Are we still in love? Romance in marriage

One in five adults have been sexually abused. 72% of high school seniors have had sexual intercourse. Oral sex among high school students has become extremely common along with having casual sex and “friends with benefits”. Each week, 26 million adults have sexual encounters with someone other than their spouse! 11 million adults visit pornographic web sites each week. 17% of American men have solicited prostitutes.

Now to look at our media: 6.7 sex scenes per hour on top-rated shows for teenagers. 70% of our TV shows feature sexual content. Almost 100% of sex we are shown is sex outside of marriage implying fornication or adultery.

Talking about sex is a pretty normal thing, I would say. My friends are constantly joking about it. Shows and movies are showing it and expressing it. Am I always comfortable in these situations…? I would say no, not at all! Talking about sex in church… yup, still not comfortable.

Growing up in the church, I never read the Song of Solomon book. One, because it’s crazy hard to understand, and to be honest, it’s pretty weird! One of my maid of honors read a small section of it the morning of my wedding. I just pretty much laughed and said “Well that’s nice, but weird!” So going through this topic in church this summer is a stretch for me (as well as our pastors that are preaching it!)

As a 30 year old women that has been married for six years and has three children, listening to sex being preached is pretty interesting! It really makes me examine my sexual past before my husband, yup, I just said that… because it’s the reality of my life, and perhaps the reality of yours as well.  It also makes my husband and I examine our marriage in the sex and romance area.

Like I said, I grew up in the church, which basically taught “Don’t have sex before you’re married, and keep your clothes on!” Well that’s great advice, but WHY? Maybe if I had the why explained to me I would have been able to understand the emotional and physical damage that having sex before I was married to my forever husband would have on me. That is what I am LOVING about what my pastor is preaching from the pulpit! We are two weeks into this thing and so far we have looked at the power of attraction and relationship killers.

The power of attraction was all about the reality of us being sexually attracted to others.  God created that, and he also created the crazy “can barely walk away” attraction that comes when you’re with someone you’re attracted to. God made this attraction to draw us to the person that we date, get engaged to, and then marry. But as we all know from our life experience and the stats above, this type of attraction often happens before we are married and a lot of the times with people that will never be our spouse. So being attracted to those that we won’t marry is bad? No, it’s not. But what do we do with that attraction? That is the question. I have thought a lot of guys were super-hot.  But then I got to know them and they quickly went down in “hot points” because their character was… not so hot. So maybe if we knew the why’s of not to have sex before we are married we would be able to hold off on acting on the amazing amount of physical attraction that God put in us – attraction that is meant for our spouses.

I was not so fortunate.  I did not stop in the midst of the attraction, talk to God about it, and follow His word. My husband however, thank God, was able to stop and follow what God had for him in our marriage. Through that, I got to see God work in my heart with my past sexual sin and renew my romance with my husband and make it new for him and I together! That is a gift in itself!

Then there is the relationship killers. This is super, super good advice in the bible for when we are dating and when we are married. I love, loved this part! The bible talks about not letting the little foxes get in the vineyard. That relates to us not letting the small things come in-between our relationships in dating and in marriage. I am just going to list the things my pastor listed for us, because it is SO good!

Dating Couples:

  1. Failure to look honestly at yourself and the other persons issues and talk about them.
  2. Pre-marital sex, focusing on the physical and not the emotional or spiritual.
  3. Isolation from other relationships. Feedback from family and friends is important, dating in groups- not just being alone all the time!

Married Couples:

  1. No longer working on your marriage, don’t forget to keep dating!
  2. Letting small resentments build up and not confronting them.
  3. Allowing competition for your heart and mind- OTHER PEOPLE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX, AKA affairs or cheating on your spouse, emotionally and physically.
  4. Not dealing with past baggage.
  5. On or both of us drifting from the Lord. (if you both are Christians that is)

This section of the bible once again ended with this couples struggle.  When it comes to attraction, crazy things happen. This couple in the bible is an example of the power of physical attraction and just wanting to be together but not wanting to awaken that sexual act, and wanting to wait until they get married.

Like I said earlier, there is a lot in these two sermons. This information is so helpful for my marriage as a young women with lots of time and learning to still go, but also lots of things that make me think about how I grew up. Unfortunately, I did not fully understand the “gift” that God intends for sex to be in my life with my husband and ONLY my husband.  I made mistakes that could have really hurt my marriage. If this brings anything up in you I encourage you to comment and share! I also encourage you to process this and pass it on to others, because as you read in the beginning, sex is a strong thing and God made it for husband and wife!

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