“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man and his wife were naked and they felt no shame.” (Genesis 2:7, 22, 25)
The first marriage story ever told goes something like this:
God makes a bunch of creatures, including a boy and a bunch of animals.
Boy checks out all the animals, but there is no one that “floats his boat.”
GOD: “It’s not good for the boy to be by himself. I’ll make the best fit for him”.
God makes a girl from the very flesh and bones of the boy. God sets up a not-so-blind date for the two of them.
BOY (after seeing girl for first time): “At last! She is all that I’ve been looking for! Thank you God! She is beautiful! She is part of me!”
Boy and girl are naked and they feel no shame. Boy and girl become one.
Time goes by and after working in a beautiful garden and enjoying companionship with each other and with God, girl meets up with a destroyer of all the goodness. Girl is convinced that God is holding out on her and not giving her what she needs.
GIRL: “I don’t need God. I’ve got this. He’s not to be trusted.”
Girl acts from that place of disconnection from God.
GIRL: “Come boy! Do what I do. We really only need each other.”
BOY: “Okay. Sounds great to me.”
Boy acts from the same place of disconnection from God.
Boy and girl now realize they are naked and they feel shame. Boy and girl cover up and hide.
GOD: “Where are you boy and girl?”
BOY: “I am hiding from you.”
GOD: “Why?”
BOY (blames the girl): “She made me do it.”
GOD: “Why girl?”
GIRL: “Someone else made me do it.”
Disconnection → hiding → shame → blame. This is how Allen and I lived for many years. The cycle repeated endlessly. We lived how Albert Einstein defines insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” It wasn’t like we weren’t trying hard. Believe me. We were. We just didn’t know how to get off the hamster wheel.
God designed us for the opposite of the above cycle. His original design for marriage is connection → vulnerability → responsibility → grace → intimacy. It’s the same as His perfect plan for His relationship with us, our journeys of FAITH in Him (there it finally is…the F you were waiting for…see the rest at the end of the post).
God longs for each of us to be “naked and unashamed” (fully-known and fully-loved) with Him. But why does it matter?
The vicious cycle of disconnection → hiding → shame → blame is a destroyer of souls, hearts, minds, even bodies. That’s why it matters. It does NOT work for good. It does NOT bring wholeness or healing. God wants something better for us. He has actually created us to have the same relationship with Him that He does with Jesus, the “I and the Father are One” kind of relationship Jesus speaks so freely of. He wants us to be One, naked and unashamed. How can this happen?
CONNECTION: It starts here. God wants us to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved by Him no matter what. This is not an easy undertaking. We have had voices of fear, guilt and shame that have permeated our lives and many times, we have associated them with God. Repenting (which just means “changing your mind or thinking a new thought”) is the first step. The truth about God, not what you’ve heard and assumed all your life is that He loves you. No matter what. His great desire for you is that you live from the place of this unconditional loving connection with Him.
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VULNERABILITY: When we struggle and fail, he wants to deepen that connection without hiding, but with vulnerability, putting ourselves in the place of trusting Him and His love for us. Vulnerability is when we make ourselves susceptible to the judgment of others, when we let our guards down and relinquish control. It’s scary. It involves risk. We might be rejected. The good news is that God will never reject us. He is safe because He can be completely trusted with our struggles and our strengths, our trials and our triumphs. He isn’t going anywhere. He will never leave us or forsake us.
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RESPONSIBILITY: This safe place with God allows us to be free to take responsibility for our lives, our actions and our emotions, instead of playing the blame game. Taking ownership of our own brokenness, without the self-deprecating place of blame and/or shame is a tricky path to walk. Recognizing our own humanness and frailties and then bringing that out into the light with God is a wonderful giant leap on this journey towards intimacy with Him.
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GRACE: God responds to this out of His own complete goodness. He responds to us with grace, which simply means unearned favor. Instead of shaming us, He is kind to us. Instead of cursing us, He blesses us. Instead of turning His back on us, He turns His face towards us. Instead of sending us away, He pulls us close.
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INTIMACY: Naked and unashamed. My favorite phrase in the English language. Fully-known and fully-loved. The definition of intimacy. What we all long for at the depths of our being. This is the end result of all the hard work. Completely worth it. It is the healer of souls, hearts, minds and even bodies.
As you can see, our marriages are designed to reflect this beautiful cycle of intimacy, the oneness we all long for, with God and with each other. Marriage is unique, the only human place where this can take place in all of its fullness. We are designed to know and be known, fully without shame: spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. How amazing of God to have invited us to experience this with another human being in the covenant of marriage. I have been given the gift of Allen. He has been given the gift of me. We both have been given the gift of this life-long union. Here’s to opening our gifts every day for the rest of our lives.♥
Thank you for reading today! Please feel free to “like” out on social media or here! Thank you again!
For the rest of the “F’s” in the series on marriage, click on the following links:
Family of Origin
Fidelity
Flaws
Faithfulness
Forecast
Friendship
Fighting
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The Dolly Mama 