Intimacy Is a Beautiful Thing
Welcome back to the
Messy Beautiful Love*Book Club!
Today we move into chapters 9 & 10 and we have a guest writer! Her name is Mandy and she is a part of the Good Morning Girls Leadership Team!
Mandy is passionate about two things: The Word of God and the Souls of Men (and Ladies!). She is a married to her best friend, and gets the privilege to love on their three blessings (who lost their biological momma leaving her husband widowed).
She loves that the Lord has let her life be an example of delighting in Him and watching Him mold her life to make her desires match His. She spent 9 years in an early childhood classroom, and 4 years in an “in house” seminary program at her home church.She loves to bring God glory through her roles as Christ-follower, Wife and Mother (in that order!)
She enjoys women’s ministry, cooking, crafting, and traveling the world. Her greatest desires are to have her marriage bring God ultimate glory, see her children walk in truth, to lead others to the feet of Jesus, and to lead women into deeper and intimate relationship with their Savior through study of the Word of God.
Mandy is part of the Good Morning Girl Leadership team where she encourages leaders to get into God’s Word each day and invest in the lives of women all over the world. She also blog about living a life of Worship through all aspects of her life at Worshipful Living.
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Mandy writes:
I will never forget the night I sat down to write my vows. It was two weeks before my wedding, and the last day my husband Scott and I would ever be apart. We lived in two different states, and the next day, I would be moving the last of my “big” things. Then, with his whole family in tow, we would head back to Florida for our wedding week activities.
I sat before the computer, thinking about the words I would vow to him. I knew I would be able to do no promise justice without the help of the Lord, so I decided the best thing I could vow were the very Words of God.
I committed two big things to him that day –to be his help meet and to give myself to him completely, as we united in intimacy.
Chapter 9
When God designed marriage, it was because it wasn’t good for the man to be alone. So, God made a woman. He made her different then everything else –she wasn’t out of the dust of the ground, but out of the man himself.
“When two are joined together in marriage…a husband opens himself to envelop his bride, and the two grow together as one. When they are completely sealed by he Holy Spirit, that union is protected and strengthened. Like a cord of three strands, it’s not easily broken.” pg. 117
We were created to be united with our spouse for two reasons.
The first, to be a help meet. The same word is used in scripture to talk about how God protects and cares for us. We have a high calling by the God of the universe to be a picture of HIS amazing love by helping our husbands.
So many people think being a help meet is just doing the dishes, folding laundry, cooking dinner and driving carpool. Although all of those things are helping my husband, (Titus 2 is in the Bible for a reason!) – it is so much more.
Don’t forget the spiritual side of being a help meet like prayer, encouraging them in their walk with God, and being an example of faith.
The battle we face today is that of equality. Women read marriage passages of scripture with words like help meet and submission – and they get mad. They want equality.
We equate equality with our value.
We have great value to God and our husbands. God’s word speaks of our value as virtuous women. We are priced far above rubies (Proverbs 31:10), and we are the crown of our husband (Prov.12:4).
Chapter 10
The second form of unity with our spouse can be found in chapter 10.
Darlene opens the chapter talking about her and her husband’s first kiss.
I remember the first time I kissed my husband – we had been walking along the beach barefoot, water rushing between our toes. He grabbed my hand, and we turned and looked at one another. The prettiest blue eyes were looking down at me, and filled with more tenderness than I had ever seen. It was in that moment that his lips brushed mine. Lets just say my knees really did go weak.
All of marriage is a picture of Christ and the church – including physical affection.
Psalm 91:4 says “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”
Just like this beautiful picture of God, we can find this in the arms of our spouse. When I am in the arms of my husband, I feel like I am in the safest place in the world. When I am sad or when I have been hurt, it is the arms of my husband that I run to for physical support and protection.
People often think when we talk about this subject, our main goal is to make intimacy a priority in marriage but it is more than that. It is making our spouse a priority.
There are going to be different seasons when your love making is going to be different. Slowing down is not the same as eliminating it. Make sure you are still touching, holding hands, kissing, and hugging. Be present in the moment.
Intimacy is a beautiful thing.
We have intimacy with Christ. We spend time in His Word, knowing the deepest things that He has. The more time we spend, the more we know Him. The same is true in our marriages. We need to take time to KNOW – really KNOW – our husbands. Study them. Talk to them – and LISTEN to what they say.
The more we know our husband’s heart through listening, the more we will know him.
The more we know him, the more we will love him.
The more we know and love him, the more intimate we will want to be with him.
Your moments of intimacy will be a culmination of your relationship with him, putting into motion all the things you can’t say to him, because there really are no words.
As I sit here and write this, reflecting on both chapters, I am reminded that God has created man and woman very different. We serve a very creative God. Yet, God’s ultimate desire for marriage is to bring him glory – from the way we help our husbands, all the way to our intimacy with them.
Each part of our marriage brings glory to God. May we hold our marriages before God as the sacred gift they are.
Mandy, WorshipfulLiving.com
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Thank you Mandy for being with us here today!
