Intimacy

I need to get something off of my chest.

This is a subject that has been strongly on my heart for the past several months and is only growing stronger.

You could say it’s kind of an extension of a post I wrote last year called “A Post That’s Not About Missions,” which was about relationships.

Like I wrote in that post, some could argue–and I wouldn’t disagree–that I have next to zero qualifications to write on the subject, considering my single, have-been-single-for-three-years, never-been-in-a-relationship-longer-than-a-year, only-have-had-a-few-relationships status. That’s fair. I would by no means call myself a love expert like Olaf. But I can speak from the experience that I do have.

I’ve just read a new study from the Barna Group on Cohabitation. The findings were completely unsurprising. This isn’t going to be about cohabitation–although it ties into that–but rather a much larger issue that effects even more people–women especially–and it’s a subject that I very rarely see discussed–even by Christians–throughout the relationships/sex/cohabitation/marriage debate.

Often in Scripture, when we see a mention of sex between a husband and wife, the word “know” is used, such as in Genesis 24:16. The Hebrew word, Yada’, does literally mean ‘to know’ in all its various uses, and, therefore, it’s used 872 times, the majority of which discuss our relationship with the Lord or vice versa. So what we learn from this is a discussion of intimacy being reserved for marriage, not just physically, but also on an emotional and soul level.

While cohabitation is often associated with sex–and rightfully so since that is usually the case–I think an even bigger issue–which is often present, even in Christian relationships and ones without cohabitation or sex–is too much knowledge–emotional  and soulful intimacy.

In our society, there is heavy value placed on women’s bodies in response to the ever-common materialization and objectification of our bodies, but the downfall of that is I think our emotions, our souls are somewhat overlooked.

Honesty time:

On New Year’s day, 2010, I met a guy. We quickly fell for one another and started dating, despite that we lived about 6 hours apart, and it wasn’t long before we began to discuss marriage. Our relationship was passionate and emotional, and we let that get out of control. About 4 months into our relationship, he moved a couple hours further away, and I, being completely emotionally attached to him, left everything behind and moved in with him a few weeks later. A month later, we got more formally engaged; 5 months later, we broke up–which felt more like a divorce and was something that he’d been contemplating for the majority of those 5 months. (I’ll spare you the details.)

Although the former was certainly the most serious of my relationships, my others–one prior and one latter–were no less emotional, with the bulk of my thoughts being consumed by the guy I was dating. Even if you’re very careful not to make your boyfriend your little-g-god, our emotions are a bigger part of who we are than we often believe or are taught by society; emotions are commonly viewed negatively like “stop being so emotional.” But by being emotionally intimate in our relationships, we are giving part of ourselves away, and it DOES make controlling your thoughts about that person way harder.

Emotional intimacy also commonly leads into actions that commonly lead into another major problem among Christian dating relationships: perception.

Our society trains us to just be ourselves and not care about what others think, which at its core, has merit. However, I think–especially as Christians–we’ve taken this way too far. Take a step back and be honest with yourself: if you were looking at you and your boyfriend from the outside, would you know that you’re Christians or that your relationship is God-honoring? If you’re super touchy-feely with one another out in public or constantly putting up lovey-dovey pictures or posts on social media, for example, will the rest of the world assume that the two of you are doing things that you’re not? Now I know what you’re thinking–we needn’t and can’t cater to every person’s assumptions, and you’re right. BUT when we’re supposed to be representing Christ with every breath we take and every move we make, we HAVE to think about the impression we’re giving; we have to live above reproach.

I’m not trying to beat anyone up here (part of the reason I’m writing this is as a reminder to myself), and again, you’re totally fair to claim I have no experience here, but again, I feel that I can give some insight here because this was all true in my relationships: the emotional intimacy led to actions–like mushy social media posts and photos, touchy-feely-ness, and spending far more time together/talking than necessary–that led to a lack of reproach. (Yes, it was also before I totally surrendered my life to the Lord, but that’s irrelevant because I still called myself a Christian).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a stumbling block for anyone, so when a relationship does come my way, these are standards I will follow (hint hint, future suitor). In my eyes, if the outside world can guess that I’m dating someone, I’m doing it wrong. That might sound a bit extreme, but I think, better safe than sorry, not only for the sake of representing Christ, but also for the sake of myself. Even if I was in a committed relationship in which we both KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that we will get married, emotional intimacy and touchy-feely-ness, ect, are worth waiting for until we do.

YOU are worth waiting for.