Let's Talk About S-E-X

This is just a guess, but seeing the title of this blog post probably evoked a lot of different reactions from all of y'all (I've provided some gifs to the right that might help you identify how you feel). That's okay - talking about sex does that to people. Depending on a lot of things - how you were raised, what you believe, your personal experiences - there's a whole gamete of influence on how you feel about all things sexual.

I minor in Women's and Gender Studies and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer Sexuality Studies so I talk about and study a lot of these things...a lot. Here is what I'm finding out more and more about Christians - we do not talk about sexuality or sex very much and if we do, it's usually super, super awkward. You may or may not have heard at this point in your lives about "The Feminist Pespective." Many of you probably cringe or roll your eyes and mutter "feminists" under your breath which I accept. I'm a feminist, a Christian, and also someone very interested in sex and sexuality.

Hold up, girl say what?!

If you are a mom (I know my mom reads these, soooo...), a dad, an adult, a youngster in your teens or a mid-adult in your twenty-somethings, some of you were just like, you can't talk about this! It is not okay to talk about these things! Others of you were thinking that an intersection between being a Christian means you can't like sex or anything sexual.

Calm down and stop jumping to conclusions and judgments and what-have-yous. This blog isn't going into too much depth yet, look at this as a preview of posts to come.

I'm trying to lay some basic ground work with you and open up your thoughts and maybe even some conversations.  Here's what I'd like to introduce you to right now, maybe these are new ideas, maybe not. Just consider them:

1. Sex is not a bad thing.

2. God created sex as something to be enjoyed, something pleasurable.

3. He also created boundaries for sex, because like any good thing, sex can also be used in the wrong way and there are consequences for that.

That's a good start to think about.

If you are a young women (men I would speak to you, but you aren't really my specialty so I'm going to leave that to another man) I want to say this to you:'

I am sorry that you are growing up in a culture that tells you that you need to be sexy and that a lot of your value comes from that. I am sorry that you walk down streets and men think it is okay to whistle at you, stare at you, or make other comments about your body. I am sorry that you have been told to "remain pure" with an unspoken threat of - "because if you don't and you blow it, you aren't valuable anymore, you are damaged goods." I want you to know that sex does not determine your worth. Your past and present do not determine it, neither does your future. You have already been given value of indeterminable worth by Jesus Christ and nothing you have done, are doing, or will do tarnishes that value. EVER. I'm sorry that you are immersed in a culture that raises you to present yourself as a sexual object and then that same culture criticizes you and attaches labels like "slut" if you conform to those standards or expects you to walk away unharmed in a world where sex is treated as casual. You have been lied to, wounded, and I want you to know that there is more and this is not how God designed you to be treated. There is more. We will talk about this more because YOU NEED TO KNOW because NO ONE HAS TOLD YOU.

Alright! Groundwork laid! If that has your interest piqued and your heart primed to read more, here's a couple resources I'm working through that are helpful for me to understand what I'm going to try and write about more. Especially if you read this and are thinking - not another purity talk, it's a little late for me now - you really need to hear this.

Here's an excellent book:

Sex and the Soul of a Woman
- Paula Rinehart

Fact: My Dad gave my older sister and I this book three or four years ago and said he would pay us each $100 to read it and talk about it with him. I have not read it until about a week ago, so Dad, get ready to pay up. :)

Also I love the book but want to throw up on the cover.

These three conference sessions are SO GOOD. Especially if you have been exposed to feminism, gender roles, etc. You will love this. There are three talks about an hour or so long and they are SO. GOOD. 

 Click here to listen to Radical Womanhood provided by Coram Deo Church in Omaha, NE.

Paul was a Total Sass-Pants

Let's be real - Paul would never have
been caught dead in these stripes..

Paul, as in, the Apostle Paul? I think he was a total sass-pants and I love it. I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks (ever since I posted Bananas Suck) to figure out what I like so much about Paul and I've figured out that this is it:

Paul does not change from before he has an experience with Christ.