Join the Discussion:
1.) What season of life is your marriage in?
2.) What are some ways you help your husband?
3.) Are you and your husband affectionate? In what ways?
4.) How can you improve as a help meet or in the area of affection?
Join the conversation by answer 1,2, or all 4 questions in the comment section.
Mandy, thank you for sharing this – it’s well written and helpful, especially the section on equality not being the same as value in God’s eyes.
Thank you for this! God is so faithful! He knows I’m resistant to changing my stubborn ways, and He is so kind and patient with me, as he repeats Himself to me in these important lessons of being a suitable helper to my husband. Yesterday, I sat in on the adult bible study (this is very rare, as my husband and I are usually with the teens for Bible study), and the study was much the same as you have written about here. I am feeling more convicted and encouraged by seeing this a second time. Thank you, again, and thank you Lord for your faithful servants and unwaivering love! His design is impeccable! (((((HUGS)))))
1.) What season of life is your marriage in?
We are still in an adjustment stage. Kids came fairly quickly after marriage…and two moves, one of them being our first home – which is also a renovation project. So there’s been a lot of change these 7 years.
2.) What are some ways you help your husband?
I make a huge effort to have the house picked up and things just the way he likes them when he comes home. And home cooked meals. He really likes homemade everything (and so do I). One new thing I need to work on is deserts. I’m not a big desert person, but his mom always made deserts, so it’s something he’s accustomed to.
3.) Are you and your husband affectionate? In what ways?
He is more than I am. I am more reserved, I guess. But, we always like to hold hands when we’re out on a date. 🙂
4.) How can you improve as a help meet or in the area of affection?
Just making a greater effort. I have started doing this lately. I just get so busy doing (which is what I’m pretty good at) that I forget to “be” – I forget to be affectionate, say words of encouragement, and do those small things that really build the marriage. I admit, this is a huge flaw in me.
Our season of life? We’ve been married 24 years, have 3 boys 23, 19, 14. I try to help him when I can, & where he will let me. I guess going to bed earlier would be a desire of his:(. There is still manipulation & emotional abuse
1.) What season of life is your marriage in?
We’ve been together just over 11 years, celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary just last month… I’d say we’re in a pretty good season now. Our daughter is nine-years-old and is becoming more independent (aka – will go downstairs on Saturday mornings to catch a show or two on TV while he and I stay in bed). We both work full-time and that makes life hard in general but when I look at us, I’d say we’re good!
2.) What are some ways you help your husband?
I do anything and everything I can to help Brian. He works 12-hour days at least five days a week and sometimes six days, so I feel compelled to make sure his laundry is done and that the house is cleaned up (well, sometimes I just make sure there aren’t any rodents in the house). 😉 I’m also the best darn sous chef ever… He’s the cook but I’ll chop veggies or prep the sides while he’s working on the main part of the meal. We make a really good team in the kitchen.
I’m feeling a little frustrated with myself – I’m behind on my reading! I would have liked to have had chapters nine and ten read over the weekend but didn’t get it done. Tonight there will be a lot of reading going on at my place!
Thank you for sharing!
1) My husband and I are newlyweds; we got married in April. 🙂
2) I help my husband by cooking for him, keeping up with our laundry and other chores, packing his lunch sometimes, and giving him time to do things he enjoys (e.g., reading, watching football).
1) What season of life is your marriage in? Our youngest just moved out 2 months ago. They call it the empty-nest season but I decided that I don’t like that name. For one, my home (thankfully) isn’t empty because my husband comes home from work each night. Our home isn’t empty because we saw this season coming and started to invest in our marriage.
2) What are some of the ways you help your husband? I help my husband in all sorts of ways but the most important is to do any little thing that he asks. Sometimes he asks me to do something that I think is hard. It’s good for me to remember that it will build my character to do it and without outward or inward complaining.
3) Are you and your husband affectionate? In what ways? Um. We sleep cuddled up with each other. I come and hug him when he gets home. I didn’t know to do this for many years. Who knew? Life was strained. Being attractive for my husband encourages affection.
4) How can you improve as a help meet or in the area of affection? I am trying to express my appreciation for all the things my husband is doing for me lately. My dad is 92 and he told me recently to work hard at my marriage and take good care of my husband. He told me that even at his age, he has to work hard at his marriage with my mom because marriage is always something we have to work at. I was shocked because I thought they had marriage all figured out!!
Judith, I love your answer to #2…it truly says how much you love your husband!!!
Judie – you are an amazing example to us. A true Titus 2 woman!
Your comments are an inspiration to me. You sound like the kind of couple my husband and I strive to be when we get older. We want to be more in love once the children leave home than we are now. We are currently in a stage where the two older ones (9 and 8) are becoming a little more independent and we homeschool so that changes things up a bit, and my two younger ones (4 and 1) really need mummy time. Plus I’m doing some courses on the side which I can’t really work on until evenings which of course is when I should be spending time with my hubby. He is really supportive and understanding but I’m still trying to figure out how to balance everything so he (in particular) doesn’t get left out of the equation.