Pursuing Intimacy

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.