Where is the Line?
I love reading this site each day, gets my creative juices flowing! I have a high libido, and that is just the way God made me. Because of this, I struggle with temptations that some of my Christian friends cannot relate to at all. Of course they struggle with things I can’t relate to either but the struggle with sin is all the same. I certainly like to be inspired by fantastic ideas about loving Christian Marriages. I am no prude either, daring to teach a Bible Study at my very conservative church about the Song of Solomon – oral sex, nude dancing (for each other), outdoor sex, a couple who loves and lives a full erotic married life. I have also published a story of my own here (and other stories other places before I came to this amazing site) which I would love for you to read.
But…our community is dangerously close to reaching a tipping point. Commenters are pointing to their own blogs on Tumblr and a “Genesis” website – both of which contain nudity depicting blow jobs, anal plugs, full penetration, masturbation, and much more. One couple fully displays their sex life for all to see. The other site has random pictures of people.
The Bible is very clear about sex, if you take the time to read it objectively:
- Certain acts are expressly forbidden: sex outside of marriage, sex with animals, and the like.
- Certain acts are expressly encouraged: kissing, making love, looking at each other’s bodies, touching body parts, etc.
- Couples are encouraged to behave and talk in such a way as they encourage and do not degrade or diminish their partner.
- The mind is to be thinking about all that is good. Sexually this means you fantasize about your spouse, define beauty by how she looks and no other , etc.
- Almost everything else within the confines of the tight and special circle of the married couple is fair game.
So I ask these questions…
- How does our community feel about people who want you to look at pictures of them having sex, or of random people nude, masturbating or copulating?
- How would you feel about a couple submitting to this site a nude picture along with their erotic story?
- Is it alright to support another married couple’s need to have their sex life enhanced by their act of exhibitionism?
I was glad to see the survey question this week and I am very interested to see your responses.
Great points, southerngent. I am interested in the dialogue it sparks!
Well, I am interested in what you think too!:)
Haha, yes, I was planning to. But my phone is on the fritz so I have to wait until I get to a computer.
Firstly, I wanna thank SouthernGent for reminding us about the rightful and wholesome limits the Bible sets in the area of sexuality. Thank you for having expressed them beautifully in your list!
Here's what I wanna say to the questions you've asked… Upfront I want to state clearly that I can only speak for myself, but I will say what happened in my case just to illustrate the danger involved in the sharing of different things from outside of MarriageHeat on MarriageHeat. I love MarriageHeat because I could trust the admins 100% that they will not allow anything to be posted (in the comments or as posts) that would either contradict biblical Truth or be too explicit… The MH admins have always used wisdom in what they have allowed, knowing that there are many different people browsing the site (many not commenting but following intently) – singles, married, broken people, struggling people/couples, young and old… I could count on the MH admins because they didn't give authority over the content on MH away to some 3rd party (such as it happens by linking the site to other sites through references made in comments). The MH admins kept careful vigilance over what was posted for the benefit of all, and I personally do deeply approve of them to not allow for sites outside of MH to be shared in the comments or the posts – no matter if they are blog sites or other "Christian" heat sites. I am firmly against the sharing of links to outside/3rd party content on MH because there is a great, dangerous risk involved for some of us in the community…
I have followed the discussion where the Genesis website was suggested. I have not known this site before… I checked it out… and all I will say on here, as this is very much embarrassing for me, is that after a few days, I have fallen completely into sin. It started by checking out the Genesis site, peeking at all the nudes, then the animated nudes, and it eventually ended up with me failing to resist the temptation to go through the links that this unholy Genesis site suggests… (To anyone reading this now that might be tempted to look it up: Do yourself a favor and please please please resist the urge to go watch this site up or anything it links to. Don't go there. Don't do it. It will cause you spiritual trouble.) To cut a long story short, I was caught up in complete, outright sin this past weekend watching basically a whole bunch of 30-sec. porn video snippets. I hated myself all throughout the weekend, and I cried out to Jesus all throughout the weekend to save me from this insanity, from what I was doing to myself and to Him… I don't wanna hear anyone now play down the danger of sin in the sexual field. Sin is sin. And we should call it that way. It startles me that, though I do know way better than to even go thus far, I had such a hard time resisting that temptation and getting away from it… and this even though I never enjoyed neither what I was watching nor myself while I was watching what I was watching. None of us is bulletproof against temptation, so we better not play with the fire. Temptation doesn't announce itself, it usually creeps in like a serpent, then grips you like an anaconda. To be clear, I'm not blaming anyone on here for my fall into sin; I am responsible for my sinful choices… Instead of life, I stupidly chose death in those instances, and to tell it all open and honest, the "little bit" of trespassing I did has already damaged my relationship with myself and my relationship to God's pure and holy gift of marital intimacy. I am currently unable to see myself be able to pursue marriage further because I am now convinced that I cannot do what I saw sex to be. I have decided for myself to try my best to abstain from anything sexual until further ado in order to ensure that I will not damage my relationship with God further by walking in disobedience to Him. Before anyone thinks now that I'm trying to work for righteousness… I know that as I repented for my sins by the Blood of Christ, God's Grace has me covered. But I am in no way willing to become an abuser of His Grace. Grace can never function as an excuse to continue sinning. God is faithful to forgive me for my sins as I repent, and it is my responsibility to do whatever I can do to sin no more, while He changes what needs to be changed on the inside of me.
So, SouthernGent, to your questions:
1) I do in no way approve of people wanting us to watch explicit stuff.
2) I do not approve of members having the possibility to submit their own pics alongside their stories. The pictures the admins are using are well enough. And most of the admins' pictures don't show faces or so, which I love because it helps keep the thought life pure.
3) No, it's not alright in my opinion. And the answers to this are to be found in the Bible. It would not only defile the marriage bed of the couple but it would be a stumbling block to one or the other reader/follower, and the Bible tells us that we should not cause another sister/brother-in-Christ to stumble – we do not all have the same level of "practical" freedom in the area of sexuality but we must respect the limits another has. (see Paul's take on this topic, which he tackles through the example of food)
Lastly, dear MH admins, I wanna thank you for the good work you've always done and I hope that you continue to go your own way, not following what other sites might suggest but only and wisely following what God leads you to do with this ministry/this community. Thank you for keeping it to be a space for Biblical Truth and wholesome exchange, watching carefully what is submitted, for the sake of us all. The dedication and work and love for God you put into this unique MarriageHeat ministry is praiseworthy, and I just want to encourage you to keep taking the high road, the narrow path. May God bless you and keep you and watch over you and guide you in strong and personally special ways!
