Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

Saving Your First Kiss

couple standing

“Actually”, she said with confidence, “I’m saving my first kiss for my wedding day”.

I’ve heard my daughter say this dozens of times.  And while it’s been met with positivity, that doesn’t happen often.  The feedback is usually quite disappointing.  Normally the response she receives is laughter, ridicule and mocking.  She has been on the receiving end of many jokes because of it.  She has been not only made fun of, but been mean to because of it.  And she has had friends make it their mission to get her to kiss before her wedding day.

She’s heard statements of  “What? That’s crazy!”, “You’ll change your mind once you start dating” and she’s even heard “You’ll never get a man that way”.

I’m just going to be honest here, I didn’t save my first kiss for my wedding day.  As I’ve said before, I wish I had heard that not kissing until marriage was an option.  I wish I had heard that purity was beautiful.  Valuable.  Precious.  An amazing gift given to us by God to give to our spouse.  I wish purity had been a bigger topic among my circle.  I wish I had been told that God’s grace is bigger than the choices we make.  I wish we had been talked to instead of talked at.

I’ve always been open and honest with my children (age appropriate of course).  Throughout the years during our talks I took the things I wished were different, and the lessons I had learned, and coupled that with God’s Word.  We were also blessed while she was growing up to have an amazing all-girl program at church called Daughters of the King, led by our Pastor’s wife.

During that time, God set it in my daughters heart to save her first kiss for her future husband on the day of their wedding.

We live in a day and age where kissing is the norm for elementary schoolers.  Losing your virginity in, or by, high school is expected.  Because of that culture it seems absurd and ridiculous that anyone would possibly save their first kiss for marriage.

Kissing is a gray area.  You won’t find a single spot in the Bible that says “Thou shalt not kiss”.  And because of that, we are left to seek biblical wisdom along the relationship journey.  Gray areas are not subjects where God has simply forgotten to give us insight and direction.  These are areas where God leaves room for difference and invites us into personal conversation with Him to determine how best to follow Him in these areas in our lives.  Each one of us has different convictions that God has laid on our hearts for the gray areas.  You will have to seek wisdom, study God’s Word, pray and discuss with your boyfriend what standards and boundaries you will put in place.

Just know if you choose safe standards, you are bound to hear backlash and criticism from friends and relatives.  Sometimes even strangers will chime in when they overhear a conversation.

But you have to remember that your decision is a good thing!

Instead of viewing your kiss as something meaningless and cheap, I want to challenge you to view it as a very expensive treasure box.  It’s your job to keep your treasure safe until the person with the right key comes to unlock it.

If you are deciding to save your first kiss my encouragement to you is don’t give up.  Don’t let the world tell you that’s dumb.  Don’t get scared when people ask you why.  Please don’t compromise your convictions based on peer pressure or others’ expectations.  If you want to save your first kiss for marriage, do it because you want to and because you feel God calling you to do so.  Stand firm on that decision.

And don’t be ashamed of it!

I also want to encourage those around someone that is saving their first kiss.

We want our kids to enjoy healthy relationships placed in the hands of God.  Relationships that focus on drawing closer together emotionally and spiritually before they enjoy the physical part of their relationship that is reserved only for marriage.

While saving your first kiss for your wedding day is clearly not popular, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  It just means they are following what God has called them to do.  They aren’t weak, naive or inexperienced.  Are we really going to fault these kids for following what God has set in their heart?

And those of you who are saving your kiss, please don’t look down on those who aren’t.  Saving your kiss doesn’t gain you salvation.  And kissing while you’re dating isn’t a sin.  Those who choose to kiss before marriage just don’t share the same convictions you do, which isn’t a bad thing.  We all have different convictions laid on our hearts by God.

I want you to remember, you don’t have to kiss frogs to find princes.  Princes don’t need physical confirmation of a woman’s value.  They already value you for who you are.  We need to recognize the kiss as an incredible gift that God has given each one of us to fully embrace and enjoy in the right context.  Instead of lowering its value and blowing it off as just-a-kiss let’s view it as a precious, sacred gift.

Modern Day Submission | God’s Design

Submission.  That dreaded “S” word.

Submission is a word that holds many definitions among the world.  Offensive, not acceptable, inferior, controlling and not politically correct are among the few.  But yet, it’s something we, as Christian wives, are called to do.

First, let me share my story…

As a woman who spent her entire life striving to be viewed as strong and independent, the thought of being submissive to anyone, let alone my husband, scared me to death.  And I have to say, at first it made me angry.  So angry that I completely rebelled against it and refused it.  I was a child rebelling against what my Father had not only told me, but commanded me to do.

I rebelled so much that I took the words “honor and obey” out of my vows.  (Side note, completely embarrassed and mortified that I actually took that out of my vows. What in the world was my 20-year-old mind thinking?)

I was a strong-willed, in control wife.  I controlled the finances, the household and my husband.  Throughout the first few years of our marriage we had lots of ups and downs that I fully contribute to my strong-willed attitude.

And then I heard it, God calling me to be submissive.

I had no idea how to be submissive, or why I should be.  Instead of writing God’s Word off as irrelevant and outdated, I needed to study more. I needed to learn God’s intentions and purposes behind the seemingly dreadful “s” word.

I read, listened, prayed and tried to learn all I could about Biblical submission.  And through this study I will share what I learned with you all.  I cannot tell you what a huge impact it had on my marriage when I allowed my husband to lead and stopped standing in his way.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5:22-24 22 

When did submission begin?  Submission never really began, but has eternally existed in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity.  The Trinity is a relationship of Equals.  Jesus is not inferior in any way to God the Father.  They are One.  The Father has the position of authority, the Son honors His Father’s authority.  He is not a second class citizen, a slave or of less value than the Father.  In fact, His willingness to submit to and honor His Father leads to His own glory later.

Definition of submission: The word SUBMIT, according to Strong’s Lexicon is the Greek word hupotaso which was originally a Greek military term meaning “to arrange troop divisions under the command of a leader”.  In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, of cooperating, of sharing a burden”.  In other words, when the word submit is used in the Bible, it refers not only to a yielding and obedient attitude of the heart, but also, and equally importantly, to an attitude of co-operation and support.  Without co-operation and support, things just don’t work the way they should.

When we look at the relationship between Jesus and God the Father, we can see the yielding and obedience play out.  We see the essence of this in these words “Not My will, but Yours be done!” spoken by Christ, Himself, within hours of His betrayal and then His crucifixion.

What is submission? Submission is the acceptance of God’s order for our lives.  As wives, we are to submit to Christ and submit to our husbands.  Submission by a wife is to be voluntary.  It’s part of our obedience to the Lord.  There aren’t conditions to this submission either.  We are called to submit to our husbands, even if we feel they don’t deserve it.  We are to trust in their leadership, even if we don’t agree with it and submit to them even if we feel they aren’t meeting their roles.

Christian marriage is intended to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church.  Let me say that again, because it blew my mind when I first learned it.  Our marriage was designed specifically to mirror our relationship between Christ and His church.  We are acting out a living parable where husbands represent Christ and wives represent the church to bring glory to God and to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way.  Does that change the way you look at marriage?  It sure did with me.  God intended marriage to mirror His relationship with the church so that we could basically be a testimony to others and SHOW them what God is like.

A marriage with Godly submission should be a faithful, intimate and loving relationship.  Boy, doesn’t that sound like a far cry from what the world tells us submission is?

So it turns out submission isn’t a sign of weakness, like this silly girl thought all along, it’s a sign of respect!  And of course I want to honor and respect my husband, I love him.

What submission is not: Submission is not abusive.  God does not want women to be submissive to abusers.  As wives, we have to be confident of our husband’s goodwill.  Remember, the command to wives to submit to their husbands is followed by the command to husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).  In cases of abuse, there is a urgent and important need for an intervention and Godly counsel.  If you are in an abusive relationship, I would urge you to reach out!  Reach out to your Pastor, to elders of your church, to your Pastor’s wife, to anyone you feel safe around!  Focus ministries  is a Biblical based non-profit organization that offers counseling by phone, email, or in person.  They want you to know you aren’t alone and you are oh so valuable to God!!!

Submission also shouldn’t be used for leverage.  Submission absolutely comes with no strings attached.  It is a heart desire to please God and do what is best for your family.  I mean really, what wife doesn’t want to live in peace?  Don’t we all desire that?  There is such an inner peace that comes from living in harmony with our husbands while obeying God.

