True Intimacy

Day 34: Beneficial

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Tamar

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

Humans were one of the things created on the sixth day. When God made humans He created them with procreation in mind. But more beautiful than that, He performed the very first wedding ceremony too! In Genesis 2:22-24 it tells us that He brought her to the man (walked her down the aisle), the groom said “va va va vooom! I’ll take her! I DO!” and then God said the thing that has been repeated in almost every wedding ceremony since the beginning of time “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Now, *ahem*, “and they will become one flesh”; WHAT do you suppose THAT means? They’ve just gotten married, God has approved and finalized the union, and then mentions that they will become one flesh. Hmmmm….. Well, God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; and fill the earth, and subdue it. (Genesis 1:28a) Hee hee! You see, God isn’t afraid of sex. He created it, and He created it to be “very good”! “God saw ALL that He had made, and it was VERY GOOD.” Ya-know, since humans were included in that statement, I believe that means sex was also included in that statement. God created it all, including sex to be VERY GOOD, otherwise we all would’ve stopped having it a long time ago.

When you view your body as a living sacrifice and a gift to both God and your husband, sex with your husband can end up being an act of worship and praise to God if you let it. As part of this act of worship I recommend praying together before making love. It may seem a little strange or silly at first (considering we’ve never seen it on movies or TV), but think about it; we pray together at the dinner table before we satisfy our body’s hunger for food. Is it really that far of a stretch to pray together at the marriage bed before we satisfy our body’s hunger for sexual fulfillment? Personally I think taking a few moments to thank God for our true intimacy is just as important if not more so, than thanking Him for our food. Besides, in a few more moments you’ll probably be praising God for His “job well done” in making your husband’s body, and your union. Just make sure that you’re not worshiping the sex or your husband, but the true maker of them both, God Almighty. He created sex for our enjoyment, so have FUN with it. Don’t allow sex to be another item on your to-do list, let it be something you look forward to with anticipation. Let it be something special between you and your husband, something to get silly and giddy about. Honestly, in our marriage, sex has gone from an obligation to, well, we’re acting like newlyweds again. We’re playful with one another. We’re whispering to each other. We’re speaking in code to tell each other “I want you”. It’s a whole new world for us now! Our God is a creative God, be creative in your love-making. With that being said, I must throw in this precautionary verse as a consideration for you.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12, Paul informs the Corinthians that while everything is permissible for them, not everything is beneficial for them. Meaning, just because it’s not considered a sin for you to do something doesn’t mean that it’s not harmful for you to do it. And that’s the question you have to ask of the LORD, “Is this sexual act I’d like to do beneficial?” Something that God has spoken through me is that “He made marriage to allow us to do whatever our filthy little minds would come up with.” From what I’ve been able to find through all my research thus far; as long as it’s within the bounds of marriage (one woman and one man for life, legally bound by the state), it is permissible. Whether it is beneficial is between the two of you and God! Remember, you do not want to do anything that will harm your body, or cause you to sin against Him, or degrade each other. Your bodies are the temple of God, a living sacrifice, so you need to be respectful of that at all times; You do not want add a 3^rd party or pornography to your love life. These, among a few other things, fall outside the bounds of “one woman and one man for life, legally bound by the state” and would (in my opinion) be a big mistake. When in doubt about something, ask God and possibly a doctor if need be. If you can’t get a clear answer, I’d recommend skipping it for now. In my opinion, it’s better to be safe than guilty and build more blessing blockades. Another aspect that you need to consider is if one of you is being degraded or disrespected by the sexual act in question? Let’s take oral sex for example. If my husband finds it disgusting and degrading, then it would be inconsiderate of me to ask him to do it all the time. However, if he chooses to do that for me, I receive that as a HUGE act of love and kindness since I know that it is something that he doesn’t really care for. You’ve got to be respectful of each other and your preferences.

Most of all, you need to be open with one another about these things! Have conversations about the things that you like and dislike things you’d like to try and things that really turn you off. I’m telling you, these conversations can be QUITE eye opening and very exciting. They will help you to be more open to each other’s ideas, and give you an opportunity to discuss things ahead of time so that when you’re actually in the process of being intimate with each other you can simply focus on one another.

As I prayed for a nice scripture to wrap up this book, God gave me Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Hee hee, that’s not the ONLY thing that He makes straight!!! May God bless your sex!

Christian’s comments:

Well, you made it. It has been thirty days. Are you ready to have sex? Don’t be surprised if you answered “No”. You may not be ready to go “all the way” yet. You may need to take a couple of days to build up to it. Just take it slow and enjoy the experience.

If you are like me, you like your wife to come on to you. However, if she follows Tamar’s instructions, she won’t this time. You must lead her in this aspect of your marriage, just like you do in every other aspect of it. If you’re not sure about that, don’t worry, God will lead you. I suggest that you pray together before you get started.

The best advice that I can give you is: HAVE FUN! Enjoy each other. Marriage gives you leave to do most of the things your dirty mind can think of. Try new things. Try new positions. Try new locations! You don’t have to be restricted to the bedroom. Ask your wife if there is anything she wants to try. You will quite possibly be shocked and pleasantly surprised by what she says. I was!

Husbands, buy your wife some lingerie. Wives, wear it! And not just in the bedroom. Surprise your husband by wearing it out to dinner under your clothes. Or better yet, TO CHURCH! Meet him at the door when he gets home from work wearing it (just make sure the neighbors don’t see)!

Husbands, surprise your wife too. Buy yourself a sexy pair of shorts or a thong at the lingerie store and strut around the house for your wife (just make sure the kids are asleep, or at a friend’s house). Or jump in the shower with her. Or surprise her when she’s doing laundry. Washing machines can be fun!

Maybe try costumes if you have always wanted to; perhaps a French maid. What I’m getting at here is, now is the time to start living out your fantasies with each other. But remember to pace yourselves; you have a long life together ahead of you.

Most importantly of all, keep God involved. He created sex. He wants you to enjoy it. With Him involved, it will be a very spiritual experience.

Well, this brings us to the end. I pray that reading and following this book helps you as greatly as writing it helped us. I think all that’s left to be said is, God bless, and great sex.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Numbers, True Intimacy | 2 Comments

Here are the Readings we missed over the weekend! Day 29-33

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Tamar

Day 29: Free

Nehemiah 12:1-13:31

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16

Now is the time! If you’ve been holding something back, something you haven’t been telling him, NOW is the time to come clean. If you’ve had suspicions of something but you’ve been avoiding saying anything because you just didn’t want to know, now’s the time to say something. Draw the truth out into the open. By bringing it into the light you take its power over you away. Will it be painful? Probably. Will you enjoy it? Most likely not. However, Jesus tells us in John 8:32 that when we know the truth it will set us free. Allow me to share from my personal experience of a truth setting us free.

