A rabbit trail

I heard someone in church say that seasons of sadness happen to everyone, and when you are going through it, you just stick it out, it doesn’t mean God isn’t there or you aren’t a proper Christian or you are doing something wrong. You just live with it until it goes away. Joy isn’t for everybody all the time.

I have been thinking about this, because it goes along with what we have been discussing here: tragedy, suffering, comfort, and joy. So I have to go on a little rabbit trail to end up where I want to be with this.

Let’s see, how to delicately discuss this … I was thinking of God’s purpose for [s-x] in marriages. Of course children. My husband and I have three ourselves. Four counting our son who is waiting for us in heaven. But children cannot be the only purpose, because that would mean becoming one flesh four times in twenty-four years. Or about once every six years. That isn’t happening. But God is the One who created the whole one flesh thing. It is His idea. And He said, do not defraud one another.

So more than children is meant by it. I think it is for joy. For most of the history of the world, a human’s life on this earth has been a series of miserable hardships. Slavery. Long days of hard slog to not have enough to get by. We forget, here in America in this time, how absolutely blessed we are to live so comfortably, so well, so freely. Regular middle-class Americans today live far more comfortably than royalty during the Middle Ages.

But in spite of the hardness of life, no matter what happens outside, at the end of a trying day, we can have a little slice of joy sharing love with our life’s mate. It’s like compensation, a little gift of grace to strengthen us for life in a fallen world. And regularly sharing ourselves with our mate requires us to keep our hearts free of bitterness and unforgiveness toward them.

So, now to bring the rabbit trail back to the topic at hand … (to be continued).

Previously: Comfort as a mother comforts
***
Update: continued in The joy of intimacy.

You should read Sex and the Supremacy of Christ ...

Thank you

What a lovely way to express that

Still waiting...