made it a formula of contortions instead of an act of love.
God had so much more in mind.
Let me go back to Nell's advice (disclaimer: Only hold her responsible if you think she is brilliant. If you think otherwise, blame me.) She told me the secret is, a husband that is crazy about you, and great sex.
The first part, a husband that is crazy about you, is important. It's Ephesians 5:25-33
"Husbands go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church - a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love make the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor - since they're already "one" in marriage.
29-33 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become, "one flesh". This i s a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband."
I'm focusing my pray in on this one. I would be the most submissive wife on the planet if I my husband spent each day designing everything he does and say to bring out the best in me.
Bring out the best in me sounds like broccoli. I feel my kids veggies because I love them and I know that veggies are what their bodies need. Not what they want, need. In the same way, I would occasionally fuss but overall be completely delighted to have a partner that pushes me to do what is best and right. Stretches me and helps me grow.
I want to be the object of my husbands crazy desire. Hell ya.
I'm guessing all wives would be good with this.
Which takes me to sex.
Picture yourself cherished, radiant with holiness and completely in love. This is closer to what God had in mind.
Now think about this - "they're really doing themselves a favor - since they're already one in marriage". Yeah.
Guys who are crazy about their wives get more.
Guys who are pampering their wives like they treat their own bodies are having great sex. (Unless the guy in question has forgotten basic grooming and doesn't even treat himself right.)
Ok so that's part of what happened in my marriage. Mike got so depressed he stopped taking care of himself.
I can see now that's a clue to sickness. Now I can add that to my bag of tricks (LOL) and know that lack of personal care and lack of sex = marriage headed for the rocks.
Sex is supposed to be wonderful. Not a chore. Not something you have to force. If you're living marriage the way God designed it I imagine you just can't help yourself and sneak off for quickies all the time. To express the love that overflows.
I want that.
I love quickies.
I adore sex.
However that's not where my marriage is today. It hasn't been there for forever.
I've complained that I'm frustrated but it was warping.
I was trying to plan it.
Asking for it. (sex...we're still talking about sex.)
Whining about the lack.
Etc....
I'm realizing that sex is the way I can measure success in marriage.
Once we get our priorities in line with God's plan for marriage. The balance will be restored and there will be an overflow of love.
Then I will be getting jiggy.
Until then......let me put it in a nutshell.
If your sex life is lacking it's just a symptom of a marriage out of whack. Take the time to discover what God tells us marriage is. Your marriage needs at least as much maintenance as your car.
I'm in for a total overhaul. It means that parts are being removed, replaced, restored. Soon I'll be good as new. Better even. Now I know that I need to pay more attention to my sex meter....I won't let my marriage get this trashed before I have the balance restored.
Happy 2013.
Now go....be one with each other....giggle.
I have a poster to make.
I love this time of year.
I like making plans for how I want to live my life deliberately.
For the last few years I've tried to get the kids involved. Helping them think about what one thing they'd like to learn and then making a collage poster to hang in their rooms. It's not working for them because their brains are wired like squirrels.
It works great for me though.
I still need to get this years poster made but I've been mulling over life and I've got some great plans.
It just goes naturally that I'd think about the state of my marriage as I think about the state of things to come.
Part of me wished that I had a way to take the pulse of a marriage.
Simply, like a thermometer to check for a fever.
Simple, like an app on my phone that tells me the weather forecast.
Funny thing is, I kinda have that.
A couple years ago I took a great Christian lady to lunch and asked her the secret to a great marriage. She's an amazing lady. Some of you may know her, Nell Jackson. I want to be like her when I grow up. She has a strong family that is full of strong Christ followers. She had an amazing marriage right up until the day her other half passed away.
I don't remember her advice word for word because at the time it seemed like a nice thought. Now it's brilliance stuns me. Making me wish I had filmed the moment for the world.
In a nutshell she told me the secret to a great marriage is a husband that is crazy about you, and great sex.
I giggled of course.
I should mention that she's a great-grandmother. Tiny, sturdy, beautiful no-nonsense lady. She just told me great sex is her secret to a great marriage.
Ah the wisdom I missed because I wasn't listening with my heart.
Sex can be how you measure the health of your marriage. Now stay with me, I'm not going off the deep end here. I'm being serious. Sex in marriage is more than we've been led to believe.
Popular culture has warped our views of sex. We've lost intimacy in the process. We've made it a formula of contortions instead of an act of love.
God had so much more in mind.
Let me go back to Nell's advice (disclaimer: Only hold her responsible if you think she is brilliant. If you think otherwise, blame me.) She told me the secret is, a husband that is crazy about you, and great sex.
The first part, a husband that is crazy about you, is important. It's Ephesians 5:25-33
"Husbands go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church - a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love make the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor - since they're already "one" in marriage.
29-33 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become, "one flesh". This i s a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband."
I'm focusing my pray in on this one. I would be the most submissive wife on the planet if I my husband spent each day designing everything he does and say to bring out the best in me.
Bring out the best in me sounds like broccoli. I feel my kids veggies because I love them and I know that veggies are what their bodies need. Not what they want, need. In the same way, I would occasionally fuss but overall be completely delighted to have a partner that pushes me to do what is best and right. Stretches me and helps me grow.
I want to be the object of my husbands crazy desire. Hell ya.
I'm guessing all wives would be good with this.
Which takes me to sex.
Picture yourself cherished, radiant with holiness and completely in love. This is closer to what God had in mind.
Now think about this - "they're really doing themselves a favor - since they're already one in marriage". Yeah.
Guys who are crazy about their wives get more.
Guys who are pampering their wives like they treat their own bodies are having great sex. (Unless the guy in question has forgotten basic grooming and doesn't even treat himself right.)
Ok so that's part of what happened in my marriage. Mike got so depressed he stopped taking care of himself.
I can see now that's a clue to sickness. Now I can add that to my bag of tricks (LOL) and know that lack of personal care and lack of sex = marriage headed for the rocks.
Sex is supposed to be wonderful. Not a chore. Not something you have to force. If you're living marriage the way God designed it I imagine you just can't help yourself and sneak off for quickies all the time. To express the love that overflows.
I want that.
I love quickies.
I adore sex.
However that's not where my marriage is today. It hasn't been there for forever.
I've complained that I'm frustrated but it was warping.
I was trying to plan it.
Asking for it. (sex...we're still talking about sex.)
Whining about the lack.
Etc....
I'm realizing that sex is the way I can measure success in marriage.
Once we get our priorities in line with God's plan for marriage. The balance will be restored and there will be an overflow of love.
Then I will be getting jiggy.
Until then......let me put it in a nutshell.
If your sex life is lacking it's just a symptom of a marriage out of whack. Take the time to discover what God tells us marriage is. Your marriage needs at least as much maintenance as your car.
I'm in for a total overhaul. It means that parts are being removed, replaced, restored. Soon I'll be good as new. Better even. Now I know that I need to pay more attention to my sex meter....I won't let my marriage get this trashed before I have the balance restored.
Happy 2013.
Now go....be one with each other....giggle.
I have a poster to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment