Promise Land

(Photo courtesy of Hudson J Lim) 

For much of my life, I lived with skewed perceptions of intimacy. Sex was an enigmatic concept made up of fear, shame, insecurity, performance, desire--and later, apathy. Being violated in childhood, curious as a teenager and careless as a young adult, I garnered much of my understanding of sex through personal experiences colored with shades of pain and guilt. 

God redeemed my purity when He saved me August 2011, but it took years of healing in my mind and heart to recalibrate my understanding of why and what God designed to be intimacy. 

Up until this point, all of my horny-corndog posts (My First, My Last, The Birds and the Bees) were written in theory, commenting on the real struggle of temptation and the hope that it'll all be worth it...

As I write this now, being in covenant with Daniel, please read what I say with grace. I pray that what I reveal about intimacy within my fresh marriage will be used to equip you with confidence and tenacity to protect and fight for your purity. 

So, yes. It's freaking worth it. 

I cannot stress how sublime it was to stand hand-in-hand, in front of God, our pastor, our families and friends in honor and purity on our wedding day. It was truly a day of celebration, saturated with joy and adventure.
(Not that these things are absent if you cross boundaries...but there's just so much more freedom to do so in our hearts. There's no opportunity for the enemy to attack you with ammo of self-made guilt or shame..) 

(Photo courtesy of Bryan Yunie) 

I had two expectations of the wedding night: on the one hand, I assumed it to be passionate, with loud noises and lots of sweat. Somewhere in my imagination, there may have also been leopard print sheets and slow jazz playing softly in the background. (I need to consult my subconscious about this...), on the other hand, I feared it to the point of dread--I even questioned if I desired it anymore. 

To add to the stress of these opposing expectations, I juggled the polarizing ideas of casual sex from our culture, to it as the holiest, most intimate and sacred act from church. 

Is it as nonchalant as the media portrays it to be? Is it as intense as the Bible teaches? Will be really be worth the wait?  All in all, I was scared of what was beyond "I do." What if it doesn't meet my expectations? What if it does?   

On top of that, one of my biggest worry of marriage was the idea of being completely vulnerable (emotionally, physically and sexually) to my husband. I had heard a lot of stories of women crying before/after sex...and I was 99.9% sure I would be that girl. In my past, I was so afraid of men hurting me...that I was certain that I would categorize Daniel into that oppressive role. I would then either victimize myself OR over-compensate and become apathetic. 

Both entirely and equally unappealing. 

Fortunately, our wedding night and current sex life in marriage, met and meets neither of my expectations. It truly is all together fun, natural and totally sacred. 

Daniel and I talk about how it has only been 1.5 weeks of marriage...and we can't even remember what it was like before. The struggles of stumbling and fumbling in temptation cannot cast even the slightest shadow on the brilliance of joy and satisfaction we find in covenant. 

This idea is sort of similar to what C.S. Lewis wrote about Heaven in the Great Divorce: 

"They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why...the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.” 

I know that I'm taking this quote wildly out of context--I am in no means equating heaven with sex...but Lewis beautifully illustrates what I mean when I say that it's worth the fight and the struggle. Promise Land Sex, the pure intimacy found in covenant, is worth the bruises from tripping and falling down and getting up and continuing the fight. The moments of pent-up sexual frustration, the withholding of cuddling, the early curfews...the waiting period. This season has a purpose, and God is actively working in it...don't cheat yourself into thinking that it's just a time of blue balls and restricting. But really practice seeing it as a season of cultivating and preparing the environment where intimacy can thrive and be healthy in your heart and relationship. It's a time to flourish and learn intimacy with God first, as an individual BEFORE you get to join as one with your spouse.  

Now, I am not oblivious to the fact that I probably still have honeymoon-fever. I fully understand that the storms we will weather in the coming present/future will be unlike our first couple weeks of marriage. I know that just as God has prepared us for the wars we faced today, He will be equipping us for the ones we will face tomorrow and the years to come.  

Sex will not always just be fun, exciting or easy. I am positive that it will require a lot of trust, work, intentionality, choice and discipline...so is the nature of all aspects of marriage. So is the nature of maintaining intimacy with God. But there will always be grace and safety within covenant. 

While I eagerly anticipate learning with Daniel more about what God made marriage to look like, I know that it is not the pinnacle of marriage or the human experience for that matter. Sex is not an idol. But intimacy (I think) is a life long experience we get to learn to prune, maintain and sustain in our lives and relationships forevermore.  

With all that said, I just wanted to share the frail wisdom I've learned in my one-week old marriage thus far. So far, it's awesome. 

Will it be worth it to keep intimacy--with God and with my husband--a priority and life long project? 

Yes. 

Has it been worth it? 

Without a shadow of a doubt. 

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and Glory. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise You with joyful lips..." (Psalm 63:1-11) 

(Photo courtesy of Hudson J Lim)