To my MH friends, thank you for your love and heartfelt support and understanding – I feel nothing but love for you in my heart. God bless you!
PfC- Wow, what a powerful story. I’m so glad you shared it. I have to admit, I have a handful of similar memories from my single days, if that helps you feel any better. And, actually, maybe even one or two from my married days if I’m honest. It’s a good reminder to all of us to be thoughtful and discerning in all of our actions. Thanks for being so transparent. I really appreciate that about you.
Thank you, Eva, for seeking to comfort me! And thanks for being who you are! I shocked myself by my own actions… so much so that I was about to deny my sexual being anew in response to the shame and guilt and fear I heaped up through my wrong actions. It is scary to realize how fragile we humans can be… for a little over a year now God had been working with me to free me from the sexual aversion I had carried with me and here comes 1 moment of sin, 1 strategic trap of the Enemy, and it can put us in such jeopardy… but thank God, in our weakness He is strong! He holds us in His unshakable embrace. He looks at us through eyes of love. He cleanses. He restores. He strengthens. He makes new and whole. He never ever lets go of us. Because we belong to Him, we can get back up and stand, even through our weakness. I’m super grateful for this! God bless! 🙂
PfC, thank you for honestly sharing this with MH. God bless you and keep you. You are a special young lady and I’d say any guy would be lucky to have you as his wife.
You said, “I am currently unable to see myself be able to pursue marriage further because I am now convinced that I cannot do what I saw sex to be.” But I want to tell you that porn is not the most realistic view of what sex looks like in real life nor how it occurs, as I’ve stated in previous posts, it’s for a “viewing” audience and is not about the couple’s pleasure or relationship. It is empty. I’m truly discouraged that this happened to you and affected you like it did!
Dearest Blondie, first of all, thank you so much for the love and support! I know you know how much you are blessing my life and how much you mean to me. I’m so thankful for the difference you make for the better to certainly not just me but many more who are blessed to know you. I love your faith and the depth of care and understanding that you live by.
You are so right with what you have stated about porn and it being empty. Looking back, I can confirm that though sex was biologically portrayed, each and every touch and motion that occured was completely and tangibly void of love and meaning. I do believe that the deep bond between a husband and wife and the love and meaning that flows from it make all the difference (besides the Presence and approval of God Himself of course)… in this bond, sex will be full of the Spirit and full of life – worlds apart from the cheap counterfeit, the lustful act porn portrays.
I am looking forward to see God turn that stumbling of mine into greatness for His Glory. Greater is He that is in me. May He continue to make me into a yet more stable and even more beautiful vessel for all this love He puts in me to give – to my future spouse, my future kids and all whom He has already given unto my life. God bless! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing, PFC. My heart hurts for you and my prayers are with you. God has you in the palm of His hand. Rest there.
Well said PfC. Sin is sin. Instead lets encourage one another, and be blessed by sex the way God designed it. And yes, a big thanks to the MH staff for all their work.
All I can say is, AMEN!!! to your response, Passionate for Christ!!!
A friend of mine had a seminary professor once who talked about a concept that I think might be helpful here. Someone had asked in class why in missions christians from a broad range of denominations and backgrounds were able to work together and stay united toward their mission when churches and denominations even among Christians with shared backgrounds are rife with internal conflict and division.
The professor answered by talking about the difference between a “bound set” and a “singular focus.” Which I think has something to do with number theory, but I’m not a math whiz, so I’ll just explain it how it was explained to me. In a system organized by a bound set there are certain rules or boundaries or lines that determine what is part of the system and what isn’t. This is how churches and denominations tend to be organized. So maybe I’m catholic so I believe that Christ’s physical body is present in the Eucharist, but my friend Sue is Presbyterian so she believes that Christ’s spirit is present but his body is not. So if Sue goes to Mass with me, she can’t take communion because her beliefs are outside the bound set.
On the other hand, mission agencies tend to be united under a single driving focus. Namely, their focus is to share the gospel. And in a mission agency, anyone who wants to share in that single focus is likely to be allowed to participate. They might have different ideas about this or that, but all those things are secondary to their key focus, so for the most part differences are ignored or minimized in order to optimize the effectiveness of their mission.
I think these ideas of a bound set and singular focus can apply to this conversation in a couple different ways.
First of all, i think it is true to say that the Old Testament Law could be described as a bound set. And I think that Jesus greatest commandments of “love God, others and yourself” can be described as a singular focus. The OT law is an unbearable and cumbersome yoke because it is impossible to ever name all the things there could be rules about, and even if you did make a complete list, you’d never remember or be able to keep them all. This is one of the reasons Jesus was always flying off the handle at the Pharisees. They were the the rule people and they were putting a debilitating number of rules on the Jewish people.
But Jesus came along and said that his yoke was easy and his burden was light. His yoke was the yoke of love. He came to “fulfill” the OT law by telling us what the point of all the laws actually was. The point of the laws was to treat others with love. He didn’t say to forget the laws, but he did imply by his actions that the laws could be broken when they seemed to be missing the singular focus of love. For instance, sabbath laws were a huge deal back then in a way most of us today can’t relate to. You weren’t allowed to walk too far or make a cooking fire or harvest grain or work in any way. But Jesus seemed to be forever “breaking” the laws. He picked grain from a field to feed his disciples. He healed people on the sabbath. and the Pharisees got all persnickety with him, and he just retorts that the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. Jesus’ point is that they were missing the singular focus. The point was to love God-others-yourself and Jesus was showing love by feeding and healing. And they were missing the whole point of the sabbath law.
So…in a round about way now, I’m going to finally get to what you were asking. “Where is the line?” And my simple answer is that I don’t think there is one. Because that would be part of a bound set…and I don’t think there’s a way to have a healthy conversation on here while trying to work within the framework of a bound set. But there is a singular focus. And I think we might be able to have a healthy and helpful conversation if we approach things from that perspective. So I’m going to talk about that instead.