Okay, let me explain that. I don't mean that he wasn't changed by Christ- he definitely was!

What I mean was, Paul did not change his personality.

He understood (something I still sometimes forget) that God has created him in a specific way, he was a sass pants before (outspoken, confident, a loud-mouth, passionate, zealous, etc.) he encountered Christ as well as after.

For me, it is really easy to think - "Okay, I have Christ, so now I should start to restructure myself and the way I act and my personality to fit what I think a Christian should be like."

False!

You and I, like Sass-Pants Paul - were each given a specifically designed personality. Embrace that - don't try and compare yourself to those around you but instead reflect on yourself and take a gander at the amazing, unique design that creates YOU.

**If you're wondering where I got most of my impression that Paul had a little sassy in him, I got that out of Phillipians, studying a little of Paul's life and this YouTube video - The Apostle Paul, His Life and Ministry Part 1 of 2**

Why I Love to Dance :)

One of my favorite things is smiling. It's the natural state of my face and I literally cannot frown - ask me to show you and you'll get a great laugh because I cannot actually get my lips to turn down into a frown. Anyway I was thinking on the way home from church about how much I love to dance. Particularly swing dance (if you tango or anything else fancy, are male and six feet or taller and want to teach me, please let me know) and according to multiple dance partners I must smile while we dance. A LOT. Possibly almost excessively.

Frowning is as painful as it looks

Anyway, I was thinking about that and I know exactly why I smile so much while I dance. It has absolutely nothing to do with the dance partner - not that I don't enjoy the person, there's just a bigger reason. I've narrowed it down to spinning whilst dancing that I feel so completely like a daughter of God - I'm delighting in the dance, and allowing myself to be delighted in. I feel that connection that I am God's daughter, a princess, and dancing and twirling is integrated with my views of princess life and I just LOVE IT! I LOVE being romanced! And dancing for me, regardless of who it is with is romantic because I have a connection with Christ through it. I'm getting all smiley just thinking about it. :) :)

God has really, really changed my perspectives about Him and I this Summer in showing me how intimately He loves and pursues me as a lover. A lot of that is through romance. I had to understand that true romance isn't done as a required part of 'love,' it is a - "Let me show you that I love you. This has nothing to do with you meeting my expectations, nothing to do with requirements, let me whisper to you that I love you and am doing this for you just to show you that. There is no catch."

Romance, like love, is undeserved.

This weekend I was out at a vineyard picking grapes and watched the sun go down over the vineyard while someone was singing love songs in the background. Whaaat? Can we talk about romance at its finest?! And then the next morning I watched the sun come up over the vineyard. Gorgeous. So gorgeous, and all planned for me.

This is a little bit off the beaten path, but still on the side of romance. I was thinking about this the last couple days as I talked with some friends about life and love and all that jazz.

No woman I have met believes 100% of the time (I battle back and forth with this constantly) that she is deserving of love and out of that, not deserving of true romance. I wish I could count the number of times that I have told another woman how deserving of love and a truly wonderful, loving husband and how any man would be truly lucky to spend life together with her. I hear myself thinking - "I completely believe that for this woman - what man would not want to call her 'mine'? - but then there is always a whisper in the back of my heart that says - "For her, yes. She deserves all the love and romance and devotion in the world - but not you." I honestly believe so many women feel the same way - that each woman deserves the love of a husband but in the back of their hearts there is a whisper that says- "They do, but not you."

If you read that and identified this, take this as me grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking that thought out of your lonely heart! You ARE deserving. That whisper is Satan trying to feed you a lie that for some reason, because of something you have done in your past or something you have never done and will never do enough of you do not deserve to be loved in a deep way, you do not deserve that divine romance your heart longs for. That's a lie. You are treasured by Christ in a deeper, more romantic and intimate way than your heart has ever known and he longs for you to know Him back in the way your heart aches for.

He is pursuing you relentlessly. You are loved.

Seriously though - this is pretty romantic.