(My journal entry the day after Christian told me the truth) “AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! Oh Lord! Never in a million years did I ever expect to say this, but Thank you for Christian’s sins! Well, thank you for the forgiveness of sins and the freeing power of forgiveness!” All day that day, God’s presence was as thick in the air as the August humidity. I came into our bedroom to get Christian’s laundry and could BARELY get there due to his clutter on the floor! Desiring to do something nice for him I started to pick up his uniform hangers that littered the room. Among the rubble, there were a LOT of old notes (recently recovered from his parent’s house) from past girlfriends (which brought back painful memories for me of another fateful day). I picked up one of the notes thinking it was from me, opened it and read it. By the end of the note, not only was I disgusted, but I was also saddened by the very perverted things I read (from one of the girlfriends before I came along). I sent him a text complaining about it and after a few more texts regarding the box of notes and the need to get rid of them all, I felt a gentle urging to “clear the air” once and for all with him. We’d been fasting for 33 days now and I wasn’t about to have gone through all that time just to have unresolved issues afterward! Over the last 9 years I had occasionally asked him about the other woman never feeling satisfied with his lie that they had only kissed. And so, this time I asked him a little differently. I asked him to “be honest”, “do NOT spare my feelings” and to “tell the truth”. “Were you really a virgin when we first had sex and have you ever been with another woman before or after me?” (Just writing about this again is giving me butterflies in my stomach. But you need to know because God allowed us to go through this so that we could share this experience with others and help you get through it too.) His response was “Yes & yes L”

So I asked, “how many?” And he told me “2”. “2 others?” I asked. “Yes” he said. After that we spent the next 4 hours texting. Me asking questions, details about the affairs, and him responding to them honestly. I won’t lie; a lot of his answers were extremely painful. Yet his honesty was soothing (“Wounds from a friend can be trusted”). He was FINALLY allowing me to see the truth. He was finally releasing the secret that the enemy had snared him with for 13 years. Held him captive to, enslaved him with, depressed him about for 13 years. Until Jesus said “The truth will set you free”. Christian had been enslaved in his sins, held captive by the enemy and his lies for so long that he had become depressed and difficult to live with. That day he was set free as the 13 year secret came out into the light. The truth was the key to his prison cell and my forgiveness allowed him to come out into the open for the first time in 13 years. In telling the truth we were able to take those skeletons out of our closet, look at them, admit that they were there, and then together agree that we will NEVER let the enemy taunt us with them again. Then together we handed them over to God so that He can take them and separate us from them. As far as the East is from the West! As if they had never been there to begin with. Afterward, we both felt giddy and light and for the very first time in our married life, we BOTH wanted to have make-up sex. But I’ll get into THAT a little later.

[The LORD] say[s] to those who are bound, “Go forth,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.” (Isaiah 49:9a) Sin holds us captive. We are slaves to our sins, new and old. We are slaves to it, held in darkness, until we let the Son of light set us free. Our sin, and the guilt that it brings with it, hold us in bondage to the enemy. Only by the grace of Christ and His blood sacrifice can we ever even hope to gain our freedom. And yet that still isn’t enough. Because we have free choice, we have the choice to stay in bondage or gain our freedom through Christ. But it is only by our choice to allow Jesus’ forgiveness to sink into our hearts and remove our sin that we can truly become free. It’s our choice. Momentary pain and gain our freedom from secrets in our marriages, or remain in bondage to those secrets. Which do you choose? And remember BE BRUTALLY HONEST!!!

Christian’s comments:

Again, I am a dirtbag. Yes, I slept with two other girls while I was in college; each of them multiple times (I did wear protection every time). I have no excuses and won’t waste time attempting to create any. We’re not here to talk about that, though. We’re here to talk about the freedom that comes from confessing.

After the four hours of texting, I started to feel liberated. Yes, my thumbs were a little sore, but the feeling of freedom was unbelievable! It felt as though I had been carrying a huge boulder on my shoulders. After confessing, the boulder was gone! I felt taller, lighter, and almost giddy. I don’t remember ever feeling so happy. Granted, things were still tense between Tamar and me, but I knew there was nothing else between us, holding us back. WE WERE FREE!

Husbands and wives; don’t let the enemy stand between you any longer. If there is something you need to confess, do it. If there is something you need to ask, do it. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but it has to be done. Your marriage (and sex life) won’t get better if it doesn’t get done.

Day 30: Don’t Look Back

Numbers 1:1-3:39

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

The day that we talked was a defining point in our marriage. That day when we decided; “Yup, this thing is forever. No matter what. We’re not giving in.” Our two lives truly turned into one on that night. Through the sharing of a deep dark secret we were drawn closer together than we ever had been before. Christian was so afraid that I was going to leave him. He was so afraid that all of his clothes would be out on the front lawn when he got home, or the locks would be changed. But none of that happened. What happened was love and forgiveness. Was I hurt?

YOU BET YOUR BANANAS I WAS!

But, did it make me love him less? Strangely enough, No. In fact, it made me love him even more, because he had FINALLY opened up to me! I’d stayed with him through years of being emotionally and sexually bottled up inside over this, and now we had finally torn down all those walls. He was TALKING to me! It was the most amazing thing. God worked a miracle in our marriage. In the span of 33 days He had completely and totally changed two people so dramatically that we were acting like teenagers all over again!

This was my journal entry a few days after “Truth-day”: “Lord, when will my heart stop hurting over the adultery and lies? The pangs are so brutally painful. It’s down to my soul, my marrow and it feels like something ripping apart inside of me. I know why it hurts, I’m just wondering if it’ll ever go away. I forgave him immediately, and I meant it too, but the words just keep popping back up into my mind! The change in Christian however, is tremendous! He’s back to the boy I met and fell in love with in high school. You know the saying a ‘shell of a man’? That’s what it was like. He was just an empty shell of the man I fell in love with. I still loved that shell of a man, and there were moments when he would peek his head out and be the Christian I’ve always loved, but he wasn’t happy and peaceful. This Christian, on the other hand, is a happy, free, whole man. This Christian is the man I wanted to marry, and I’m still so glad I did! And I’m even more thankful that I STAYED married to him. Thank you LORD! Thank you for my new husband, THANK YOU!”

As you can see, I was still dealing with the pain. I forgave him immediately, but that didn’t keep those names from popping back up into my head while I was doing the dishes or vacuuming. And in those instances the pain was not just emotional pain; it was a physical pain, right in the middle of my chest, like someone was stabbing me with a newly sharpened pencil. I prayed a lot about the pain in those first few days. I was an emotional roller coaster. I’d be high on the top of the hills when I’d think about Christian and the true intimacy we had finally found. He treated me differently now, we were talking again, and OH GOOD GRAVY THE SEX! WOO! Then, I’d go plummeting back down to the bottoms of the hills the second, one of those names came into my head. That’s when God reminded me of Lot’s wife. In Genesis 19 it tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God is preparing to destroy these cities for their sins but Abraham’s nephew Lot is living in Sodom with his wife and family. So God, showing mercy on Lot, sends 2 angels to rescue him from the city before it’s destroyed. These angels were trying to save Lot from the sin surrounding him and the impending disaster and Lot hesitated! If he stayed where he was he would die, and he hesitated. How often are we like that? We are so stuck in our sins that even though we know we’ll die if we stay in them, we hesitate to leave. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Genesis 19:24-26

God did precisely what He said He would do and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. From the buildings, to the plants, to the people, everything, all gone in one sulfur-y swoop. And what did Lot’s wife do? She looked back! For just a moment she looked longingly over her shoulder back to the only life she had ever known, the life that GOD was rescuing her from. And in that one moment she disobeyed the direct order of the angels “don’t look back!” Through this story, God told me something. “Tamar, I have delivered you from this sexually immoral life, now DON’T. LOOK. BACK! Don’t look back at the things that you both have done and allow them to cause you pain. All has been forgiven which means those things are GONE. Don’t look back on them and allow them to hurt you anymore.” This story has another thing to tell us about looking back. Don’t look back on those times and wish for those sins to return to your life either. You are so much better off now, don’t look back.

Promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have know the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.” 2 Peter 2:19-22

Don’t. Look. Back.

Christian’s comments:

So, you have taken our advice and confessed to one another. You have taken a big step to a great marriage (and sex life). Now, DON’T LOOK BACK!

You have moved past whatever was holding you apart. Never return to it. Yes, you will think about it from time to time, that is natural, but do not dwell on it. Don’t long for things to be as they were before. Don’t ever think “I wish I never confessed to her.” Things will be rough in the beginning, but they will get better.

With the exception of our wedding day/night, I have never been happier in my marriage than I have been since our fast. Do you want to know why? Because the past is behind us and we have moved on.

