Before we were married, my husband, Jesse, and I held hands, cuddled, touched, wrestled playfully and hugged a lot.
Married couples witnessed our flirtation and, rather than offering encouragement, they voiced the words, “Just wait. The passion will go away.”
The same people who said these words to us often followed them up with a hint of laughter as if it were a joke, but that toxic perspective of sex and marriage seeped its way into my mind and instilled fear into my heart.
These types of conversation pour pessimism and failure into our society before we even have the chance to experience the moment for ourselves. It perpetuates a fear that doesn’t need to exist.
Jesse and I had waited to have sex until marriage and, rather than feeling excited, I began to wonder whether our passion could even be sustained past our wedding night.
If I’m completely honest, I fully succumbed to the lie that enjoyable intimacy wouldn’t be a part of our story. It seemed to be the common consensus that fun and enjoyable sex only belonged to people who didn’t abide by God’s calling to wait until marriage.
The world taught me that ‘passionate sex’ only existed outside of marriage and in books like 50 Shades of Grey (I personally haven’t read it, but so I’ve been told.)
Want to hear more on the topic of Sex and Intimacy? Check out The Milk and Honey Podcast for some girl talk with Lindsey!
A few days before our wedding, I opened the book Song of Solomon in the Bible. I read absolutely beautiful poetry about two lovers who desperately desired one another.
They talk about one another’s body parts with affection, the man speaks of the woman’s breasts and her ‘garden’, they yearn for one other with a deep passion and they promise their love to one another.
The Song of Solomon is often seen as an allegory of God’s love for mankind. But it is also absolutely undeniable that the song celebrates human love along with sensuality and sexual desire.
It simply isn’t biblical to teach children that sex is “gross” or for a husband or wife to abstain from their spouse after a certain number of years or because they had a bad argument.
God created sex as a beautiful gift within the confines of marriage to grow us closer to one another physically, spiritually and emotionally.
Why have we become so hesitant to embrace that?
After I read this book in scripture, I decided in that moment that I was going to fight for passion in my marriage.
I was choosing to honor God by placing Him first and my husband second.
By God’s grace and my effort, I would refuse to allow the ‘typical’ story to become my own.
Jesse and I have now been married for seven years. We have an infant and a toddler – two small, beautiful, rowdy boys who keep us sleep-deprived and always on our toes.
We are both extremely busy and ‘time’ often feels non-existent. We have had our fair share of arguments, devastating trials, struggles with our faith, financial concerns, trust issues and moments of doubt and fear.
But through it all, we still hold hands, cuddle, wrestle, kiss and hug a lot – if not more than we did before.
