Day Seventeen: "Love Promotes Intimacy"

"He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends."

– Proverbs 17:9 

Each of us comes into life with an inborn hunger to be known, love, and accepted. We want people to know your name, to recognize us when they see us, and to value who we are. The prospect of sharing our home with another person who knows us down to the most intimate detail is part of the deep pleasure of marriage.

Yet this great blessing is also the site of its greatest danger. Someone who knows us this intimately can either love us at a depth we never imagined, or can wound us in ways we may never fully recover from. It’s both the fire and the fear of marriage.

If home is not considered a place of safety, you will both be tempted to seek it somewhere else. Perhaps you might look to another person initiating a relationship that either flirts with adultery or actually enters in. You may look for comfort in work or outside hobbies, something that partially shields you from intimacy but also keeps you around people who respect and accept you.

Some of these secrets may need correcting. Therefore, you can be an agent of healing and repair – not by lecturing, not by criticizing, but by listening in love and offering support.

Some of these secrets just need to be accepted. They are part of this person’s make-up and history. And though these issues may not be very pleasant to deal with, they will always require a gentle touch.

In either case, you and you alone wield the power either to reject your spouse because of this or to welcome them in – warts and all. They will either know they’re in a place of safety where they are free to make mistakes, or they will recoil into themselves and be lost to you, perhaps forever. Loving them well should be your life’s work.

The reality of intimacy always takes time to develop, especially after being compromised. But your commitment to re-establishing it can happen today – for anyone willing to take the dare.

The Dare: "Determine to guard your mate’s secrets (unless they are dangerous to them or to you) and to pray for them. Talk with your spouse, and resolve to demonstrate love in spite of these issues. Really listen to them when they share personal thoughts and struggles with you. Make them feel safe."

The Outcome: It is taboo to think your mate will not have a past. Love isn't blind to the reality that you were not always the first priority in your spouse's life. After all, you didn't meet them at three years old and vow to be theirs from that day on. Other people, other interests, other desires were there before you were. One thing you don't anticipate is  your past catching up with your present reality. 

I know most things about Nathan, past and present. His struggles. His fears. His likes and dislikes. He knows the same about me. When we married seven and a half years ago, we were on cloud nine. Nothing and no one could stand in our way. There was no other priority (interest or person) that could rival the passion we had in our hearts for one another. That was seven years, many disappointments, many broken promises and many heartaches ago. 

Something happened somewhere in between those years. We got lazy. We stopped learning about each other. We allowed struggles and temptations of our past to sway us from the road we had traveled down together. Things pulled us away from each other. We reached a point where we weren't sure we could, or even wanted, to return to that road again. Our pasts that had obviously not been dealt with entirely, came into our present and haunted our marriage. Things we thought were hashed out and dealt with a long time ago suddenly resurfaced to prove to us we had just buried them. 

If you don't handle the demons of your past, they will resurface. Whether it's an addiction you struggled with, a relationship that wasn't completely severed, a deep hurt you never mended...it will come out at the most opportune time. Take the time you need to heal. Let God clean up the mess in your past. It will allow you to live a much freer future. Help your mate walk through their closets. Maybe they have skeletons they didn't even know existed there. The couple that works together, heals together.


DAY SEVENTEEN: SUCCESS

23 days and counting...