When it comes to our personal purity codes, I think we absolutely have to give ourselves and others permission to work from the singular focus of love rather than the bound sets of the various purity codes that various groups of christians have used over the years. That’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t take those codes into thoughtful consideration, but just that those rules shouldn’t ever superceed the absolute singular focus of love taught by Christ. We absolutely have to be able to trust ourselves to be able to answer the question “is this loving to all parties involved?” with integrity. And we have to trust that our brothers and sisters can answer this question with integrity too because Jesus asked us ALL to take on this yoke rather than the unwieldy one of the Pharisees.
So when it comes to these nudity sites, the truth is, some of us might be able to answer the love question affirmatively while others may not. I personally can’t stomach the Genesis site, but others here spoke of how they found healing in their marriage bc of it. Meanwhile I personally thought the tumblr site was refreshing and fun. As a happily married, sexually satisfied female with a fairly healthy sense of body image, the biggest message I got out of that site was that here was a couple who was obviously having some fun, and I wished them the best. My husband had a different take, though. He looked at it right after we had sex one day. He said at that moment in that state of mind, he could look at the site and feel fine about it. But he said he didn’t think it would be a good idea for him look at it late in the week when I’m on my period. He said in that frame of mind he needs to be more careful about the images he sees. So in these situations, of person purity,it isn’t the nudity itself that’s the problem. It’s the way the nudity does or does not interact with your ability to love yourself and others that either makes it an issue or a non issue.
The other way I’d talk about the singular focus is in regard to the MH site itself. MH has always been committed to the singular focus of supporting faithful hot monogamy. Mh brings together christians from all over the theological spectrum who can all agree that hot monogamy is a good thing. I periodically have observed how their team deletes comments that create controversy apart from that singular focus. And it’s not that as a team they don’t think those other conversations are worth having, just that they aren’t worth having on this site bc they take away from the central focus. So I think a question the MH team might want to ask is whether or not allowing links to these controversial sites is in keeping with their focus or not. And I don’t know what the answer to that question is. And I’d be curious to hear what others think, Bc different people here might have different answers to that question. But my bottom line is that I don’t think it’s a matter so much of asking if such and such a thing crosses a line or not so much as its a question of whether or not such and such is contributing to the singular focus of the site or not.
So anyway…this might hold the record for my longest comment ever….but there’s my 2 cents.
So the problem with writing an epically long comment is that sometimes when you go back and read it you decide that there’s part of it you aren’t even sure you agree with….and that’s a problem. So, here’s what I wrote that I want to clarify before everyone else goes ballistic on me. :).
I wrote, ” We absolutely have to be able to trust ourselves to be able to answer the question “is this loving to all parties involved?” with integrity. And we have to trust that our brothers and sisters can answer this question with integrity too because Jesus asked us ALL to take on this yoke rather than the unwieldy one of the Pharisees.”
I want to clarify that I don’t think we are all capable of making all the right choices all of the time. And I’m afraid that’s what that paragraph sounded like. What I do want to say is that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we grow in faith we learn to make better and better choices and we need to learn to respect that process that God is doing in others lives as well. I think sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to dictate rules for others in a sincere effort to protect them from themselves, when what we should be emphasizing more is the principle of making loving choices. And I think this can be problematic bc it teaches people to value the rules over the message of love. And that isn’t what Jesus was teaching.
Eva, cool stuff… I was going to use the ‘centered set’ vs ‘bounded set’ distinction myself, and you’ve said it better than I would have! My problem with it… or addition to it would be that loving God himself is also at the center along with loving others, and loving God means leaving idols/obsessions – anything that takes his place, and also respecting his created order – hence, no incest, polygamy, gay-sex, etc. So respecting these kinds of boundary lines is loving him. Ie. It seems to me that Christian ethics covers more than loving our neighbour – there’s also our relationship with God. So yeah there is a place for certain types of boundaries.
Eve, you are a beautiful and deep thinker…exactly what we needed for this topic…I think the “singular focus” in context of a site like MH is to support the closed circle of the marriage. I personally don’t want to be in a dom/sub relationship but I recognize that is fine inside the marriage. we even have a friend couple who needs this for her to achieve orgasm and she claims it started at a young age, enjoying the feeling wrestling with strong boys and other things. But if they needed to share their intimacy by posting pictures for others or videos of them having sex…to me that would cross the boundary of what God intended…although I confess, I would be sorely tempted to watch it myself…LOL
TW- I’ll second this!
I agree wholeheartedly, Thoughtfulwriter. You have said it much better than I could have. Well done. My husband says “It depends” concerning A LOT of things. Whenever I get frustrated with how much he says it, he just calmly says, “It really does depend on so many other variables.” I’m beginning to see what he means.
I have had James 1:14-15 running through my brain when thinking about this post. “…but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desires, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.”
Just as Thoughtfulwriter was saying, ‘It all depends.’ Evil desires begin in the heart, they quickly move to the mind. If those evil desires are pondered on and thought about for any period of time, it can easily give birth to sin, and when that sin is accomplished, it leads us on a downward spiral ending in death (the Biblical definition of ‘death’ is separation from God). Therefore, evil desires, if not killed in conception give birth to sin and end in a rift in our relationship with our Savior. This happens in every aspect of our lives, not just sexual sin.
The question, “Where is the line?” as it concerns public nudity or nudity on the internet is indeed a very good question and I believe the Bible has answered it for us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body.” GOD HAS THEREFORE GIVEN US A WAY TO KNOW WHEN TO DRAW THE LINE. – When we are no longer glorifying Him in our body, His sanctuary.
With this thing called internet and the ability to get a hold of such good and evil in a moment’s time, we need to be doubly discerning. One can easily fall into sin reading the Genesis2twentyfive site just as easily as one can fall into sin reading MarriageHeat. One can fall into sin working closely with their handsome coworker just as easily as one can fall into sin watching a sex scene on television.
I did have many questions concerning the Genesis2twentyfive site and I emailed Adam Turner and my husband and I have been corresponding with him for a couple of weeks now. I would not call his sites unholy. I can see how easily one could fall into sin browsing the images, however, my husband does not come onto MarriageHeat because he has an overactive imagination and knows that this site sometimes causes him to NOT glorify God with his body. He does not call this site unholy, he just knows his limits. The Genesis site and corresponding with Turner has been a huge help for him.
Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to voice my heart. I believe the line needs to be drawn when we, personally, stop glorifying God with our body, which is His home.
