Dale and me in our field
Intimacy. Hmm…
After 32 years of marriage, I still blush talking about it! It is so private and sacred!
No expression of human communion is deeper than that of a husband and wife making love. It borders on supernatural in expression. The sensory goes beyond flesh into spiritual depths that are indescribable.
It took me a while to fully understand this in my marriage. Intimacy on the indescribable level can only be attained through a complete surrender of your heart and mind. God intended it to be this way. A lot of people skip this part and think that the very act of making love will induce love. It doesn’t. It deepens it, yes…but only when you surrender your heart.
When I got married I had no idea what surrender meant. The only thing my mom told me before I got married about intimacy was this: Don’t ever deny him. So I didn’t.
Oh, Dale and I loved each other very much, and making love was good. For various reasons, though, I had a wall of protection around my emotions. But I was unaware of it. And because I was unaware, I didn’t know I needed to get rid of it.
I was able to trust Dale (He had never done anything to cause me not to trust him). Over time, the walls protecting my heart slowly started coming down. One night, unbeknownst to him, I decided to surrender my whole heart.
Hint: You’re supposed to do that at the altar—some of us just didn’t know how!
Let me tell you what happened when I finally surrendered…
It had been a long day. I had cooked dinner, washed dishes, bathed the kids, put a load of laundry in, and put the babies to bed. Dale had been busy working, so he didn’t know how tired I was. The little ones were finally asleep, and I was exhausted. I was about to collapse when he gave me that look. You know…the look.
I was too tired, but my mom’s words came to mind.
He started to kiss me. This time something switched in my mind. I decided to not think of this as a duty, but, instead, I accepted his gestures as gestures of love toward me. Then I surrendered everything to him—every vulnerable part of my heart, mind and body. I loved him wholly and completely—unabashedly.
For the first time ever, a floodgate opened. The wall lifted. My emotions left the natural and went into indescribable. I started to cry I was so overcome. (Which was a little embarrassing, because I never cried!)
We were one flesh, and it was beyond good. It was absolute abandon. Whew, that was a big deal for me! If more husbands and wives could love with abandon and receive love with abandon, there would be a lot fewer problems in marriage. I’m talking to husbands, too!
It is the same with my spiritual life. When I love and trust God with all my heart, soul and mind, in a place of abandonment, I enter into His sanctuary and am so overcome with the union of His presence, it is indescribable.
The ecstasy of loving and receiving love with no reins, freed, uninhibited—this is God’s ideal of marriage. He is the author of romance you know!
Many people struggle with intimacy in their marriage. I think Satan works overtime trying to destroy it. If he can mess with the deepest and most passionate thing God intended for marriage, well, then he may just have a foothold to destroy the family unit.
Men need to know they are loved just as much as we do. Your man may have walls around his heart, too. We need to love our husbands with outrageous, abandoned love in our conversations, our actions, and in intimacy.
Sometimes we may not think he is deserving of our intimacy. Next time you think that, remember this verse in relation to him, “Love is patient, love is kind… It does not dishonor, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 13:4)
He may be undeserving. Love and be intimate anyway. Do unto him as you would have him do to you. If you love and bless him even when he doesn’t deserve it, in time you will reap what you sow.
The Lord desires your marriage to be happy, full, pure and indescribable.
Ask Him to help you.