As women, we are quite good at knowing how to manipulate our husbands to get them to do what we want.  Oh come on girls, we all know we’ve done it at one time or another.  That is definitely not submission.  And it’s something we should never, ever do.

Chuck Swindoll said this about submission:

Webster says that manipulation means “to control or play upon by unfair or insidious means, especially to one’s own advantage or to serve one’s own purpose.” In other words, secret manipulation is an unfair, insidious technique that results in getting what one wants. When handled cleverly, a wife can substitute secret manipulation for a quiet, submissive spirit.

Submission also doesn’t mean women need to submit to every man.  The Bible instructs a wife to submit herself to her own husband; not to men in general.

Why is submission so hard? And why is this so hard for me?  It’s from a lack of surrender.  Because I am, by nature, a controller.  That controlling nature is nothing more than pride and sin rising to the surface.  And the thoughts of not having control over a situation scares-me-to-death.  But I believe God’s advice and His will to be the best for my life.  Even if I don’t fully understand it, I trust Him.  With that being said, I somehow had to figure it out because I don’t want to live my life is disobedience.  So I asked God to teach me what it means.  Often we wives are afraid of losing control (and by “we wives” I really mean this wife right here) and WE get in the way of creating the marriages we ache for.  You know, the one where we have a strong, confident, Godly man who loves us like Christ loves the church.  I know this girl certainly wants that type of marriage.

So this week, be an asset to your husband and try your best to learn what submission looks like in a Godly marriage.  Don’t forget to stop back next Friday as we take a look at the beauty of submission.

Parents and PDAs

Hugs, hand holding and kissing are all normal scenes in our home. 

I love you is a daily statement between all of us.

And yes, I can usually count on a butt smack when I walk past my husband.

We’ve never hidden the affection and love we have for each other from our children.  I think it’s great for kids to see Mom and Dad putting their relationship first.  Most of the time, especially in today’s society, the opposite happens.  Parents are making their kids a priority and at the end of the day, they just don’t have any time left for each other.

Why is affection in front of your kids important?

1.  You’re showing them a healthy marriage

It’s so important that our kids can watch us giving our spouse love and respect.  That they can see we are still pursuing our spouses heart.  The byproduct is that my kids see their parents dating.

Our kids are watching us.  They are learning to be comfortable with affection and to be affectionate with their own partner in the long run.  Kiss your husband, dance with him and hold his hand.  Pursue his heart.  Show them your romance.  What an absolutely perfect place for them to learn about love!

And think about it, if Christian marriages look boring why would our kids want to grow up and have one of their own?  We need to show them that even though what the world has to offer looks fun and exciting, a Christian marriage can blow that out of the water!  They will undoubtedly pick up certain things from media and movies but the most important lessons come from you!  We need to be modeling a healthy, fun and exciting marriage to our children if we want to have any hope of them wanting it for themselves.  This constantly teaches something healthy to counter the constant barrage of media, pop culture and peer influence.

We are not only telling our kids what a happy, healthy marriage looks like, we are showing them.

2.  You’re giving them security

When children see their parents giving each other time, affection, and respect it is a reassurance of our love and makes them feel secure.

They can see their parents taking care of themselves so that frees that up to enjoy being a child.  They don’t have to worry about Mommy and Daddy because they take care of each other.  Seeing parents happy together breeds emotionally healthy children.

Whether we know it or not, our kids worry about divorce.  They hear at school about their friends parents getting a divorce, and it makes their little minds wonder about their parents.  When they see affection between their parents, and can see their parents love each other, it squelches those fears and gives them security.

3.  You are helping your marriage!

There is power in a kiss, even if it happens while you’re cooking dinner.  Kissing brings a spike in dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin.  This increases feelings of pleasure, longing and contentment.  And it fosters bonding.  So that kiss while you’re cooking is really helping your marriage!

Kissing is an essential act of marital intimacy.  I am a big supporter of pursuing your mans heart and being intentional about intimacy.  That is apparent by reading my series called Intimacy Ignited.  You will have a better, more fulfilling marriage if you’re kissing often.

So go ahead, embarrass your littles.  Show them you’re healthy marriage.  Pursue your husbands heart and plant a big ole’ smooch on him today.