Day 31: Purity Bath

Numbers 3:40-6:21

So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments.” Genesis 35:2

Christian and I were drawing near to the end of our 30 days, and I just had this feeling in my gut that we weren’t going to just “jump right back in the sack” on day 30. The morning of day 30 actually came and I still felt like it wasn’t time yet; like I needed to DO something first. All morning long I had the word “purify” running through my head. I had just spent an entire month learning who I was, how God saw me, and how to be the best wife I could possibly be; and I felt like I needed to do something…ritualistic. So I looked up scriptures for purification rituals. In almost every one of them they mentioned blood, water, oil and perfume. Well, Christ took care of all the blood we would ever need, so I wasn’t concerned at all with that. But the water, oil and perfume made sense to me; I could take a bath. I remembered how in 2 Samuel chapter 11 when David saw Bathsheba from his rooftop she was taking a bath and had purified herself from her uncleaness. So. Blood: provided by Christ, check. Water: take a bath, check. Oil and perfume: I had a bottle of olive oil and some vanilla in the kitchen, check!

So, here’s my general procedure for the purity bath that I take, the Holy Spirit usually leads me to change things here and there from time to time, add a few things, subtract a few, etc. Pray about it and if God is leading you to change something, feel free to do so. Our experiences with God are uniquely ours so your purity bath may look completely different from mine. This is just what I have done.

When my period is completely finished, 7 days from when it started, I take a purity bath to dedicate myself to God. It is to help me feel pure, inside and outside. Because through the blood of Christ we have been made pure and don’t HAVE to do any purification rituals anymore, but I feel like sometimes as humans we need to DO something to help us remember that fact. Plus, I have learned that God really loves symbolism, so I know that this process pleases Him greatly. (Note: This entire process generally takes an hour or more depending on how long I sit, soak and pray. So I usually try to carve out plenty of time in my schedule for it. I really don’t like skimping on this very intimate time with my LORD.)

Step 1) I have an old soy sauce bottle that I use to mix my anointing oil; it’s just the right size and pours nicely. I never actually measure anything, but I use a cup of oil and a bit of pure vanilla extract (not a whole lot maybe a teaspoon, a little bit of this stuff goes a LOOOONG way) into the bottle. These are the ingredients that God has inspired me to use, however, this bath is intimately yours and God’s so I highly recommend asking Him what He would like for you to use for your oil and perfume.

Step 2) I clean my bathroom concentrating on the tub itself, even if I just did it the other day, I do it again. (Do NOT skip scrubbing the tub! I did this ONCE and I will NEVER do it again. The rest of the bathroom is less important, but you can not take a sacred bath in a dirty tub! Learn from my mistake, do NOT skip this part of cleaning.) Cleaning is a symbolic act, one where I am cleaning the dirt and grime from my bathroom and asking God to continue cleaning the dirt and grime of sin from my heart. It is time spent on my knees in fervent prayer. I thank God for forgiving me and for cleaning up my life and my marriage. God has changed ME so much already and He isn’t done with me yet. Praise God!

Step 3) Once everything is clean and all the dirt and trash are outside the room, I start filling the tub with the HOTTEST water I can possibly stand; as full as it can go without running over when I get in. To me, this is like God’s cleansing fire and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, if the room is cool enough you can actually see the steam rising off the hot water just like the Holy Spirit moving throughout the room, filling your lungs. It’s incredible!

Step 4) I kneel before my full tub and come before God on this sacred day, naked, unashamed, grateful for the work He is doing in my life, and sincerely apologetic for the things that I have done against Him. I shake the bottle and mix the oil and vanilla together asking God to make Christian and I one flesh (the two shall become one flesh). Then I pour it into the water and ask God to be the third cord that binds our hearts together forever. I ask God to use this water to make me a virgin again, and to give us back all the missing pieces of our hearts. I beg for His forgiveness.

Step 5) Read Romans 6:11-14.

Step 6) I completely submerge each part of my body in the water as I dedicate it to God for His glory and ask Him to purify and cleanse me. I start with my feet and finish with my ears, eyes, nose, mouth and mind including swallowing a bit of the water and praying that He fill me with His words and that my words be pleasing to Him. No more shall sin rule over me! I lay there and think about the changes that God has made in me over the last days and how He loves me. I continue to pray (and listen) as I rest in the presence of the LORD, letting him surround me and fill me with His Holy Spirit.

Step 7) Once I’ve soaked long enough, I lay down as far into the tub as I can and pull the plug on the drain with my foot. As the water drains away from me I pray that my sins will be in the water and that as they drain away from me God will throw them as far as the East is from the West! It’s the coolest feeling as the water drains; it feels like the sins are being sucked out of your body! It only feels like this when you’re laying in the water though.

Step 8) (CAUTION: the tub will be soaked in oil and will be SLIPPERY at first so be VERY CAREFUL!) I carefully stand up and take a shower, totally pampering myself. I shave, wash my hair, and take my time; doing all those things that I normally never take the time to do. I groom things, buff things, scrub things, anything to make me feel gorgeous.

Step 9) I clothe myself in clean white garments of righteousness. (This is where the white panties/bra or jammies come in; I hope you were able to get some new ones.) Now, while this doesn’t mean that I’m perfect; it does mean that I’m trying to be.

From this point forward, I am like the lions from Daniel in the lion’s den. I keep my mouth shut and my paws to myself. I have my husband show me how much I mean to him by not rushing things. We’re talking days here, not hour’s people. We’ll talk a little more about this later.

Christian’s comments:

Husbands, you don’t have to do your purity bath like Tamar listed hers, but rather let God lead you. I don’t take baths, but shower instead. And I don’t shave my legs. You don’t have to shave your legs either… unless that’s something you do. I know a couple of guys that do, but it’s your prerogative.

Tamar blessed me by anointing my head with oil the first time after our first fast. After that I started taking my own purity baths. I prepare myself like it is my wedding day. I clean the shower. I run really hot water for my shower, use some nice smelling body wash and scrub myself. I use oil to shave my head and face, so I ask God to bless the oil so that I may purify myself for my wife.

I wore the typical black tux at our wedding, so I bought some black, silky boxers to wear. You don’t have to do this, but if your wife got dressed up in a new night gown, or new white underwear, you should do something nice too.

Day 32: True Intimacy

Numbers 6:22-8:26

These [trials] have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:7

Honestly in writing this book, all it’s done is make me ask more and more questions about God and sex. And I’ve got to say, since the first fast, Christian and I have… well… I’ll just say it’s been amazing, fun, adventurous, eye opening, and just plain WOW!!!

In the beginning, we had agreed on 30 days; then on day 30 (after my purity bath) God told me to keep my mouth shut, my paws to myself, and let him lead. I couldn’t touch him in any way sexually without him first touching me. It was basically a really adult version of follow the leader. We took things VERY slowly; we were starting over from the very beginning. We had gone too fast in the beginning of our relationship and ended up swimming in a pond, this time we were going to take our time and get to the ocean! God was leading Christian, and Christian was leading me. Every time he stopped things, it screamed, “I love you and I respect you THIS much!” It was an amazing feeling, plus, talk about building up the sexual tension! Woo!

“Truth-day” came around and we stayed up until about 12:30 talking things out. I asked questions, I needed all the details, and he answered them. He said, “I’m sorry” and I said, “I forgive you”. When our hearts are changed, everything changes; and from the moment I forgave him I had such an overwhelming desire for him. We didn’t know what to do. Was it still too soon to have sex? What was God’s will for us? So we asked God for a sign. We, “laid out the wool”, and He gave me a definite sign that pointed to a big fat “YES HAVE SEX”! When I told Christian that God had said “Yes” and that I was still supposed to follow him, he took the lead, and although it was already almost 1 o’ clock in the morning, we took our time. Stopping frequently to ask if it was REALLY God’s will for us to be doing what we were doing; just to make sure we were not going too quickly. We’d already done that once and it almost cost us our marriage, we were NOT going to do that again!

Suddenly, I remembered my purity bath. I had purified myself with water, oil and perfume; yet Christian had done none of this yet. That’s when God told me to “Anoint his head with oil”. I poured some oil into my left palm and then put a dab of oil on my husband’s ear, hand and foot. “To put the oil on these three body parts is a reminder to us that we should constantly guard every part of our lives. We must submit to God’s will in what we listen to and how eagerly we devote ourselves to his word (ear). We must guard our actions and choices (hand), and we must carefully watch our walk though life (foot).” We prayed together asking God to bless our union for His glory and to purify Christian, cleanse his sins, and make him whole in Christ again.

Well, after that, although we were still taking our time we got down to business; and OH MY! I am not kidding when I say, by FAR the BEST SEX OF OUR LIVES!!! Never before had we felt so connected, so safe, so blessed by each other’s company, so amazingly stimulated, so intimate than in that moment in each other’s arms. In that moment we both changed. We changed from the world’s view of how sex is supposed to be, to how God MEANT for sex to be. Between a truly intimate married couple.

THANK YOU GOD FOR MY HUSBAND!!!

Christian’s comments:

Are you ready for the best sex of your life? You better be, because you’re going to get it soon. With all of the secrets, lies, and other “stuff” out of the way, there will be nothing between you; nothing worrying you in the back of your mind. No questions you are burning to ask, or answer. When all of that is gone, God can fully bless you with great sex.

We took our time that night. Yes, it built up great sexual tension and made us crazy for each other, but we wanted to make sure that we were following God this time. We would proceed a little way, then stop and ask Him if it was His will for us to go on. Our sign to go on was the rain on the roof of the house.

To explain this a little bit, I need to go back to the purity bath. That night Tamar gave me my first purity bath with the oil, but you can’t bathe without water. Tamar asked God “What about the water?” In that instant, it started raining – hard – and that was her answer. Every time I asked if I should go on, the rain would get harder and we could hear it on the roof. We went on that night, knowing we were doing things correctly according to Him.

Day 33: Celebrate!

Numbers 9:1-11:35

So these days were to be remembered and celebrated throughout every generation, every family, every province and every city; and these days of Purim were not to fail from among the Jews, or their memory fade from their descendants. Esther 9:28

At this point in our fast, I was studying Beth Moore’s Esther: it’s Tough Being a Woman and it wasn’t but a day or two after our “first time” that this verse came up in our bible study. Beth Moore was telling us about how important it is to God that we celebrate the times when He delivers us from the enemy’s hand. The Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt, so they celebrate Passover. In Esther they were delivered from an evil man’s plot to commit genocide, so they celebrate Purim. As Christians we were delivered from sin and death by Christ’s death on the cross, so we celebrate Easter. God loves it when we celebrate the miracles He’s performed in our lives.

God used this fast to deliver us from the bondage and slavery of sexual sin. And I pray that He has done the same for you as well. Therefore we should celebrate that deliverance! The way that Christian and I have started celebrating is by fasting monthly during my period.

While some people may find the Old Testament laws “old-fashioned” and “out-dated” and “there’s no need to follow them all”, I feel that following them will bring us a much greater blessing than not following them. With that being said, in Leviticus 15:19 it says, When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening. And in Leviticus 18:19 it says, Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity. (Notice, it’s a repeated scripture…) Now from some of the people I’ve talked to about these scriptures, they feel that this was simply for a cleanliness issue back then, they had no running water. However, I’m not so sure. This is blood that we’re talking about, and we KNOW how God feels about blood, it’s a serious thing for Him. So, like I said earlier, I don’t think that God can give us his full blessing if we’re not following his laws; even the “old” ones.

So, anyway, back to celebrating. As a celebration of how God has changed our marriage, every month for the 7 days of my period Christian and I mini-fast. We change clothes in the bathroom, we hug, and 10 second kiss, and that’s it. We use that time to back away from each other and draw closer to God. During the week I pray that God draw out anything that is standing between God, Christian, and I before the 7^th day. And, so far we’ve had something to talk about every time. On the 7^th day, I take my purity bath, prepare myself for my husband, and become the lioness again – he leads. And, it’s still amazing sex. I’ll be honest, life still happens and there are still times when things don’t go quite as we hope they will, but the intimacy is more than I ever could have hoped for. Glory to God!

Christian’s comments:

I know, husbands, I know. You’re probably thinking “What? We just started having sex again after thirty days, and now you want us to fast a week every month!” I was thinking the same thing. Believe me when I tell you, as great as the sex is when you stop each month, its better when you start again after her period. Treat this short fast as seriously at the 30 day fast. The same rules apply. No sexual activities of any kind.

You will learn so much about one another during that week. It is actually a lot of fun. So be happy in the celebration. You will get so much closer to your wife, that the sex will become even more amazing.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Nehemiah, Numbers, True Intimacy | Leave a comment

Day 28: How Can I?

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Tamar

Nehemiah 9:1-11:36

Tremble, and do not sin; meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and trust in the LORD. Many are saying, “Who will show us any good? Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O LORD! You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and new wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety. Psalm 4:4-8

When you allow God into your life and ask him to forgive all your sins, He purifies you from the inside out. “Forgive” is a word that holds extreme power. And until you learn how to use it and receive it you won’t know how powerful it really is. I can tell you from personal experience that “I forgive you” are 3 words that need to become part of your everyday vocabulary and roll off your tongue. You need to THINK them and PRAY them before forgiveness is even asked for. Sometimes your offender won’t ask for forgiveness, but between you and the LORD you need to forgive them. Immediately, with no delay, because when someone offends you, it’s like they’re throwing you a flaming ball. The longer you hold it, the more it burns YOU. By withholding forgiveness from someone you are NOT hurting them only yourself. Forgive them before you get burned.

Anger is an emotion; it’s human to feel anger. Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us: Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. Paul is telling us that we can be angry and not sin. It is possible, because anger in itself is not a sin. If you look at the way that it’s written, “Be angry”, it’s already assuming that you ARE angry. The anger is not the sin; it’s what you DO with that anger that can get you into trouble. He then tells us that we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger and not to give the devil an opportunity. What does this scripture and the opening scripture say we should DO with our anger?

Step 1) Be still and think (Ps 4:4). BREATHE!!! We have to still our hearts and emotions and listen to God in every situation, but ESPECIALLY amid angry and tense situations. We have to ask God what our next move should be and not let anyone else lead our actions. If God’s not leading us, then who is? During this period, it’s time to keep your big mouth shut! SAY NOTHING!

Step 2) Deal with it by the end of the day (Eph 4:26). We must make sure that we deal with our anger quickly! The longer we hold onto it the more it tears US apart. Not the person we’re angry with, just us. (Have I said that enough yet? Is it sinking in yet?) And if you DO hold onto that anger it is literally opening a door for the devil to walk right in and take control of the situation. However, look at Psalm 4:8 and see what happens when you give your anger to God.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety. (Notice, this is only 4 short verses after Psalm 4:4 where they were trembling in anger!) How many sleepless nights have you had because you were fighting with someone in your head? When you give that anger to God, BEFORE you go to bed you can lie down AND SLEEP in PEACE. God will grant you rest from the turmoil within. But you have to give it to Him. He won’t take it unless it’s given to Him first. He adores you and doesn’t want to see you in pain from anger. You’ve got to let it go; otherwise He can’t help you with it.

One last example of how God recommends we forgive. So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the LORD forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. (Colossians 3:12-14) Bear with each other, I tell ya, THAT phrase is soooo fitting for me, I find myself saying it over and over. Am I alone? Oh how often do we just have to bear with each other in our marriages? (I love you Christian!) On those days when he’s tired and grumpy and I just want to smack him and say “snap out of it!”, instead I tell myself, “Bear with him Tamar, you may be grumpy tomorrow!”

When Jesus tells us to “Forgive as the Lord forgave you”, it just makes me ask, how does the Lord forgive us? First of all, as mentioned yesterday, He forgives us in the way that we forgive others. But here’s another example, out of Jeremiah: I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me and by which they have transgressed against Me. (33:8) God doesn’t pick and choose which sins He will forgive or who’s sins He will forgive, He forgives everyone of ALL their sins. If it had nothing to do with us forgiving others first, He would always be forgiving us immediately.

Let’s take a look at the story of David and Bathsheba in 2^nd Samuel for another example. Bathsheba was bathing one night when David, the King, saw her, wanted her, and summoned her to his bedroom. She was married, but he was the King, so she couldn’t really tell him no – or perhaps maybe she didn’t want to tell him no. They slept together, she got pregnant, she told David, and he sent her husband to his death on the front lines of battle. So, they’re story really isn’t that great so far, they’ve committed lust, lying, adultery and murder (that’s the Bible for ya). Nathan, a prophet, comes to David and confronts him about his transgressions. Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. (2 Samuel 12:13) In this situation how did God forgive David and Bathsheba? Did Nathan tell David to “give me some time; He needs to think about this.”? No! He IMMEDIATELY said “The LORD has taken away your sin.” David and Bathsheba were forgiven immediately. “Forgive as the LORD forgave you.” He’s willing to grant undeserved forgiveness immediately, and we should be willing to do the same.

Christian’s comments:

As I’ve stated a couple of times already, I drive in demolition derbies. If there is any place to get angry at someone, that’s it. The most important safety rule in demolition derby is, “Do not hit another car in the driver’s door.” Doing this is usually grounds for immediate disqualification.

The problem with the rule is, the officials watching the derby don’t always see the hit. Believe me, after driving in a derby, you come to realize that unseen driver’s door hits happen more often than you think. When it happens, there are two courses of action. You can forgive the other driver and go on. Or try to take out the other driver. Lose your cool, in other words, and go crazy. In most of those cases, you destroy your own car, as well as any chances of finishing in the money.

In one derby I drove in, another driver gave me a track shot directly square in the driver’s door.(A track shot is driving from one end of the arena to the other as fast as you can and hitting someone as hard as you can.) He hit me so hard, my helmet hit the roof of my car, and he bent the bar in my driver’s door so far in that it hit my seat. In that particular derby, the driver taking the driver’s door hit chooses whether or not to disqualify the driver giving the hit. The official was looking directly at me after the hit and I quickly decided to forgive him and give him the benefit of the doubt instead of going after him and possibly destroying both of our chances of making the feature. I just waved it off and kept driving.

After the heat, the other driver came up to me in the pits and apologized and asked if I was alright. I could tell by the way that he was talking to me that he was genuinely concerned about my welfare. He explained that he was aiming for another car, but was hit and redirected into my door. I told him that I was OK and we started talking. We have since become friends and help each other at derbies that we go to.

So instead of losing my temper and flipping out on the guy, I quickly forgave him, and gained a friend.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Nehemiah, True Intimacy | Leave a comment

Day 27: Forgiveness

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Tamar

Nehemiah 5:1-8:18

A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger; and it is his glory to overlook a transgression. Proverbs 19:11

A man’s wisdom gives him patience. This verse isn’t talking about “book smarts”, well at least not in the sense that most of us would think of it in anyway. Wisdom is gained by learning more about God’s word. The more wisdom you have, the more patience you have, giving you the ability to overlook offenses more easily, which brings you glory, that you in turn give to God. Honestly, I’m finding with increased frequency that the more time I spend with God, the less likely I am to be concerned about trivial things like, well, how the toilet paper hangs for instance.

In Matthew 6:9-15 Jesus teaches us how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. In Verse 12 it says “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus is letting us know that we are forgiven in the way that we forgive. Honestly, that’s a really hard truth for me to share with you. It was difficult for me to swallow at first, but you know what I’ve learned? Forgiveness is extremely powerful.

“Forgive”, according to http://www.Dictionary.com, means: 1) to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve. 2) to grant pardon to (a person). 3) to cancel an indebtedness or liability of: to forgive the interest owed on a loan. 4) to pardon an offense or an offender. You see, forgiveness is a choice, an action, not an emotion. Forgiveness means you decide to “let it go”. Will the offense still hurt? Possibly, however, it will hold no power over you anymore. Forgiveness is like a ball of fire. When someone does something to you, you have a choice. You can forgive them, or you can hold onto that flaming ball of anger. Many times when someone hurts you, they don’t even realize that they’ve even done or said anything wrong. Either way, whether they are aware of the offense or not, from that moment on the ball of fire grows. The ball is in your court, so to speak, it has been passed to you and now you stand holding it. It’s time to decide what to do with it. Say “I forgive you” to your offender and give the ball to God, or keep holding the flaming ball of fire. If you choose to keep holding back that forgiveness, who is it going to burn? The person you’re upset with, or you? Who’s holding on to it again?

Two weeks after our wedding I was cleaning in our bedroom closet and found a box filled with blank cards; cards that Christian had bought for me and had never given me. In among all these cards was a letter from a woman I had never met. As I opened it my heart started to flutter and I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. In this letter she told him how glad she was that he was her “first time”. I got to this point and absolutely dissolved into a huddled mass of tears on the floor of our bedroom as my knees gave out and I fell like a ton of bricks. We had been each other’s first lovers, or so I had thought. Now I wasn’t so sure, this woman was saying that she had intercourse with MY man, the one that I had been with for 6 ½ years at that point. I called him at work and asked him to come home for lunch; I needed to talk to him. When I asked him about the letter he claimed that “she was just weird” and it had been her first kiss that she was talking about. Now, I’m a very innocent and trusting person, but I’m not stupid. I knew that he was lying to me to make me feel better, but I wanted the pain to go away, so I allowed myself to “believe” him. However I did NOT forgive him and I managed to push the situation to that back closet of my mind. Every few years since then she would come up again in my mind, usually at VERY inopportune moments, like during sex. I would wonder if he thought she was a better lover than me, or if he thought she was prettier than me. Every time I would remind myself: “He picked you in the end Tamar”. But it didn’t really help that much. Eventually after weeks of mental torment I would approach him about her again, seeking the truth that I knew in my heart, but never receiving from him. He stuck to his story like glue, it was just a kiss. Honestly, I can’t tell you which hurt more, the fact that he slept with her or the fact that he lied about it for 13 years. And for the 9 years that I knew about it, asked about it, and was straight-faced lied to about it, I withheld that forgiveness. You know who it burned? Me.

Christian’s comments:

Yup, I’m a dirtbag. No, it’s OK, you can call me one if you want. Go ahead. Have you ever been in a situation where no matter what you do to try to make the situation better, it just keeps getting worse? You know, you do what you think you should do to spare someone else’s feelings. My grandpa has a saying: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

I started digging a hole the first day and didn’t stop for thirteen years. By the time I confessed, that hole was extremely deep. I needed a head lamp and timbers to shore up the sides of the hole.

Husbands (and this goes for you wives too), if you are hiding something from your wife, you are not helping them. You may think you are sparing their feelings by holding back and lying to them, but you are doing more harm than good, because they are going to be hurt more when they find out later than if you just come out and tell them. Stop digging, climb out of your hole and confess.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Nehemiah, True Intimacy | Leave a comment

Day 26: Conflict

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Tamar

Nehemiah 1:1-4:23

This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20

Conflict is a necessary element in marriage. Without conflict there simply can’t be resolution. This is one of the last and most important things that this fast taught us. Although fighting has never really been a problem for Christian and me, it is extremely common in the majority of relationships. This is where Mark 3:24-25 is a very important verse to think on. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. A household that is full of arguing and constant strife cannot stand. So while conflict is important and necessary, like everything else in a marriage there must be a balance and everything must be done in love not anger. Conflict is necessary, anger and fighting is not.

