Yada, Yada, Yada

 Sex. Yep, we're going there. I didn't want to bring it up so early in this blog (with 250 days to go) for various reasons. Mostly because I know how much you love each other and didn't want speaking about sex to be a stumbling block to you. But when I talked about it with Daddy recently, he felt it was a subject that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. There may be a few devotions on this over the next 250 days, we'll see, but we'll start with this for now.

First off, I know having parents speak to you about sex is an "Ew, are you kidding" moment. But bear with us. Brad and I have always believed we needed to be open with our children about sex so that they never hesitated to ask us questions. We didn't want them to ever feel uncomfortable around us about that subject matter where they felt they needed to go elsewhere for information. Now, that didn't mean they weren't uncomfortable with our approach either, but we preferred open discussion verses hush-hush shame about something our Father created that is so beautiful. We vowed to answer our children's questions honestly and directly (appropriate to their age) and be open about the fact that is was an important part of our marriage. We never wanted our kids to wonder if we only had sex twice.

I remember the first time Ayla asked me about sex. She was 8 and had just observed the neighbor's dogs mating. She asked, "Mommy, is that how you and Daddy do it?" Watching these dogs running around attached at the backside, I said, "Not exactly." I explained the anatomic parts were similar, but not quite this particular approach. That was enough for her. Obviously we had spoken about it before for her to ask the question as she had. She was neither embarrassed or overly interested. Just curious about what she was observing.

We told our children at a very young age that when our bedroom door was closed at night, it was a good chance we would be making love, and therefore to please allow us our privacy. Now we weren't jumping in there midday or anything, but we wanted to give them fair warning should they have a nightmare or need something in the middle of the night. We had a little ceramic lady holding a sign that said, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" (from the Song of Solomon 6:3) that we hung on our doorknob as a deterrent. If they needed something they could knock and we'd "wrap it up," so to speak. By the way, this never needed to happen. We were pretty discreet.

So that is a little background. Daddy and I read once that men need sex to have love and women need love to have sex. Now we don't believe that it's quite that black and white, but there is some truth to the statement. When a man romances a women, why wouldn't she want to make love to her husband. And if a woman is making love to her husband, why wouldn't he want to romance her? It's a sweet circle.

Sex was created by God for married couples: for their pleasure and for reproduction. Those who say it was strictly for reproduction are dead wrong just as those who would say it was just for pleasure, and those who say just for pleasure in reproduction. The latter wouldn't make sense because the pleasure would be gone once the childbearing years are over, and that's certainly not the case.

The word used for sex in Scripture is "yada." Often it is translated as "to know." A husband knew (yada) his wife and she conceived. But it goes deeper than knowing. It means to know and respect on the deepest most intimate level. It's used many, many times in Scripture. Psalm 44:21 says, "For He knows (yada) the secrets of the heart." King David says to God in Psalm 119:125, "I am your servant; give me understanding, so that I may know (yada) your decrees." It's the best, most thorough desire to know something or someone. If people when making love were thinking about how deeply they are desiring to know and respect the one they are with, it would certainly give "hook ups" a pause for hesitation.

There is no deeper, more beautiful, more loving way to "know" your spouse than through love making as God designed. Those who would pervert that by isolating what and who it is for, don't understand the relationship God intended for a man and woman as they "become one flesh" both physically and spiritually.

Now we aren't going to go into intricacies here, but we will make some book recommendations for you. There are two in particular that we highly recommend that were recommended to us: "The Gift of Sex" by Clifford and Joyce Penner and "Intended For Pleasure" by Dr. Ed and Gaye Wheat. If you feel uneasy about purchasing them or borrowing them from the library, you are welcome to borrow ours (oh, stop the "Ewww" ing). We read both books before we got married ... and after, too. Lots of great pieces of information and advice.

We are so thankful to God that He loved us and marriage so much that He gave this beautiful gift to husbands and wives. It's fun, exhilarating, sweet, erotic, gentle, precious and, well, necessary, especially if we're going to have any grandbabies in the future. But lets keep it in the proper order shall we? "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage."

Discussion: Do you think sex is something you need to learn more about or just experience as you go along? How sacred is loving making to you? Do you have any questions for each other?

Prayer: Oh, how You love us Lord! How blessed we are to be so loved by You. Father, we pray we approach love making as You intended. May we deeply, intimately know and respect one another. In Christ's name, Amen.