Dear CMLove, not wanting to spark anything here but just to clarify: My opinion about the Turner site was not made because it caused me to fall into sin. As I said, I made the wrong decision. I didn’t listen to God. I called the Genesis site unholy (and stand by my opinion about it) because of its content, because of what Turner states and portrays and such. The Genesis site actively promotes and enables people through their suggested links to visit and get access to free porn sites. And the stuff that is on these sites is outright sinful and ungodly – to be very clear: there are massive amounts of portrayals of everything that the Bible calls to be an abomination in the eyes of God (threesomes, lesbian sex, orgies…).
There is a big difference between the Genesis site and the Marriage Heat site. NEVER EVER would MH link up the people, which frequent MH, through suggested links, to porn sites. And I don’t care how many warnings Mr. Turner puts on his site before the links or whatever, by making available the link, he promotes lawlessness in the eyes of God. That may sound harsh to some on here (or maybe most of those who like to come on heat sites) but there is a BIG difference between celebrating marriage heat God’s way and what Mr. Turner has built up over there. And this difference has nothing to do with individual levels of susceptibility to certain temptations.
Dear CMLove, I’m not trying to convince you of anything or to make you change your ways. We are all free to make our own choices and bear our own responsibility for them all. I’m happy that it helped your husband. But I cannot stay silent about the fundamental difference there is between Turner’s site and MH. I realize that most of the time not many will second/cheer for what I write because it is not always what makes us feel all gooey. And although I, like everyone else, do of course feel loved when I get cheered for, I am not here to be popular with people but to please God and to stand for what He said in His Word. We are all here on Earth to do and promote only what honors God and what is in accord with His Word, which is clear about and has a lot to say about the freedoms and the limits and the trespasses in the sexual field – in respect to oneself and one’s marriage relationship as well as in respect towards how to handle it all in the community of us brothers and sisters in Christ.
One last point I want to make because it feels to me like this always gets a bit lost here amidst all the love focus… Yes, the point Eva makes about love is important and rightful and I know what she means. But I’d beg us not to forget that Jesus said “If you love Me, you will obey my commands.” Obedience to God’s laws is how Jesus defines the love that should govern us. It is fully submitted, absolute obedience to God that governed Jesus while He walked in the flesh on this Earth. Jesus never abolished the law; He fulfilled it, so that we can walk in Him and fulfill it too through Him. He set the example for us to follow, and He followed God’s laws. Through Him we are not under the yoke of the law anymore, which required the Israelites to work for their salvation and righteousness. Thank God, through Jesus and the Cross, we are saved by Grace and made righteous by the Blood of the Lamb. But the laws God has set for His children to lead a good, proper, holy and blessed life are and will always be legitimate – they are simply the frame He sets for us all, for our own benefit. We should and can question man-made traditions but God’s laws are just as holy as He is and should be respected the way they are.
God bless you all!
Hi, PFC! Thank you for your kind words and your stand for the truth. My biggest desire, as yours is, is to glorify God in all that I do. I have not looked at all the other sites Adam Turner suggests but if he is “condoning” porn sites and threesomes and the like then he is condoning sin and is therefore committing sin. You are so right that Jesus said “If you love me, you will do what I say.” In Matthew 18, Jesus clearly states that, if a brother (as Adam Turner has claimed he is) is in sin, it is our responsibility to go and show him his sin. In our correspondence with Turner, he has many times written that his deepest desire is follow and stand with God’s truth. Because of this, I urge you to write him an email and tell him, as a sister in Christ, that he should take down the links to those other sites because they are clearly NOT honoring to God. I know Turner would listen and thank you because I believe he is a brother in Christ that also wants to honor God with his heart and mind and body. Please understand I am not trying to patronize you or anything like that. I strongly agree with your stance and, if Turner is condoning these sites, he needs to be rebuked by other children ofGod. I love you, dear sister. Thank you again for all that you are!!
Dearest CMLove, I love you too 🙂 You have a beautiful, good heart and I am grateful it belongs to God. I’m grateful for your steady support and understanding! You are a wonderful sister in Christ.
I doubt that Turner would listen because on his site, on the page before listing the link suggestions, he already states:”… I am not unaware that most of the Christians on the web would not look favorably on the topic, or my approach to it. As much as I can I will review some of them and counter their arguments, but my preference is to focus on the positive and share those rare sites that speak with insight and sensitivity to the issue.”
Turner openly introduces the link section (which includes links to several sites that feature pornographic as well as ungodly display) with these words:”Here you will find links to sites helpful to our topic of Christians Enjoying Nudity and Erotica. Some will be to sites where you can find enjoyable nudity and erotica. There are many thousands of sites featuring both, but I will select a few I believe have some redeeming merit.”
I highly doubt that Turner will be receptive to being rebuked because, as you can see, he calls these “helpful” and “having some redeeming merit”.
And it is not that he doesn’t know what these sites show. The link section that is dedicated to the sites that feature videos (all these sites are filled with videos of mainstream/worldly portrayals of sex as well as pornographic and ungodly sex portrayals)… Turner introduces this section with the following statement:”If a person does not want to watch real sex there is still a lot to excite, stimulate and arouse in the simulated sex found in movies over the past few decades. And there are sites devoted to “the good bits” of regular movies, bits where breasts and bush and behind are bare, and other bits where breasts and behind are fondled and caressed, and more bits where lovemaking is simulated in ways sure to arouse the most sophisticated. Some sites feature nudity, simulated sex, and more, but at least they are places where the simulated can be found.”
This clearly shows that Turner chose the sites on purpose, full well knowing what they feature, and he not just condones it, he stands by it… it’s like, for the sake of the stance he follows and furthers, nothing is off limits for him… like, the end justify the means for him. And that’s not something God would approve of, I believe. That’s compromising the high road, the narrow path.
About the site I have experienced, Turner only says that it has a “wide array of videos showing the nude and sexual parts of mainstream movies. They also have quite a bit of more explicit material as well.”
He full well knows what these sites portray and he calls these porn videos of all kinds: “more explicit material”.
On the description of another link, he highlights the possibility to download still shots of the video scenes on there for free… This is NOT celebrating God’s creation (mankind and nudity) nor the gift of sexual intimacy, which God created for marriage only and should be treated like the gem it is. What Turner does is promote the building of lustful habits and lustful thinking outside of the frame of the marriage relationship… people are encouraged to not imagine their spouse but to look at other people (celebs or porn actors or private sex performers) and get aroused and stimulated and enjoy themselves to this, with these people in mind. THIS is certainly not what God supports.
