I was married
for no longer than a year when I found my skin recoiling at my husband’s
touch. Not only did I lack a desire for
intimacy, I had a fear of it. It somehow
made me feel stained with shame. Months
would go by without coming together and because of it we found our marriage
snagged by bitterness. We were 22 and we
fought and we fought and we fought. One
could insist that we were simply the result of two people who were married far
too young but in hindsight I know that’s not the case. Let me tell you what I know now:
I was angry.
My parents had
always lovingly taught me to save sex for marriage. Not because they would ever see me as less
but because based on God’s perfect design for sex and marriage they knew the
pain it would bring me if I didn’t wait.
Long story short, I failed to heed warning. By the time I met my husband, Bryan, I had a
background of intimate encounters with people who I knew would never end up as
my husband. But pre-marital sex didn’t
stop there because Bryan and I brought the marriage bed into our dating
life.
Just like every
other relationship before, I had been impatient, ignorant of the suffering that
was waiting on the other side of my wedding day.
I want to
emphasize that sex has an absolute perfect design, crafted by two Divine hands,
which hold the sacred truth of it. When
we decide to step outside the boundaries of God’s plan we will see the
consequences. When I look back on
the eight years spent with my husband (one dating, seven married) I can see
Satan’s cunning with 20/20 vision. You
see, he will let you ignore the power of sex to your hearts delight when you
aren’t married but say, “I do” and
the tables turn. It’s the ultimate bait
and switch.
Why is
that? Because Satan knows that when a husband
and wife come together, it represents Christ’s convent to His Church in the most
profound way. Sex gives, sex is
selfless, sex is sacrificial, sex binds.
A marriage needs it because time and time again it whispers
promise. A promise to keep pursuing just
as Christ pursues His Church.
Though I grew up
in Church it wasn’t until around the time I got married in my early twenties
that I experienced Christ in a way that I never had before. All the sudden I was aware of my nakedness in
new light.
Here’s the
thing: even though every sexual
encounter I had had with another man played a role in contributing to this
weight that I was bearing, none of them had ever claimed to love me.
Not one and that made it easier to forgive them. Bryan though, he had loved me but he hadn’t protected me. He hadn’t pursued patience; He hadn’t led me
towards God’s design, as a man who claims to love should. So when sex in
our marriage left me feeling indecent, anger was born and it bled into most
aspects of our life together, almost resulting in divorce.
It took the
better half of our third year of our marriage for me to finally accept
freedom. I don’t have the time to go
into detail here but it was through intense prayer and devotion that Christ finally
gave me the answer I so desperately needed:
I needed to forgive my husband.
If you find
yourself relating to my story let me tell you something: in order to pursue intimacy you have to first
pursue forgiveness. Sex before marriage
has its consequences but it does not get to mark you as unworthy. Get to the cross and claim your mark of
crimson, which deems you forgiven. You
have got to realize that God sees His Son in place of your sin and He is so
tenderly calling you back to His original design for intimacy. Once you have this revelation He will give
you the grace to extend forgiveness to your spouse.
I was overwhelmed
by the freedom gained in forgiveness. I
no longer looked at my husband through a veil of resentment and I could finally
welcome his touch. We have found great
joy in intimacy and pursue it often. It’s
a privilege to reflect the character of Christ to one another when we come
together. It has deepened our faith and
strengthened our love for both each other and our Creator.
Dear reader let
me give you hope in this: marriage is from
God and for God thus He cares
deeply for it. Seek Him first and He
will profoundly bless your pursuit of intimacy.