Proverbs 27:5-6 tells us that when someone that you love comes to you and LOVINGLY points out the “sawdust in your eye”. When they say it in love and compassion, those wounds that they inflict can be trusted. They will heal quickly because they have been inflicted in love and for your own good. On the other hand there are “kisses” from an enemy. If you see someone you love acting in a way that is ungodly, you need to tell them, in love. If instead of pointing out their fault lovingly, you “kiss” them and tell them nothing or worse condone the action, then you might as well be an enemy to them. Over the years Christian has wounded me many times emotionally, but the majority of them have been for my own good. He has rarely spoken harshly to me, and he has never spoken to me in a condescending way. Wounds like these can be trusted.

In every conflict, either with a loved one or someone you don’t even know, you’ve GOT to fight fair. James 1:19-20 is, in a nut-shell, our “rules” for fighting with others. If we are in disagreement with someone we must be quick to hear what they’re trying to say. Whether in attack or defense we must LISTEN first and be loving. Next James says to be slow to speak. Don’t just blurt out your first knee-jerk reaction to what they’re saying. THINK before you speak. Better yet, PRAY before you speak. “Your words, not mine LORD.” This is my 5 word prayer for almost any situation. As Christian mentioned earlier I haven’t always been very good at doing this, but I’m working on it and improving day by day. Speak God’s words, let Him fill you with His word (scripture) so that the first thing off your lips is holy. Pray before you speak. (I said this twice for a reason.) Be thoughtful, the words you speak can change your entire life. Believe me, I know. There’s a reason God gave us two ears and only one mouth, we’re supposed to listen twice as much as we speak! In James 3:4 he compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship. Although very small in comparison to the ship as a whole, it steers the ship everywhere the pilot wants it to go. We must guard our speech so that it doesn’t take us somewhere we’re not supposed to go. Be slow to anger. Our anger, if left alone, can very quickly turn us into someone we don’t like or recognize. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) Be gentle in your answers, don’t re-act to your husband, just love him.

While God’s love is perfect and drives fear away, some human conflict creates fear. This should not be and is not right. There is no fear in love. “Lord, I know that someone out there right now is living in fear of someone that they love. I pray so desperately for them right now Lord. You love them so much, and I know that You want what is best for them. But because You allowed us to have free will, some people have taken advantage of that freedom and have abused it and Your loved ones. Right now I pray that Your perfect love cast out their fear. I pray that You touch their abusers heart in a way that no one has or ever will touch them. I pray that You change their heart and fill it with Your perfect love, causing them to know You better and know that true love doesn’t bring fear with it, only more love. Lord, protect my friend tonight, allow them to sleep sweet, and rest in Your peace knowing that You are holding them in the palm of Your hand, and that You are feeling every pain that they suffer. I ask all these things in the precious name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen!”

Christian’s comments:

You have probably had some disagreements with your wife during this fast. You might have had arguments with her before the fast. That’s OK, arguing is a part of every marriage. It is a necessary evil that can help the marriage, if done correctly. Yes, there are rules to arguing.

Keep it between yourselves! No one else should be involved. It is about you and her; meaning, keep the argument about each other. Don’t bring your mother-in-law into it.

Stay on point! Don’t move on to another subject until the first is resolved. If the argument is about how she never heeds your advice, don’t mention anything about how you don’t like how she folds your underwear. In other words, no more “And another thing…”.

In my opinion, the most important thing is: Have arguments! As Tamar stated, we have never really argued. One of us would usually say something like “OK, whatever” and go away angry. That is bad! Don’t hold your argument in. If you do, they will build up until they just explode out, usually at a very inopportune time. Or they may never come out at all. Then you get withdrawn and start to grow apart. You just stop talking to each other. Tamar and I were almost to that point.

There are more rules, but every couple and every argument is different. If you can learn how to “fight” well, you will learn how to “love” even better.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Nehemiah, True Intimacy | Leave a comment

Day 25: Intoxicating

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Tamar

Nahum 1:1-3:19

I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; Drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.
Song of Solomon 5:1

Nine days left, you’re almost there! So many things have happened in the last 20 days haven’t they? God works that way; I love how He manages to make everything fit together so that we learn the things that He wants us to learn in the time that He wants us to learn them. I’m dedicating this chapter to telling you about Intoxicating love.

Although the physical act of sex was what I always thought I truly wanted, it turns out that the physical intimacy of sex was not what I was searching for; in the end it was never enough. What I had been searching for was spiritual and emotional intimacy with my husband. While sex is important and healthy and necessary, it’s only a portion of the picture of marriage. When we have sex our bodies’ physical need is fulfilled, and with sex our souls and emotions are completely tied into the act of intercourse as well. But, it’s possible to have physically satisfying intercourse; all while leaving our souls wanting more. If you’re only having intercourse it can be physically satisfying for you, and your emotions will go along with it, for a time; but after a while you just feel emptier inside, instead of fulfilled. There’s a look in Christian’s eye that I cherish. It’s a look of complete adoration and love for me; a look that in an instant tells me how lucky he feels that I’m his wife. In that instant, I’m emotionally, physically and spiritually connected with him.

So often in our lives we settle for “good” when we could have the “BEST”. We settle for the “good” sex of the moment, pre-marital sex, self-pleasuring and adultery, instead of continuing to strive for the BEST sex of monogamy; where we can fully and completely give ourselves to one another without the fear of loss or rejection. I know that’s what Christian and I did. Instead of waiting for the “ocean” of married sex, we settled for the “pond” of premarital sex. It wasn’t until we went through this fast, invited God into the marriage and our bedroom, that we experienced intoxicating sex and true intimacy for the first time. And MY OH MY! We will NEVER go back!!! Now prepare yourselves, this next part is a little “R-rated”. But it’s OK, because God is in it too.

One night while “getting intoxicated” with my beloved, in that moment of near climax I was marveling at how perfectly his body was… ummm… shall we say… fitting, with mine when I loudly thanked God for creating him for me to enjoy in this way. God proudly whispered in my ear, “Isn’t he just perfect”. It was more than I could bear, because he is! God created my husband just for me. He created him to balance me perfectly in every possible way. He created him to chemically and electrically balance me, perfectly. He created him in a way where our personalities balance each other, perfectly. Christian is my other half. And although I’ve had my moments of doubt and frustration with him, the fact still remains. God made him for me and me for him. My beloved is mine and I am his. (Song of Solomon 2:16a)

How can I doubt God’s judgment in putting us together? He is God after all. Your husband is the opposite of you in many ways and that can get annoying occasionally but, cherish it because it’s those differences that create the perfect balance between the two of you. He’s your other half, together you create a whole.

Christian’s comments:

Wow! Is it getting hot in here? Whew! That pond looked good when we jumped in it. It felt pretty good to swim in too. For a while that is. But there was always something that didn’t seem right. I think about the first time that Tamar and I had sex. It really wasn’t that good. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Let me tell ya though, the first time we made love after our fast it was AMAZING! I would like to imagine that it would have felt like that on our wedding night if we had waited.

If you and your spouse waited until your wedding night to lose your virginity to one another, I congratulate you. If not, I encourage you to hold on and fast for a little while longer. Trust me, it will be worth it.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Nahum, True Intimacy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Leave a comment

Day 24: Weapon

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Tamar

Micah 5:1-7:20

Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things, see how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. James 3:4-6

You know the old adage; “if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all”? I think that applies here in marriage most of all. Our words hold such power and we don’t even realize it. Our words have the power to cut our husbands to the quick, or pull them up from a pit of despair. Our words are power-filled, and must therefore be carefully guarded. When I looked up “words”, “mouth” & “tongue” in a bible search engine I was amazed at how many scriptures deal with what comes out of our mouths. God is a man of few words, so when He says something once in the bible, you listen. If he says it twice, then it must be very important. If he says it 856 times, well, you listen, obey, and then listen some more!