I doubt that he would listen to my plea to remove those links… he would have to take down a whole section. I believe that he would more so try to convince me of his approach and counter my appeal.
Much love and blessings to you, dear!
Hi, PFC! Thank you so much for taking my comments in the spirit that they were meant! I care about you so much and I greatly value your opinions. I have just been reading his articles and have not read anything about or looked into the sites he suggests. I agree with your stance and I still believe, because he claims to be a brother in Christ, he does need to be rebuked. Not in order to change the website, but to make him aware that he has moved from speaking the truth (the simple beauty of the created form) to sin (suggesting and supporting pornographic images). I understand why you are not going to write him and I agree with your assessment of the situation. However, my spirit will not be settled unless I state the dangers of being in the spot he so willingly created for himself. Your prayers are much appreciated as I practice Mathew 18 and voice the truth. I do not expect anything to change, but I do feel I will be at peace in my soul after I do what Christ commands in rebuking a brother in the Faith. I love you sweet sister! Stay strong! I’m sure God is so proud of you!
Thank you so much, CMLove! Your love is such a blessing to me. I love the person of living faith that you are. I’ve got no doubt that God is so very much proud of you, sweet sis! You are inspiring. I’ve got you covered, and more importantly so, God’s got you covered as you do what He, in your spirit and heart, moves you to do. Thank you for your steady hearty encouragement! It means a lot to me and is deeply appreciated. God bless you, my friend!
PfC, I totally get what you are saying and agree. It is better to live for God and not try to justify what we’re doing because God gives us grace, living for God doesn’t always make us feel gooey inside, sometimes it can make us feel convicted.I am glad you are unafraid to speak your mind. I checked out that site when the link was mentioned and I got uneasy from the logic behind it myself, it was filled with half truths that masked the intent of the site, I didn’t get any further, didn’t want to put myself down that road, but if what you’re saying, hat it linked to real life people committing acts outside of marriage relationships committing acts, then it was what I had a hunch about. I also believe those sort of sites in the name of scripture teach men to objectify women and basically further enhance the self-esteem problems that can occur in a society that puts so much on appearance.
Hey dear Silver, thank you! Sweet to hear from you 🙂 I fully agree with you. God bless you!
CMLove, I liked your use of James 1 and especially 1 Cor 6 here. That’s a good way to look at it and I never thought of it that way before. If it isn’t honoring God then it is sin. Simple, easy to remember.
Hi Passionate,
You wrote,
“I realize that most of the time not many will second/cheer for what I write because it is not always what makes us feel all gooey.”
For the record – I am seconding and cheering what you wrote here – and it makes me feel gooey. 🙂
I would not want to attempt to redeem what that web site is doing. It would take a better lawyer than me to pull that off.
I love the freedom God has given us – and I shamefully don’t always use it for good – but I do not want to promote things that could easily cause others to stumble.
God bless you my friend! LH
Thanks for the sweet love, LH! 😀
“I love the freedom God has given us – and I shamefully don’t always use it for good…” – I feel you on this one. I am so grateful that God sees us as learners and that He is not just our Teacher but also our Shepherd. In His mighty, loving hands we will come out as pure as gold. His gift of sexuality/marital intimacy is so powerful – thankful that He never stops teaching us to receive, handle and give it as the unique and invaluably precious gift of His Grace that it truly is.
I’ve been debating whether or not to comment on this. But I have some thoughts that I wanted to share so here goes…
I have examined the genesis… site and I have corresponded with the site’s owner through email. And through all this I have learned once again that nothing is strictly black or white. I have a tendency to think in black or white, either/or but I have learned (and continue to learn) that there are a lot of “grey” areas in life. So here’s my take on that site and his views.
1. To be fair, he does have two separate sites. One has the text only where you can read his thoughts without looking at the pictures and the other has the pictures included. He explains this and gives you the option which one you want to view. So that’s good.
2. In reading his posts, I found that he does have some good things to say. Again we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And I was reminded of this as I looked at his site.
3. For instance, he has a post pointing out that the male and female form is created “in the image of God.” So there is an inherent beauty in the human body, whether male or female. He also has a good study of the Song of Songs. He essentially breaks it down verse by verse and explains what they are saying in common language. As I was reading it I felt like I was reading a Marriage Heat post! LOL! And it helped me to understand the Song of Songs a little better. He also has a post discussing the fact that in our society we tend to allow certain kinds of sexual immorality without thinking about it. So in sitcom shows (he focused on the show “Mike and Molly”) we see couples living together and having sex together before marriage, yet we still watch the show and laugh and look over that part. And in these shows it isn’t subtle. It’s very obvious that they are having sex. Yet if someone were to show a couple actually having sex, we suddenly have a problem with it. I get what he is saying here and I appreciated his pointing out this double standard. Personally, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people have double standards and talk out of both sides of their mouth. Like with Halloween (since I’m writing this on Halloween!) A lot of Christians have a problem with Halloween and don’t observe it in any way. That’s fine. But then they take it further and condemn other people and especially other Christians who do participate in it. So they condemn Halloween, but essentially ignore the fact that they are being judgmental, especially toward their brothers and sisters in Christ. It isn’t okay to judge and condemn people. So I did appreciate his pointing that out.
4. He has a post discussing the fact that just because you see someone of the opposite sex and you either like what you see and/or you are attracted to them, it doesn’t mean you have lusted after them or sinned. And from my studies on lust (you can read my post on MH about it) I agree with this. He says that if you see a woman with a low cut top and a lot of cleavage or a short skirt and a lot of leg and you find yourself attracted to that, then you are just a normal male. Or if you are a woman and you see a man with features you are attracted to and you notice then you are a normal woman. And you haven’t sinned. He also says if you see that, then simply enjoy the brief view and see that person as created in the image of God and move on with no guilt or shame. And I did appreciate this post. Mostly because I appreciated how he directed it away from guilt and shame. God does not want us walking around with guilt and shame. Especially for being a male and seeing an attractive female and enjoying it. That is normal. God made us that way. So I appreciated his effort to set people free from the bondage of guilt and shame in this area.
5. However…he takes it a step further and says that in addition to simply enjoying the view if you happen to see it, he says you can go home and look up pictures on the Internet and continue to enjoy the view. Even to the point of using those images as a masturbatory aid. And I didn’t agree with that. I think there’s a big difference in going out in public and you just happen to see an attractive woman versus seeking images out on the Internet.
