Song of Songs 4:7

Tara Leigh. Student at Azusa Pacific University. Follower and lover and passionate about Christ. I love community. I love to learn.

[this-abounding-grace-deactivate]

It is amazing how clear things become when we are still before Him, not complaining, not insisting on quick answers, only seeking to hear His word in the stillness, and to see things in His light.

Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart (via this-abounding-grace)

[psych-facts]

The worst distance between two people is misunderstanding.

(via cattedrali)

[yesdarlingido]

When you feel like you’re not getting anywhere in a conflict with someone you love, the best way to bypass that verbal roadblock is to take an internal path instead of the cognitive one. You can shift the conversation not by going deeper into the details, but deeper into the feelings attached to the details. Like this–“when [blank] happened, I felt [blank].” This shift is important because it changes the goal from being more right, to being more understood. When you move out of content and into feeling, your brain shifts from protecting against a threat, and into a mode that bids for connection.

L, thoughts of a therapist (via yesdarlingido)

[yesdarlingido]

What is marriage if it is not the ability to adjust regularly to new normals? It requires flexibility that accommodates reality and a willingness to redefine expectations. As circumstances change, so must we.

L, marriage // year two (via yesdarlingido)

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.

Barry H. Gillespie (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[a-joyfuljourney]

Paulina || @deer.home

[yesdarlingido]

Most people either compromise or drop their greatest talents and start running after, what they perceive to be, a more reasonable success, and somewhere in between they end up with a discontented settlement. Safety is indeed stability, but it is not progression.

Criss Jami (via yesdarlingido)

[taco-bell-rey]

i bet he’s been waiting all year to post this

[angelmutual]

i bet he posts it every year and all his friends are probably tired of hearing it now

[wordsnquotes]

I love you, that means I’m not just here for the pretty parts. I’m here no matter what.

Claudia Gray, Hourglass (via wordsnquotes)

[mountainsbymountains-deactivate]

[grace--upon--grace]

Rachael Johnson

[delta-breezes]

[graceandgracey]

Look to your perfect Lord, and remember, you are complete in Him.

Charles Spurgeon (via amyelizabethlove)

[a-joyfuljourney]

[death-by-elocution]

[observando]

Nature is woman’s best friend,’ she often said. ‘If you’re having troubles, you just swim in the water, stretch out in a field, or look up at the stars. That’s how a woman cures her fears’.

Fatema Mernissi (via observando)

[yesdarlingido]

I turned in my theology of sex paper. 

You know what it did for me? It took away a lot of the fear I had about raising children one day and how daunting it felt to think of walking alongside them as a loving, safe, and approachable parent who can normalize, educate, and celebrate their sexuality as that part of their identity develops.

That may sound strange that I think of my future kids, especially in regard to such a specific topic, but how we understand and interact with the topic of sexuality will reflect heavily in the way we pass it down to our children. Either we will be their first and most impressionable reference point for how they conceptualize sex and sexuality, or our avoidance and discomfort with it will leave it up to the world to imprint its message onto them. The choice to develop your own theology of sex has implications, and it will have the most ripple effects in the life of your children if you become a parent one day. So that’s where the daunting pressure comes from for me.

But, like I said, I turned in my paper. And after finishing it, I have so much more confidence–excitement, even, that if we are parents one day, we are going to actively and intentionally instill the meaning and value of sexual wholeness. Granted, we will seek to humbly and faithfully provide a framework and foundation for sexual wholeness, and they will decide what to do with it.

Here are a few main points of my theology of sex: 

Our sexuality is the energy inside of us that works incessantly against our being alone. It is the messenger that speaks of humanity’s innate need for intimacy. My use of the term sexuality does not revolve around sex–I see them as related, but distinct. What I mean is that apart from sex, each person still possesses their own sexuality. So, while sex is an action, I use the term sexuality as a wide-brushstroke term to refer to the force driving our personhood to seek out and create connection. This distinction is crucial to my theology.

Here is my definition of sexuality: the desire to receive and the capacity to give love. Further, it is desire to know and be known. Sexuality lies at the core of our spiritual being, as it is the willingness to move closer to one another. 

Our desire for sex is a response to our knowing, at the deepest level, that we have been cut off—separated in our sin, disconnected from the model in which we were created to live and move and have our being. Our sexuality bears witness to our original design to be connected without shame, without fear, without condition, without striving.

Sexuality is sacrificial when it is used for relational nourishment. This is the distinction between gratification and edification. When your sexuality is self focused, it will fester idolatry. When your sexuality is other focused, it will foster community.

Virginity won’t make you pure, and sex won’t make you whole. Christ alone is our purity, and our salvation is what redeems our brokenness until it is restored in eternity (more on this at the end).

Fleeing from sexual immorality does not mean to flee from your sexuality. Sexuality is a part of you, given by God, and intended to reflect His nature. It reflects the design of creation prior to the fall–complete connectedness, without reserve, without barriers, without shame, and without the fear of abandonment, exploitation, abuse, or betrayal.

The goal of sex is oneness, not orgasm. Arousal is the drive for connection, not orgasm. You can choose orgasm over connection, but this is only an external relief to an internal need. Orgasm is the result, but it is not the purpose. If you can remember this, it will change the game of your sex life. Prioritize orgasm, and you will miss oneness. Prioritize oneness, and you will likely get to have both.

Oxytocin levels increase 500-600x in partnered orgasm. This does not happen during masturbation. This is more than a religious imposition of morality–this is biology. Brain chemistry shows us that you were made for more than orgasm. You were made for intimacy. 

This one was my biggest epiphany–there will be no sex in Heaven, and if you’re disappointed by this, as I was, it is because we don’t understand what sex is, and we have confused sexuality to mean sexual activity. There will not be sex in Heaven–not because it is bad, or a “necessary evil,” or even that it is without eternal purpose, but the exact opposite, actually. Sex isn’t evil, but it will no longer be necessary. You seek sex to satisfy needs (connection, intimacy, relief, love.) Eternity does not strip you of these needs, but fully satisfies them. We will not be asexual in Heaven, but sexual and satisfied. On earth, we are sexual and dissatisfied. 

Remember that sex and sexuality are distinct from one another. In sex and in orgasm, we briefly taste what we are meant for. In heaven, there will be no need for the physical partaking of intercourse or for the physical release of orgasm, for we will be fully connected to each other in full communion, eternally relieved of our striving to know and be known. We will be restored to the design of our Creator–fully known, fully loved, fully satisfied, and eternally at peace, intimately interconnected.