Our tongues are the greatest weapon of mass destruction; they are like a nuclear bomb in a marriage. And just like a bomb, if not guarded carefully they can be dropped and decimate our precious husband. Our words can go two ways, they can build up, or they can tear down. And just because your husband (or friend, or brother or neighbor or stranger) acts in a way deserving of harsh words, it does not give you permission to cut them down with the sword of your tongue!

There’s a public service announcement where a mom is buckling her baby into its car seat, all nice and secure. Then the mom gets into the car, and locks the doors, and lights a cigarette. That baby is locked into that position of being forced to breathe that cigarette smoke and damage its lungs. Our negative words do the same thing to the people around us. They are like a thick black smoke. As the negative words pour out of our mouths the black smoke billows and fills the room. And the people around us are forced to breathe it in simply because they are near enough to hear. This smoke poisons your entire being with negative attitudes and thoughts. So the next time you’re driving with your kids in the car and you’re tempted to swear, or even speak harshly at the driver that just cut you off, remember, HE can’t hear you, but your kids can. He will not be affected by the black negative attitude smoke coming out of your mouth, but you and your children will be. The things that we think about are “stored up” in our hearts. (Remember Luke 6:45? The good man [or woman] out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.) Therefore the things that we think about are also coming out of our mouths as well. Before the fast I was constantly complaining to my friends about how horrible my husband was, I was constantly thinking about how horrible he was. Then when he came home, I’d start talking to him and treating him like a horrible husband. On the other hand, once I decided that I needed to change my attitude I started telling my friends how wonderful my husband is, and then I was thinking about all the great things that he does for me and how much he loves me. Now, when he gets home, I of course start talking to him and treating him like he is a wonderful husband. In the beginning, I was fighting momentum and it WAS NOT EASY. But I didn’t give up! Turning your weapon of mass destruction into a tool for building is possible.

The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; the one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. (Proverbs 13:3) Speaking rashly to your husband could just manage to push him down farther and you with him. With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. (James 3:9-11) Praise can flow from our lips like fresh water from a mountain spring. Your husband was made in God’s image, just as you were, praise him too. A man’s character is what matters most; both to his wife and to the man himself. Women marry men for their character. Men see themselves by their character. If you really want to praise your man, praise his character. NEVER insult his character.

Christian’s comments:

It’s dangerous to walk around with a loaded weapon, especially if it’s in your mouth! Make sure that your tongue doesn’t have a hair trigger. Be quick to think, but slow to speak.

Throughout our relationship, I’ve often told Tamar to think before she speaks. Don’t get me wrong, she doesn’t mean to say hurtful things to other people; it just comes across that way sometimes. We are ALL guilty of doing this. We start speaking before the entire thought is formed in our mind.

Accidentally saying harsh words occasionally can be hurtful to others for a short time. Purposefully saying harsh words often can be hurtful to others for a lifetime. The words don’t even have to be directed at someone to be harmful to them. If my son hears me constantly berating Tamar, how is he going to speak to his own wife? If the child’s father (or mother) is constantly complaining and swearing, that is all the child is going to know.

So, in essence, I guess what I’m suggesting is, speak only good, helpful things to build each other up, or keep your big mouth shut.

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Micah, True Intimacy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Leave a comment

Day 23: Mirror Mirror

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Tamar

Micah 1:1-4:13

Moreover, he made the laver [or basin] of bronze, from the mirrors of the serving women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Exodus 38:8

The basin of washing, or laver of bronze depending on your translation, was made from the mirrors of the women. This means that every time the priests washed themselves so that they could enter the presence of the LORD in the temple they saw their reflection in the mirrored bottom of the basin. God still uses this technique on us today. He calls us to look at ourselves and our actions and face the fact that we are not perfect but sinful beings in need of His help. Then we get to move on into a closer and more intimate relationship with Him. Today, He is holding the mirror before your face. What do you see?

Fold a piece of paper in half so that it looks like a hot dog bun (the preschool teacher in me just came out). Now keeping the paper folded, on the first side write down everything that your husband does that just drives you mad. Once you’ve finished your list, open up the paper and on the second column write your reactions to each of those things. For example:

The Mirror:
What he does that drives me crazy:	My reaction to that:
He leaves his dirty dishes in the living room.	I yell at him for being lazy and making me do all the work around the house.

Next, fold the paper back up and look only at column two. Read down the list of your reactions. This is what you look like to your husband. This is what he sees.

I had a couple of nights in a row where Christian came home very very late on school nights, I was sitting at my desk writing and just fuming because he wasn’t home yet, and God said to me, “Tamar, why would he want to come home to this? Why would he WANT to rush home to you being cold and mad at him?” The first night God said this to me, I didn’t care, I was mad and I was going to let Christian know it. On the second night, it made me think, “why WOULD he want to come home to that? I wouldn’t.” In Proverbs 20:11 it says “It is by his deeds that a lad distinguishes himself if his conduct is pure and right.” We are known by our actions, what are your reactions saying about you?

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Micah, True Intimacy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | 2 Comments

Day 22: Pot & Kettle

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Tamar

Matthew 27:24-28:20

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

To translate this passage into modern lingo, Jesus was basically saying “it’s like the pot calling the kettle black”. I believe that it is simply human nature to be able to see the flaws in other people before we see the flaws in ourselves, especially if it’s the exact same flaw. It’s so much easier to see the speck in someone else’s eye isn’t it? But for shame if they point out the log in ours! In marriage we have to be especially careful of this, I mean you are living with the person after all. You get to see ALL their flaws that way! In his letter to the Philippians, Paul says to Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have the attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:3-5 In this verse Paul is telling us we are to do nothing out of selfish ambition and to put the interests of others before our own. It’s too easy to get so focused on what we’re doing that we forget all about our husband’s needs and interests. And that is what was happening in my marriage. I was so focused on me and how mad I was at Christian that it was all I could see. I was so focused on the speck in his eye and trying to “help” him take it out that I never noticed the log in my own eye! Then one night God held up a mirror for me to see myself. “Hey look! There’s a log in my eye! When did that get there?”

I have an activity that I’d like for you to do. This was a complete turning point for me and I’m praying that it will do the same thing for you as well. You’ll need a couple pieces of lined paper and a pen.

Dream husband (from Dannah Gresh’s book And the Bride Wore White: 7 Secrets to Sexual Purity): Now, this one is really fun. Make a list of everything your dream husband would be. What would he look like? How would he dress? What personality traits would he have? Is he funny? Is he witty? What would his goals be? Does he want to run a marathon? Or maybe write a book? Be detailed in your descriptions. Don’t just say, he’s funny, say why he’s funny.

Now look at your list, how many of those qualities does your husband already possess? If you’re like me, he has the majority of them. By the time I got down to the end of my list I realized I already HAD my perfect husband. No he wasn’t actively doing all the things on my list but he had, at least in the past, done all of them! And, no, he wasn’t perfect, but he was the perfect husband for me, and I found that I still loved him. And after this activity, I decided to start liking him again too.

That’s also when I realized that it’s not my job to change my husband. That’s a job only God can do. However, God could (and did) use me to change my husband. He used me, by changing me. In Luke 6:27-31 it says: But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.” You see, it’s in those moments when we’re being un-loveable, that we need our husband’s love the most. Don’t return harsh words with harsh words, return them with love. No, it’s not easy, but it’s worth it because when you act out in love instead of anger, or hurt, the negative cycle is broken and a new cycle of love is started.