6. This is the reason he posts pictures on his pictures site. He says these are examples of images you can enjoy and appreciate the human form as God created it. The problem I had with this is that he only has pictures of “perfect” men and women. Flawless complexion, you can tell photoshop has been involved, thin, perfect bodies, etc. When I asked him why he only had pictures of perfect bodies he said those were images of the true design of man before the Fall. And I disagree with this. In our society the standard for beauty and sexy has changed dramatically over the years. And that’s just in the last 70 years or so. Do a google search on standards of women’s beauty over the years and you will see what I mean. There was a time when Marilyn Monroe was considered the top sex icon in the country. But today she would be considered “plus sized” and she wouldn’t be the #1 candidate for America’s sex symbol. And that’s just in the last few years and just in our society. Different societies have different standards. And they have changed over the years as well. So if the standard has changed that much just in recent years, then how do we know what Adam and Eve looked like? The simple fact is we don’t. We have no idea what Adam and Eve looked like at the moment God created them and before they sinned. (I’ve often wondered what they did look like. How tall was Adam? How tall was Eve? What was their weight? Were Eve’s breasts a C cup or a D cup or an A cup, etc? Was their skin white or more of an olive color? But we will never know. Maybe in Heaven we can find this stuff out. I hope so…I have lots of unanswered questions. And not just about this! )
So by putting those images on his site he is saying this is what HIS idea of the perfect woman looks like. So his claim that this is “pre-Fall” imagery is unfounded and false. There is no way he can know. So it felt like a stretch for him to use this reasoning. It felt like he was justifying those images with this logic.
7. I asked him how his wife feels about his looking at other women on the Internet and even in person and how she feels about his views on his site. His reply? “She doesn’t even know I have this site.” Whoa…wait a minute. That hit me pretty hard. Here he has two separate sites sharing his views and his wife doesn’t even know about it? That really bothered me. Any time I write a post or even a comment on Marriage Heat, as soon as it is published I tell my wife about it. I will usually even send her a link to that post so she can go right to it and read it. If I write a paper sharing some thought, whether the subject has to do with sex or not, my wife is the first person to read it. I tell her to read it and have a red pen in her hand to check for minor things like spelling but also for clarity. And also to get some feedback to see if I’m right! I personally would never have a full blog or website completely without her knowledge. He said that he and his wife are both very independent and have their own lives so that’s why. But still, at least tell her about it. Why the secrecy?
So those are my thoughts after looking at his sites and corresponding with him. Like I said, he has some good things to say, but he also has some questionable content. But again we find that everywhere. For instance, I have listened to preachers and agreed with some of their points but not others. Or agreed with them on some subjects but not others. Or since the political debates are going on, we might agree with a candidates position on some things but not all. So we find this in all areas. So that’s my review of his site. I hope this helps someone in this discussion.
Thanks HH for this. Yeah genesis2twentyfive has a definition of lust that I think is too narrow – masturbating to images of women sounds like lust to me. Or if not, it’s adultery. Also looking at nude women we’re not married to for the sake of some kind of sexual gratification… Isn’t that voyeurism? The scriptures warn us against sensual indulgence in a broader sense not just ‘lust’ narrowly defined.
Bingo…his wife does not know about it! That’s all you need to say.
Wow! Thank you so much, HornyHubby! You have been such a help! I completely agree with your position concerning the Genesis website and I wanted to thank you as it has really put to rest a lot of confusion in my soul. God has given you a very discerning spirit, Sir, thank you for sharing it with us!
He believes what he says but not enough for his wife to know about his sites. Red flag! You have to wonder what he is telling his wife he is doing while he is building and maintaining these sites?
My impression while reviewing what he says and shows? Beware of wolves wearing sheeps clothing.
An impression that I’ve never had while enjoying Marriage Heat site
I found this sight 2 days ago, so I’m comming to the conversations late. I just wanted to say that I have seen images on this sight that are tasteful and beautiful. I have already noticed a plus size photo or two. I appreciated them so much I showed my husband. Being a person that may not look like a perfect woman in the garden, I always appreciate beautiful, tasteful pics of people that are about celebrating all of us.
To my dear MH friends and MH Family, my heart just shortly wished to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you all… in case one or the other may have been wondering about my silence on MH over the past weeks or so. I wanted to reassure you that I’m doing alright… I chose to stop reading MH for the time being, as Jesus and I need to do some more major restoration work in me and it will take me quite some time, for we basically need to rebuild within me the whole field from scratch. I don’t know where it will lead me eventually. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly get over myself. But if I do, then it will be through Jesus only. I remember my friends in Christ on here dearly and just wished to let you know that I haven’t stopped keeping you in love in my heart. If I can leave you all with one thought for now, it would be: Keep God first place, no matter what. He must be our standard in everything. His whole entire Word – the only Truth we are to submit to and live by wholeheartedly. His voice within us, the precious Holy Spirit, given to guide us, help us, warn us, prepare us, teach us and lead us in the ways of righteousness. Anything else will lead us astray in the end. God bless His faithful ones!
Thank you Passionate!
God bless you and your tender heart! With much love in our Savior, LH
Dearest LH, Thank you for your love and blessings! I’ve always admired the depth of your faith and the loving understanding you’ve brought towards everyone here on MH. You’re very special to me and I remember the great advice and words of encouragement you’ve spoken over me since I’ve come to MH. I hope my comment didn’t sound too much like goodbye because I don’t intend this to be a goodbye. Before and after having stumbled and fallen, I have seen some things surface in me that have bugged me and that I haven’t been able to shake off back into order thus far – there is a fear anew that I thought I had left behind… an insecurity about myself; there are the wrong images I’ve seen in porn that keep surfacing in my mind whenever I direct my thinking towards marriage and intimacy; there is this hurt in my heart from having stepped out in faith and tried to find a romantic relationship only to yet again have been faced anew with my personal reality that men just simply want the visual sex appeal right upfront to be attracted in any kind of romantic way (I’m sure we women have similar vanities going on our part, so anyways…) … and I just love the way God made me be, so at the moment my hopes for being blessed with a good, godly, beautiful, heart-warming, truthful husband aren’t really there much anymore… I know that God’s Truth trumps the facts of whatever our personal reality may look like to us, so I’m at the point of holding it as follows: I’ll not actively pursue finding a love of my own further, not ruling it out either, and I just leave it all up to God and let Him do whatever He wants to do with me… if it is in His Will, it will happen.
