It had been a long day with the kids and I was relieved to see his car pull in the driveway. As he walked in the door and dropped his briefcase by the steps, his long countenance and empty glance said it all. He was discouraged, drained and defeated from another day of high pressure at work.
Without hesitation I started talking, listing the events and emotions of my day with our kids. Then when all I heard was silence from across the room, I paused to really look at him. His face looked at mine, but I could tell he couldn’t identify, much less interact. His heart was distant. Not because he didn’t love us, but because he was discouraged. And drained. And tired.
My first instinct was to feel hurt that he wasn’t chatty and immediately able jump into conversation with me. To feel offended that he would come home and not be able to talk with me when talking with him is what I wanted most. I was tempted to shut down and give him the cold shoulder.
Then I had another idea.
…I could love him in this place of discouragement with the gift of myself, even if I don’t feel very connected at first.
And so I did. And I’ll never forget what happened next. As we connected physically, his heart was comforted and as a result it became open, tender and attentive to me in a way that was nearly impossible before.
I realized that night that sex really is a gift from God, and that I have the unique power to initiate love with my husband when he needs me most.
This experience changed the way I see my role as wife and the gift of sex. It showed me how incredibly powerful I am, and what a gift I can be to my husband.
When I speak to women about marriage, I reiterate this reality: that they, too, are powerful.
Powerful beyond what they may think or feel. Equipped with a natural, God-given sexual power.
And as wives, we have the chance to use that power in an amazingly loving and healing way.
We all have places of vulnerabilities. And whether they express it or not, our husbands regularly deal with feelings of inadequacy, discouragement and overall vulnerability. But God has made it so that His good gift of sex in marriage can be like a balm to those places of insecurity and fear.
In an article talking about the sexual disconnect between men and women, Shaunti Feldhahn wrote this…
[box style=”1 or 2″]”Men have far more self-doubt than women realize. Pleasurable stimulation hits men right where it hurts, and makes them feel better. One man told me, ‘A guy might be feeling like a failure at work but being intimate with his wife … makes him feel like he does measure up. It is a salve that goes very deep.’ When a man is intimate with his wife, he experiences true comfort and care…”[/box]
Sex and a man’s emotions are deeply intertwined. And we, as wives, are powerfully equipped to give them that sort of love, that sort of comfort. We’re NEVER to use that power to manipulate, but to be ministers to the hearts of our men through intimacy.
We have the power to build them up when life tears them down. The power to help them remember who they are and that we are fully with them and for them. The power to believe in them and see them rise to the occasion of being the men they were created to be.
I consider it a sacred gift from God, to be that powerful.
I consider it a gift to be able to love our men in a tangible way that no one else can. A gift to initiate intimacy when they are too discouraged or tired. A gift of ourselves that is given in a private, sacred, tender atmosphere of love. A gift that reaches the deepest places of their hearts and has the ability to grow, and glue, and ground a marriage.
Yes- in His design of marriage, God made sex that good and wives that powerful…and we have the opportunity to harness that power to see deeper levels of breakthrough f0r our men and in our marriages.
Friends, let’s use that power well. Because in the end, it’s not only our husbands who are blessed, we are.