“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”
Ephesians 3:19-20 NLT
1am- Tonight I am sitting here awake, running over the list of disappointments I have about myself, while my husband sleeps on my pillow next to our toddler. Tonight I sit here wondering if all this is worth it. Intentional intimacy with my husband, being vulnerable and honest, even in the middle of sex, trying to honestly communicate what I want when I have more than two decades of misinformation, mistakes, and wounds from trying to misuse sex. I’m not saying I have had bad sex that whole time, or that every encounter was terrible, but I certainly have huge regrets about how I lived before I met my husband, and deep wounds from coming into a marriage without God or healing from my past. And I lived unwittingly in the lie that sex was about my body being used for pleasure by someone else, that I was an object and all my power stemmed from my ability to use myself, that my value was tied up in my ability to please a man, and that if I had a physical desire for sex, I could handle that alone. What I was missing, what was missing for as long as I can remember, was the intimacy that should have been paramount to a sexual relationship. I never considered sex as sacred, but nothing was sacred in those days. And even for the first decade of my marriage, my husband and I had great sex, but we also had passionless sex, angry and disappointed sex, drunk sex, faked sex, business transaction sex. And we never talked about what all of this was doing to our overall relationship. Or, sex became a weapon we could use against each other, bringing up our bedroom in the middle of battle, choosing the most intimate part of our lives as the arrow to pierce the heart of the other person. All our doubts and fears about ourselves and each other were tangled up in our desire to feel loved and connected, and sex was an outlet for that jumbled mess of fleshly and heavenly desires.
Ugh, that’s intense. I know.
Uncomfortable? I am.
Quitting? I’m not.
Why not? Because I asked God if it is worth it in the end. Sitting on the side of my bed, utterly disappointed with my life in that second, I said out loud into the darkness, “Is this all worth it in the end, God?” And because He is faithful, the Holy Spirit answered me.
And the Holy Spirit loves me enough to give me more than “Yes” or “No” answers. Instead our conversation went like this. “There is power in Me that you haven’t accessed yet.” “Ok. But how is vulnerability helping me when I feel so disappointed right now? How long will this part last?” At this point, I felt the Spirit show me that I had all these layers of myself I need to peel away, all this stuff I have to get rid of, before I could really step into what I was being offered. Like, I simultaneously understood and actually saw something for a moment. More or less superimposed on my bedroom floor, i saw a glowing deep pink colored flower with all the petals being opened and pulled away individually, each of the petals losing their luster as they were removed, while the center of the flower grew brighter.
Whoa. Ok. Let’s pause here a moment. God just revealed a sudden mental image (I won’t say vision, because, seriously, like… no peyote, no vision, man.) to me as His answer to my question. Was it a direct answer? Nope. But it’s so much better than I could have imagined.
Side note, this isn’t the first time that God has shown me a vision of a flower as a representation of me. I had totally forgotten about the last time, until this exact moment.
Yes! Here! This is wild!!! This is from late August or early September 2022. I can clearly remember this moment, because I had zoned out completely and snapped out of it when I heard in my mind that last thought. I wrote it down immediately, and haven’t looked at it since.
Totally wild. That was such a vivid image in my mind, and one of the first times I felt compelled to write down something that I felt was from God. It sounded so cheesy when I wrote it down that I never thought I would share it with anyone. Ha! Ok, small detour over, now let’s get back to our story:
I asked if vulnerability was worth all this discomfort, and God showed me a vision of a rose, dying petals falling away, while the bud grows brighter. As for how long will it last? “How long will it take to remove these things?” That’s about as clear as God saying “soon” about anything. But, the pressing feeling I had in that space was compassion, acceptance, approval. God acknowledged that I have a lot of stuff to get rid of, and let me know that He would be in it with me for as long as it takes. He sees me. But if I want real freedom from those parts of me that are dying, that are cutting me off from God, I can’t quit now. I can’t give up on what I am doing.
So, here I sit in my darkened room, bawling silently as I have a conversation with God that started with middle of the night disappointment, and ended with the Holy Spirit giving me hope. I came to God feeling defeated about my commitment to being intentionally intimate with my husband. I came to God feeling like I was a failure, and ready to throw in the towel. I came to God because I am learning to be obedient to Him and seek Him first. And God? He met me in that moment. He took my hand before I could sink below the waves, he pulled me back up from the dark spiral before I gave in to it. He met me where I was, and He reminded me that I am a work in progress, His Work. He reminded me that He sees potential in me that I haven’t even imagined yet. This is what walking in relationship with God looks like for me right now. Crying because I want to quit on my own progress, then crying because God showed me why I shouldn’t give up. I have matured in my relationship from salvation to intentionally shedding my old self. And if God or I have anything to say about it, the new self that I am putting on will be able to do so much more than I could ask or imagine.
Oh, God. Thank you for your neverending faithfulness to us. Thank you for speaking to me. Thank you for giving me hope. Thank you for helping me see what You see in me. Jesus, help me to put off my old self, that I may be more like You each day. Don’t let me run from the richness of the intimacy that is available in my marriage. Don’t let me pull away from my husband. Instead, remind me that I have to put on this new self and to be intentional in my choice to follow You, and live worthy of the life you have given me. Holy Spirit, embolden me to pursue intimacy in my marriage. Give me courage to be open and honest with my husband, and give him the same desire for me. Holy Spirit, draw us closer to You, to each other, so that our marriage will be a testimony to Your power, grace, and love. Amen.
“So I, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called [that is, to live a life that exhibits godly character, moral courage, personal integrity, and mature behavior—a life that expresses gratitude to God for your salvation],”
Ephesians 4:1 AMP
3/11/23- Update! Tonight, I’m not letting my husband sleep. Intimacy is worth it, working through the hang ups and miscommunications, and ALL THOSE YEARS we didn’t have God in our home. There are valid reasons I don’t want to do this tonight, but a lot of them sound like excuses when I compare them to the possibility of experiencing those moments of intense connection with my husband. Sorry if no one made it clear before, but sex is vital to a marriage, and yes, one of the most uncomfortable topics for anyone. The whole topic of healthy sex in a marriage seems to be taboo at church, but at the same time the world of porn and the internet have convinced us that we are not enough, that our partner isn’t enough, that we are the ones who are broken or different. No, instead of bringing these things to the light, it’s left in the dark for people to deal with on their own. Can you compete with TikTok and PornHub or the false belief that anything there is real or good? Can you honestly examine your sexual history, whatever it looks like, and not see wounds that are affecting your marriage? How about your partner’s past? And the enemy is there in your head whispering comparisons, shame, disappointments. Are you willing to take all these things to God, and leave them there? Have you ever asked the Holy Spirit for the courage to say “Yes” to your own spouse, when it is so much easier to say “Later” or “I’m tired” or just clean until he falls asleep? Are you willing to look at your spouse and say, “I feel ugly and old and fat and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to love me, let alone look at me naked and want to love me.” Is it worth it to give them the chance anyway?
Here’s the thing. God is working for my good, and my marriage is being redeemed even now. God is healing my relationship with my husband, but I can’t just pray for my marriage bed. I have to get in it occasionally, even if I have to psych myself up first. I have to put in the effort if I want to see the results. Which means intentionally aligning my heart with God’s heart for my marriage, and processing those things that keep me isolating or avoiding intimacy. Tonight it means intentionally seeking physical intimacy with my husband, and maybe finding myself happier on the other side of it.
I mean, I’m already losing one hour of sleep to stupid Daylight Savings, why not make it two?
Chelsea Finds Jesus 
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