Do You Feel Safe?

A friend of mine went to a celebration of 67th wedding anniversary.  What a commitment!

What makes a strong relationship?  From my experience it is not through experimentation.  It is not through jumping the gun and becoming intimate at the drop of a hat.  One night stands and multiple marriages do not foster good relationships.

Patience, waiting until marriage to share yourself with someone, is a big item.  Did I wait? No.  I had more than one marriage and I can tell you all the things you can do to mess things up.  The biggest one is throwing away a gift that you have to give and can give only once.  Yes, I am talking about your virginity.  It is something that once you lose you can never get back.  You can never give it twice.  Once it is gone, it is - gone.  The same is true for a man. 

When you do find the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, do you want to go to your marriage bed with all the dreams and aspirations of everyone you have previously had sex with?  Or, do you want to share the newness of life and all the dreams to come with one person?

The problem today is that virginity is not highly regarded.  It is often regarded as a nuisance to be dispensed with as soon as one finds a willing "partner."  It is thought of as outmoded.  It is old fashioned.  It is unnecessary.  We have lost the value of love.  We often regard sex as simply a way to release frustration and we lose the closeness and the wonder of it all. 

We have lost that feeling of safety.  What if this one is the same as all the rest?  How many have there been?  Two?  Three?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty-five?  A hundred?  How does one feel safe when one knows what he or she has done and is secretly wondering if the other has done the same, more or less?

How do you feel safe when you are wondering if they will be there in the morning?  How do you feel safe wondering if you need to get checked for STDs?  How do you feel safe wondering if they will share your pillow talk with their co-workers or team-mates? 

Do you physically share yourself on the first date?  Maybe the second date?  Maybe without a date?  Did you get their name?

It really is not a matter of what makes you feel good right now.   Ice cream makes me feel good, but I have not formed a life-long commitment to it. 

Where do you get your advice for maintaining a relationship?  Do you get it from other people with failed relationships or do you go to someone who has a long term marriage? 

Do you keep doing the same thing with every man or woman you meet?  Do you expect different results?  Have you had a psych evaluation?  If you do the same thing over and over and expect different results, then maybe you need to have your head examined.  That is the true meaning of insanity.  It is also what the US government does each year.  You see what kind of mess we are in as a result.  The same thing is true with relationships.

If you have been having sex with all your mates and it is not working, that ought to tell you something.  Sex, good, bad or indifferent, is NOT the way to get a long term relationship started.  Even if you have been doing it for years, you can put on the brakes and do things differently.  It is not going to hurt you to try.  You are not doing so great as it is.  It worked for me.

My husband and I have celebrated our 19th year together as husband and wife.  We were living together when I got saved.  At that moment, I said we would not be together again until we got married.  It was not a problem for me.  My husband (then lover) was confused, but willingly went along with my desire to remain totally sex free until we were married.  At that time, we had lived together for almost 2 years. 

When he asked me why, I told him that GOD did not like what we were doing and it had to stop.  Period, end of discussion.  I thought it would be horrible.  It was not bad at all.  It was refreshing to know that I could have a man interested in something other than that and really, truly know for sure.

We are human beings with control over ourselves.  We are not animals.  We know the difference between right and wrong and we can control our emotions and our physical desires.  You can do it.  It is not the end of the world to wait for sexual expression and to only have it within marriage.  In fact it is much, much better than without a secure marriage.  The flesh does not have to have control over us.

You can feel safe in a relationship, but you have to know your boundaries.  Holding hands leads to hugging which leads to kissing which leads to touching things that are better left alone until after marriage. 

If a man or woman tells you that they do not want to be intimate until after marriage, respect that and wait.  It will not kill you.  It will help.  Follow Scriptural guidelines for relationships and it will be better.  It worked for me.  My only regret is that this revelation came so late in life.

Shalom.  Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.