HE'S NOT YOUR PRINCE CHARMING: Be His Lover

“…But still there was no helper just right for him.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! 
She will be called ‘woman’
, because she was taken from ‘man.’”

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.”

Genesis 2:20-25 NLT

(If you missed last week, click here)

Dear girls,

When Adam first laid eyes on Eve, his attraction to her was instant. Her beauty lifted him out of a state of deep sleep, propelling him to want her as his own. She was the perfect counterpart to his maleness, the answer to all the loneliness he’d felt for so long.

The power of Adam’s response to Eve shook him to his core, revealing his deep vulnerability.

A man in command of all of Creation, he craved physical and emotional and spiritual connection with this one so like himself... yet so deliberately, delightfully different.

Everything made sense when Eve came into his life: the longings he’d wondered about, the twinges of emptiness, the shape of his body, his driving desire for more.

For the first time in his existence, Adam needed someone. And every son of Adam since has felt that same need.

And you, my dear, beautiful daughter of Eve, are the one made in the image of God, the one who holds Adam’s sacred need— his great vulnerability— in your power. Your God-created beauty lifts him from the weariness of work and struggle and striving and conflict… into a world of wonder and delight.

When the softness of your skin brushes his in a whisper of invitation, every sense is awakened.

When your eyes tell secrets only he knows, his heart responds.

When you bring him into the circle of your warmth, wrapping your arms around his strength, his carefully protected core is unveiled.

Your man needs you. He wants you. He hurts without you.

And perhaps that is part of the reason why the Creator gave us so many words about safeguarding this treasure of sexual intimacy. Because the act of intercourse was meant to be so much more than two bodies selfishly seeking satisfaction. So much more than all the hurt and pain so many misused women know. Infinitely  more magical and mysterious than the movies show and magazines reveal.

And so, my dear girls, in the weeks and months ahead, I will set aside my natural reticence to talk to you from time to time about the way God designed your husband’s intense sexual cravings to be satisfied by you. And about how He created you with the same need, though awakened in different ways, so that you would find release and rest and deep satisfaction in the arms of your husband.

And for those of you who are not yet married, I hope to open your heart to understand the treasure you hold in your own beauty. I want you to understand why storing that treasure in a safe place for your husband-to-be is the best way to fully embrace your own sexuality. I want you to know that protecting your purity is the surest way to be able to fully and without inhibition give yourself to that God-chosen man when the time is right.

This is not easy for me to write about. What if I am misunderstood? What if my words add shame to a woman’s guilt? What if I say it wrong or crass or weird?

It was one thing to sit on the edge of my daughter’s bed at night and whisper sweet wonders about the honeymoon ahead… and quite another to let those words leak out to whoever may be listening.

The reason I am willing to choke back my reserve and push the words on paper is first of all because I genuinely love you. As the apostle Paul wrote, “It is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a very special place in my heart…” Philippians 1:7 NLT

And I believe that in the midst of all the devastation and failure and addiction and sheer ugliness of sexual perversion, the Church has lost her voice.  We have forgotten to speak and sing and teach about the beauty and the artistry of sexuality as God created it.

A very long way to say, I think its time for us to talk about sex.

Can we readjust the way we think about this gift? Can we begin to see ourselves as the beautiful answer to our husband’s great vulnerability? Dare we believe that the love we give is sacred?

Next week I want to tell you a story about a beautiful woman whose pure, uninhibited love lifted her young husband out of despair and into a life of success and riches.  And lo and behold, it’s a story straight out of the pages of Scripture…

Are you with me? Will you give me grace to stumble my way along as we talk “privately” about how to love our husbands in the way they long to be loved?

Will you let me know? I’m writing alone in my chair by the window, wondering what in the world I’ve gotten myself into…

From my heart,

Diane