Dear LH, you once told me some rule of thumb questions to be able to recognize when self-pleasuring would have gone astray or when it is in its proper frame… I had come to a point in self-pleasuring where it became pretty much my everything in a day… it basically took control of me, at a point becoming the fix I would run to when frustrated or whatever, and that’s not how it should be… In the past few weeks I’ve worked with God on this and I’m grateful that He’s helped me to break off of me the urgency and the mind-control it had on me during that period of time… To be completely honest, I was scared that I would be in the beginnings of developing an addiction in the field. So, in light of this all, I chose to stop reading MH, because I wasn’t able to read it anymore without being able to guarantee having a fully pure thought life while reading about all the sexual intimacy – meaning that, for example, when I would have read a sexual comment or post on MH, immediately the pictures I stumbled over in porn had come back into my mind… and that was a problem (so, just so that you all can be sure: you didn’t do anything wrong 🙂 ). I love MH! What my dear MH Family, the MH admins, whom I’ve been blessed to get to know in heart and whom I admire so much, and all I call friends on here do is such a good and beautiful ministry to the Glory of God in the celebration of the wonderful miracle of marriage! I remember what an invaluable blessing you all have been to me since the beginning, on MH and through MH. I remember how I was able to partake of the stories shared and enjoy them in all purity of heart, mind and soul. This is where I wanna get back to… that place where I was one with God in the sexual field and, because of it, free in Him and at peace in Him and wholly pure about it all. So, I realize that I do need to let God work on me some more before being able again to partake, in the right ways, of the celebration of marriage that is taking place on MH. I love you all so much!! I love the MH admins dearly and all they’re doing – their faith is real and well-rooted and good; their hearts are big and loving and kind! I love MH! Because I didn’t know when I would have something to share again and the silence from PfC was already quite lengthy, I felt it in my heart to send a little comment out, just so my friends on here could know… I’m still out there, somewhere, and not gone 😀 Love and blessings, always!! <3
Thank you Passionate. I’m glad this is not goodbye. I hope you will find the peace that you know you need. I admire your carefulness – I would never want to encourage you to stumble. Keep walking close with God. The freedom you desire – as well as the self-control to not be addicted to things that cause you to stumble – are only found in walking with God. The Scriptures will continue to guide you. I’m so glad that you have not thrown out the baby with the bath water concerning godly sex. For whatever reason, in the pause that you are taking now from MH – I hope you come back with a mindset that allows you to rejoice sexually without stumbling. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Better to be humble (and not utilize all of the real freedoms you have in Christ) than prideful. I’m glad you know that you are loved by so many here at MH. God bless you dear lady. LH
Well said, Lovinghusband. As always 🙂 You have always been like the resident “pastor” on MH, consistently leading is back to Christ and what He says. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us!
You are a wonderful man of God, LH. Don’t you worry – in everything that you’ve shared with me, you’ve always shared about it in such a way that pointed me towards Christ and led me towards God.
“I hope you come back with a mindset that allows you to rejoice sexually without stumbling.” That’s what I’m working towards… and I can reassure you in this that by what I’ve seen going on in me since working on it anew with Him for the past few weeks, I do see a positive progress lately towards my goal and the hope you’ve expressed, which echoes mine as well. So, I’m in good spirits about this by now, confident in Christ, knowing that He is faithfully committed (up until full, flourishing completion) to this good work that He has begun in me back in the first days, when He allowed me to see God’s beauty in intimacy for the first time. ?
I had stopped reading MH about a month ago, since the moment when I felt so confused and like I was losing it… so I’m well underway already with my quest for redemption in Christ of this field of intimacy in me unto the original beauty He not just showed me about it in the beginning but gave me unto as well.
God bless you, LH, dear friend!
Ps: To my MH fam/community – just in case – Sorry for any comment, which may have been directed my way in the past 4 weeks that I may have missed because I’ve been gone. If anyone sought to reach me and couldn’t, feel free to sound off in the comments here and I’ll be sure to catch it.
PfC-thanks for checking back in and keeping us updated. I had actually been thinking about you quite a bit. I’m halfway through a book right now that I think you might like to read. It’s called, “things your mother never told you, a woman’s guide to sexuality” by Kim Gaines Eckert. My favorite refrain from the book so far is the idea that our sexual expressions should make us more human and not less human. So far, the author seems to be approaching sexuality with a lot of nuance and a lot of wisdom. I think you might enjoy reading what she has to say.
Take care of you. You are a precious child of God.
TW- Aw, yeah, I did take it down. When I started that blog i just needed a place to vent my questions and to be free to say whatever I was thinking. I had so much stuff rolling around in my head a few months ago that I just had to have a place to put it all into words and to make sense of my own thoughts. But as time went by I found I had a couple problems with the venue. First of all, it wasn’t part of a Christian community. And much like we’ve discussed on here about the Genesis site….it just doesn’t seem quite right to be spouting off controversial theological ideas off by yourself in your own little corner of the internet. It seems much healthier to talk about them in a context where the community can weigh in and offer feedback and balance. And also I became frustrated, because since that blog was so inextricably tied to my Eva alias, I didn’t feel like I could share any of the posts on it with people in my real life. So, I took it down. Right now I’m just kind of waiting to see if some door opens in my life where I can share those ideas in a community context that I feel is a bit healthier…because I am still very much interested in pursing the lines of thought that I was exploring in the blog…it’s just that I need some people who are equally interested in the topic and well versed enough theologically to provide the balance and push back that I need. So, we’ll see what happens with that. I figure if my crazy thought train was from God, then he’ll open the doors I need. And if it wasn’t, then maybe this is just a good time to let the crazy die. 🙂
Oh, PFC, thank you so much for the update! You have been on my heart recently and Ive been praying for you every week that God would strengthen you, comfort you, encourage you, and show you that He loves you utterly and completely! You are so dear to me and are teaching me so very much. I feel we are kindred spirits and I want you to know that I count you as one of my closest friends (truly!) Thank you for letting us know how you are doing and how we can pray for you! Love you so much, sister, and God has huge plans for you…..I know it. I am excited to hear from you again, whenever it is, and am looking forward to spending eternity with you!
