This morning's service could have been cut up into about a whole years worth of study for me because I found myself taking bits and pieces of the sermon and chewing on it for a few minutes and then rejoining the sermon and this happened multiple times. So bear with me if my thoughts are everywhere-
This morning's service was about sex and I love the topic of sex and love the taboo of it when it's talked about from the pulpit so I was hooked from the beginning. I found myself during church having to silence my inner black church girl wanting to say Amen and Preach it brother while our pastor was talking. I remember at one point when he was talking longing that some of my teens were in the room. I long for others that don't have a relationship with Christ to understand and experience sex from a godly, loving, spiritual relationship in the covenant of marriage. It made me sad for marriages I know that have the marriage thing going for them but still don't have the Jesus thing and they are STILL missing out on this. There are countless teens out there that love and parade around about their sex life...and so many times I want to tell them if you only knew the beauty that could exist with this. Our world has settled and made something incredibly intimate and beautiful disgusting and shameful. Girls all over the world are scared of sex, made to feel disgusting by it, and taken advantage of in the name of sex...I remember one time joking around with a girl telling her that sex in marriage was worship to Jesus and us both laughing about it...except I wasn't joking. I also feel a sense of urgency that we communicate to our children that we are raising in godly homes that sex is not something we can't talk about. Sex in movies and on BET is not what I want my daughter to know and relate to in the realm of sex. This means that we have to work on how we do sex education, how we communicate sex with our friends, in our marriage, in our churches, and to our children. It is not enough that teens learn about condoms, anatomy, and their reproductive system. I would love to see a generation that is raised to be passionate about God and sex in a healthy and loving way. I wish that sex on your wedding night was anticipated in our culture the way a first car, the 18th birthday, or even the 21st birthday...but even that doesn't do it justice. It makes me sad that our culture has settled for something cheap, lacking intimacy, and vulgar as their concept of sex.
I can't finish that topic because my brain is still baking all of it's thoughts on it- so on to my next thought :)
During church they read the passage in Ephesians 5: 21 about wives submitting to their husbands and I don't know if I just sat in the noisy section but as soon as the passage started there was grumbling in the rows around me and snickering. It was much my reaction a long time ago when I first stumbled upon it. You want me to do what? Why? Are you crazy? I am woman hear me roar kind of a moment, shake your fist at the bible kind of a moment. I've been there. But to be where I am today...to have the marriage that I have today...I can tell you there is nothing more beautiful than to watch Ephesians 5: 21-33 play out in your marriage. Yes women submit- but that doesn't make you a doormat. That doesn't make you any less worthy. That doesn't take your value away to submit to your husband. Then Ephesians go on and as much as I am called to submit, my husband is called to love me like Christ loves the church...THAT IS A HUGE CALLING! These things we are called to do in Ephesians are not easy, they are not cheap, they are not things I can wake up and just do and pat myself on the back at the end of the night for a job well done. Truly living out Ephesians in your marriage is work. It takes effort. It take mutual love of Christ and love for God's word. They are both roles of dying to yourself, it's humility. It's passion for another being...Gah....my body and brain are overflowing with thoughts about this morning
If someone was here for me to process all of these thoughts with- my blog probably would be less all over the place (no guarantees). Just know that I am a girl that has grown to love the word submit. I am a girl that has grown to love Ephesians 5 (when I first got my Bible I would have preferred if that chapter would have been deleted). I am a girl that is crazy passionate about my husband, and I am a girl that knows the beauty of a God bathed marriage. It is not easy, we still screw it up daily, but it is beauty that no one could have adequately described to make me see it as such till walking through it.
I hope and pray that one day all of my teen girls will also experience a God bathed marriage. I pray for Kadence even now that one day she will grow up and have a husband that loves Jesus and loves her like Christ loves the church and that she will not be scared of the word submission and will not feel that her value is connected or lessened by her ability to die to herself.
Now I am off to bake so that I can process more of this stuff...arguably should have done that first- lol