God loved US first. God’s love is perfect, never ending, never goes away and never dies. If we don’t know that kind of love how can we give that kind of love to our husbands? When we mess us, and I mean REALLY mess up big, God never, not for a second, stops loving us. Never. So when our husbands mess up, we can’t stop loving them, not for a second. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a) To love your husband means you are patient when he is late. You are kind when all you want to do is be mean (which, for me at least, is extremely hard to do). You don’t envy or boast. Don’t be conceited or act rudely. Don’t be a selfish pig (another of my faults), life is not all about you. Don’t be provoked into a fight, don’t keep a record (written or in your head) of all the things he’s done wrong. To love your husband means to take no joy in ungodly things, but rejoice in the truth! If your husband has done something against you (adultery for instance) and he tells you about it, REJOICE IN THE TRUTH! Bear all things, he’s human, not God, bear with him. Believe in your husband, hope in him, endure him, but most of all NEVER GIVE UP ON HIM.

No matter how you’re feeling about your husband right now, deep down you still love him don’t you. In fact, usually, if you’re mad at him it’s because you still love him. If you didn’t have love for him anymore you wouldn’t care anymore and would have no reason to be mad. One night we had a fire in the backyard with the kids. When it was time for us to go inside for the night there were no flames left in the fire, only a few embers. We wanted to make sure that it was completely out before we went in, so I got a gallon and a half of water and poured it on the embers. While the flames were long gone from the fire there WAS still enough heat in those few little embers that it boiled the water, created steam and a lot of cool popping noises. Plus, it took the whole gallon and a half to put them out! Don’t give up, while there may not be any flames right now, there are most likely at least a few embers and so, there’s still hope!

You see change has got to start somewhere; the cycle’s got to break. If you want your marriage and sex life to change, then YOU’VE got to be the one to change, not him. You’ll be amazed at the difference a little attitude adjustment will do for your sex life!

One last Proverb and then I’ll go for the day. “The crucible is for silver and the furnace for gold, and each is tested by the praise accorded him.” (27:21) The true test of how good of a wife we are comes from the praise we receive from our husbands. Is your husband praising you? I know mine wasn’t praising me, because I wasn’t earning it.

Christian’s comments:

OK, husbands, I want you to stand up. Go ahead. Now, clear your throat and say “I am a selfish pig”. Did you do it? I just did. OK, go ahead and sit down before people start to stare at you.

I believe it is human nature to put ourselves first. The reason I was coming home late wasn’t (entirely) because I didn’t want to be around my wife, I was out late doing what I wanted to do. After I realized what I was doing and how it was affecting my marriage, I changed. I try to put my wife first (especially in the bedroom, if you know what I mean). If you start putting her first, she will start putting you first and your marriage (and sex) will be amazing!

In Tamar’s second to last paragraph above, she stated that change needed to start with the wives. This isn’t just up to them, though, guys. YOU have to be willing to change too. YOU can be the one to start the change. You can’t expect your marriage to get better if you keep doing the same stupid things after your wife has changed.

I’d like to put a little twist on Tamar’s activity: the shopping list. I would like you to make a shopping list for your perfect wife. I’m not going to suggest any questions, but I would like you to come up with at least five, but no more than ten. Go ahead and put the book down and make your list.

Done? Good. This may shock you, but I’m not interested in your answers. I’m interested in your questions. More precisely, what you were thinking about while you were writing them. I’m willing to bet, that when you were writing most, if not all, of your questions, you were thinking about your wife, i.e., if you asked about what color her hair would be, you thought about your wife’s hair. That’s what happened when I made my list. Interesting, isn’t it?

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Matthew, True Intimacy | Leave a comment

Day 21: Threesome

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Tamar

Matthew 25:31-27:23

O Magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. Psalm 34:3

Contrary to what Hollywood is telling us, the Best most intimate sex is not only about the physical connection between two people; it’s a spiritual and emotional connection as well. Sex connects your souls creating a bond that grows deeper and stronger and better the older that it gets. Once you have protected yourselves, by taking away the option of divorce, you are free to bare your souls more fully with one another. By sharing yourselves completely you are only then able to truly make the soul connection that we as human beings were created to have with our spouses.

Two heads are better than one. As a couple you can do more, be more, love more, and help more; you literally complete each other. You can lean on each other when you get tired, cheer each other up when you get sad, tend to each other when you get sick, warm each other when you get cold, defend each other when you get attacked, and love each other in spite of your differences. Alone you are left, tired with no one to lean on, sad with no one to cheer you up, sick with no one to nurse you, cold with no one to warm you, attacked with no one to defend you. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says: “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”

I think the principles from this scripture are perfectly illustrated by the following story. There once was a father with two bickering sons. One day, tired of their constant fighting the father gave each of his sons 2 sticks and first instructed them to attempt to break one of them in half; which they each accomplished with ease. The father replied, “When you bicker and fight you stand alone and are easily broken.” He then told them to hand him their 2^nd sticks and he bundled them together along with his own stick and tied them with a cord. He handed his oldest son the bundle and told him to try and break it. He couldn’t do it. Looking to his sons he said, “When you set aside your differences and work together you are like this bundle of sticks. When we are tied together as one united group it’s next to impossible to break.”

In these verses from Ecclesiastes it talks about all the ways that two are better than one, and then at the end the number changes from two, to a cord of THREE strands. This is a poetic device to draw attention to something. It makes the reader ask, what’s the third thing? A man and woman are better together than being alone. However, we are not yet made complete until the third element is added. God completes the cord of three strands.

Marriage was originally created to be threefold; God, a husband and a wife, 3 crucial parts to one cord. If you take any one of those elements out of the marriage you weaken the entire unit. Just like the sticks in the story, by themselves they are brittle and easily broken, but tied together with the bonds of love they become strong; an unstoppable force. When we as a society try to re-define God’s original definition of the threefold picture of marriage we not only weaken those marriages themselves but also the society in which they exist. Every society is built on the strength of the family unit. When those units begin to break apart the society breaks apart right along with them.

Now, I’m going to say something that may be slightly shocking to some people, so prepare yourselves. I am going to propose that you invite God, not just into your marriage, but into your…bedroom as well. I know, the thought of it is a little strange, but when you stop to think about it, He invented sex, He’s seen you naked, so what’s so different about acknowledging the fact that He’s there with you and that He *gasp!* approves of what you’re doing. I could go more into detail on this, but I don’t want to get anyone too excited, we’ve still got 12 more days of fasting after all. So we’ll talk about this more later, at the end of the book.

Christian’s comments:

A triangle is the strongest shape. Husbands, if you are a gear-head like me, you probably watch auto racing. More specifically, stock car racing. If you have watched as much as I have, there’s no doubt that you have noticed the roll cages inside the racecars. They are made up of a whole bunch of triangles. They are built with the strength of triangles to withstand damage from huge crashes.
I’ve also watched a lot of off road truck racing. The chassis of the trucks are basically a big triangle; strengthened with smaller triangles built into them. They are built this way to withstand the constant beatings the trucks take during races.

When I build a demolition derby car, I build as many triangles into the safety cage as possible. That way, my car can withstand the constant “attacks” from my “enemies” on the track. (For anyone that doesn’t know what a demolition derby is, imagine bumper cars with real vehicles.)

You build a triangle when you have God in your marriage. With the three (God, husband, and wife) working together, your marriage can stand up to any big crashes, beatings, and attacks that come along

Categories: 365 Life, Jesus Loves YOU, Matthew, True Intimacy, Writing Through the Bible in a Year | Leave a comment

True Intimacy

Day 34: Beneficial

Here are the Readings we missed over the weekend! Day 29-33

Day 29: Free

Day 28: How Can I?

Day 27: Forgiveness

Day 26: Conflict

Day 25: Intoxicating

Day 24: Weapon

Day 23: Mirror Mirror

Day 22: Pot & Kettle

Day 21: Threesome

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