crying #2

#2: (which I mostly wrote yesterday)

So, this part is for the ladies, my sisters in spirit, my girlfriends. Gentlemen, please excuse us.  Thank you.

  Christine over at "Welcome to My Brain" does this annual event that she just this year re-christened "Sexuary." It is something that is so bold, so amazing, so sister-strong, and I am totally convicted by it. Last year, when I stumbled upon her series, I was in a heart-heavy, romantically dead place. Hey, it happens. My emotions are just too tied up with my body, and with my spirit, and it is almost impossible for me to separate them. Maybe I'm not supposed to. But then if one part of me is hurting, it affects everything else, and sex with my husband--the way God intended, a full joining of body and spirit and heart and purpose--is impossible. Now, I know most of the time sex is nothing like any ideal, and partners are often tired, out of shape, incommunicative, complacent, insensitive, stuck in a rut. . . whatever. Basically, our sex lives are no different than the rest of our lives, and while we all have our fantastic moments, usually we live in some range of pretty good to just ok. And that's ok.

But last year, even though my heart did not feel like it, I closed my eyes and jumped into it, and DH and I "participated" in the celebration last year, in our own way. And it was really good--yeah, yeah, that way too, but I'm talking about for my heart, my spirit.

Then, since I turned 40 last Fall, I have been really wanting to shake things up a bit for myself, choose to make the last half of my life even better than the first. I am still the same flawed person I was in my 30's, but hopefully a little wiser. I see so many ways I am not living life well, living fully, and I want to change those things. I want to live life to its fullest, and am targeting specific things to do differently this year. I hope to blog about some of those ways as I grow and stretch this next year.

Now, this topic of sex is one that, as you can imagine, is a little too personal to actually write about. Except it is really not about sex--it is about loving fully, accepting my sagging 40-year-old body fully, shedding past hurts fully, trusting God fully, submitting my fears and pride and heart fully, embracing Truth fully. Those things I can write about. ; ) And those things were all in my head and heart when I read the first "sexuary" post weeks ago--and I cried. God is talking to me, sisters. He has Good things in store for me, and this is clearly one area in which He wants to heal my wounded spirit and lift me up. (And now I'm crying again. But it's ok--better to be crying than to be closed off.) And read this post today--and cried.

So, ladies, sisters, girlfriends--if you are a married woman,* I strongly urge you to jump over and read those posts, and consider what's going on with you and your man.  And let me just suggest, that one's sex/heart/spirit life is never too good for a fun boost (esp. to marital morale).  Conversely, if you are feeling the least bit threatened, sad, scared, heart-heavy or heart-hard after reading those posts, you are not the only one, and this might be a time for you to stretch yourself and consider what's going on.  You might find the experiment growing, healing, liberating.  At the very least, your husband will likely be really happy, and you might be able to milk that to your benefit.  ; )



*Christine's posts are so honest, so true, and she has created a space in which women are encouraged to be vulnerable, to speak freely--which makes these posts so good for women, but inapporpriate for young'uns.