Brain Dump - Intimacy

It's been FAR. TOO. LONG since I last blogged, and that was such a downer of a post I left y'all with too, huh?

I have a BUNCH of things that I have been meaning to put into well-thought, organized, themed posts, but I fear these thoughts may wind up lost so I'm dumping them into one tangential, rambly, brain-dump of a post.  Y'all will still love me anyway, right?

1.  Re: Intimacy
There are a few things to say here, the very first of which is to say that things here are reliable, they are okay, and consistent.  And my post last Tuesday was not to say that there is a lack of fire or desire, but rather that my... er... appetite... has increased, and not been completely satiated of late, which has left me wanting more, and to address that would require a change.  And change is hard, particularly change that is communicative in nature.

We've been attending a Song of Solomon class at our church on Wednesday nights this quarter.  It's not our first trip thru this video class with Mr. Tommy Nelson, but the third time in 13 years that we have gone through it.  It's THAT good!  Last week's class was on the wedding night (Chapter 4-5:1) and the thing that hit me squarely in the heart is how tender the man is and how much he expresses to his wife what her body does for him (flock of goats vernacular aside, when decoded it is quite erotic and very to the point).  And this is not a cheap, trashy romance novel, filling women's heads with some unattainable image of Prince Charming who is so romantic, THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD!!!  Meaning, God knew that women needed reassured by their spouses that they are in fact beautiful, so he devoted a whole book in the Bible filled with examples of a godly man doing so.  Someone made the point that a woman is very vulnerable when sharing her naked body with a man for the first time, and thus a man ought to honor that and reassure her with his realization that she is sharing her greatest treasure with him.  And I agree.  BUT....and this will give you a peek into my heart's struggles, I contend that a woman is vulnerable EVERY time she is naked (or nearly so while wearing some gauzy/lacy/fill-in-the-blank underpinning designed solely for her husband's eyes) particularly after the effects of gravity and/or childbearing have taken some toll on her body, and especially when she's worked her tail off to reverse some of those tolls and taken care to showcase them in the bedroom.  :ahem:

When such efforts seem to be taken for granted, or not even to make a difference, insecurities begin to creep in.  And so, if there are any men reading this, here's your homework: Tell your wife what her body does for you.  Even if she's on the saggy and baggy side of things, if you tell her that you love that her belly is where she housed your children and from where her greatest gifts to you came, it is appreciation and some affirmation.

Finally, our weekend away in Estes Park was Awe.Some.

We were surrounded by some of God's great creationary beauty

great lodging

 

fabulous friends

and had some really good, thought provoking teaching and discussions about our relationships with each other.  I treasured the break out session for spouses to cover their personal Top 5s from His Needs Her Needs (disclaimer - I think that the needs, as laid out in the book, are fairly gender stereotyped, but the exercise we did let us personalize them and rank them for ourselves...my top 3 was typically a "male" need, lol), which was not new to us (having done a Dynamic Marriage course in 2005) but needs change as your environment does and it had been awhile since we'd "checked in," with each other on this.  It also gave me the ability to share some of what I wrote above with Seth in a relevant, intimate, and non-hostile context/setting.

Hmmm...well on second thought, this looks like a singular post rather tied up on intimacy, no?  I guess the other stuff will have to wait.  That's it for me now.


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