My dearest CMLove, you are so beautiful!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart – for your prayers, for your faithful support, for your sweet love, for your invaluable friendship! I am so grateful to God that He blesses me to know you and that He enables me to be a beautiful blessing to you as well, for you are a beautiful blessing to me too! In my heart, you hold a very special place, and you always will. I love your heart for God – it is so beautiful! – Your faith is so beautiful and true. You are someone truly amazing in my book. Thank you for being such a hearty encourager to me!!
I’m sometimes bent to keeping things within me when in an inward struggle, with the outcome to me still unknown, but I’m more than glad and so grateful that I followed the inward nudge to speak my heart on MH anew and to reach out to you all again. It has been a relief to my heart to bring this all out into the light. Thank you MH for being my Christian safe haven in matters of all things intimacy – you are such a blessing! <3
Beloved CMLove, I'm most happily looking forward to spending eternity with you too – and can't wait to give you a big bear-hug then for real! Until then, I'll be joyfully anticipating making many more beautiful memories to His Glory with you in the moments we are given together here in this beautiful MH community 😀 Love and blessings!
Dearest Eva,
Thank you for loving me the way you do and blessings me so much! The book sounds to be right up my alley. I’ll surely check it out. Thank you!!
God blessed me to have 3 beautiful weeks in the home of my heart, TX, where my church home is. During much of the month of November, I’ve been blessed to spend such sweet time with my church family – have seen my old friends again and have been blessed by God to make lovely new ones, which fills my heart with such joy!
In terms of my single intimacy, the situation for me was as such that I was giving myself unto self-pleasuring daily and rather often… my 2 mini-vibes were emptied regularly and right away recharged… I felt overwhelmed about the fact that I was drawn to chasing my own pleasure in such frequency as I had it occurr during that time, and frankly, I didn’t know what to think about it… I wasn’t certain anymore if I hadn’t trip into chasing after the flesh, catering to the flesh and by doing so falling more and more for the flesh… what made it personally worse for me that this pursuit of pleasure coincided with a time where I wasn’t reading the Word itself daily anymore for myself… I mean, I had just finished reading my Bible all the way through for the first time in my life and was super proud about having read this whole beautiful love story of God towards us in its entirety… and I intended to keep starting anew with some reading plan (’cause they help me with the daily habit) but thought I can give myself a few days off… I devoted myself to being about God in other outlets… but I haven’t gotten my discipline back to being in the Word itself for myself daily through a reading plan or so… my daily God habit had slipped, so to speak… So, I felt like I lost some proper balance. Added to that, came my stumbling into porn, which happened just shortly before embarking on my TX trip… I’ve never flown with vibes in my luggage, so I reached out to MH privately for help in knowing if that would cause trouble… I wanted to take them with me because I couldn’t see how I could go without self-pleasuring for 3 weeks considering the way I found myself to be drawn to give myself to the pleasure at that moment of my life. I was pondering back and forth right up until my day of travel whether or not I should take them with me or leave them home and refrain myself for 3 weeks… Pondering that was a struggle in itself ’cause I didn’t want to make a wrong decision in my walk with God… Eventually, I took them with me (and had no trouble at any of my multiple airport security checks). My prayer to God was that this trip to TX would be all about Him – no other motive I wanted to rule over my heart – and that He would bless me with what I miss most in this season of my life, and that is personal fellowship with His people (and God, lovely as He is, outdid Himself in blessing me with mighty fellowship with His people in my beloved Texas). Why am I sharing all this, you may wonder… because a to me personally beautiful thing happened during my time with God in TX: I naturally, without having to force myself or so, was able to go for a good week or something without self-pleasuring – Why is this beautiful to me? Because it gave me assurance that I didn’t fall into an addiction yet. I had a moment during that week, where I got attacked by inner insecurity and got frustrated with myself and the thought of giving myself pleasure popped up in my mind… the motive to do it would have been wrong… it would have been but a quick fix again… and I refrained because I told myself and knew in my heart that I do not want to let this precious gift of God deteriorate to some cheap pleasure fix out of frustration or hurt or any such thing… I want it to be the way He intends it – special, Spirit-filled, meaningfully connected to Him. And it was good to refrain that day. Some time later on my trip, I had a day where I wanted to try giving myself some pleasure anew and I did… sure enough the longer I focused on pleasuring, the more the devil tried to tempt me to go back to that site, which caused me to get trapped into sin, but I stood my ground and resisted the temptation to look it up… I still need to fight that out and through just a bit, as the devil just tries to lure one back in, but I am on my way to completely overcoming that mistake I made and I am confident to get past the wrong images that somewhat carved themselves in my mind as well. I am diligently focusing my attention on God, as I partake of His gift, and am pacing myself when thoughts slip astray or when the devil knocks. 🙂
I can also share some, I believe, positive recent development with my MH friends… I have given reading one MH story (GG’s new story) a try and it worked out well. (Love you, GG!). I don’t wanna rush things, so I will pace all these matters, hopefully wisely, to the best of my ability, leaning on God. So thankful for God’s mercy, love, power and Grace! Thankful to be His in Christ always! 🙂 <3
Hey Eva, I’ve browsed a bit through Mrs. Gaines Eckert’s site to get a preliminary picture of her thoughts and such and I like what she shares… I’ve found a few statements in her most recent post where I thought to myself “Oh, that sounds like something I do too…” (e.g.: the critical inner voice 😉 – I know that one too well, haha). I saw she has another book too (Stronger Than You Think: Becoming Whole Without Having to be Perfect) that I believe to be of interest to me too. I’ve ordered both today, this one and the one you suggested and am now super curious about working them through… they may turn out to be really helpful to me. Thank you for having kept me in your heart and thoughts, Eva! Thank you for your help and support! Very grateful for every help I’m offered out of my cherished MH family on this journey towards complete wholeness and freedom in Christ. God bless y’all! 😀
I wanted to tell you something about one of your earlier posts. “That men just want the visual sex appeal… ” It is my prayer for you that you can find someone so much better than that. Someone that thinks you’re beautiful inside and out. Someone open to sharing their love for God with you and is so amazed by how strong your faith is. I must admit after many years of marraige I am still learning how great God thinks I am. I pray you will be able to see it.
Their is a lot of pressure now adays that what we look like is what we’re worth and that worth is only realized when a man recognizes it. this is a false message designed to keep us from finding our potential. I can hear the love you have for the people in your life through your words on this site. I can see how much you must lift those around you. I pray for you that one day you will find someone that shares your deap commitment to truth, but either way I know that those around you value you for all you do.
PfC- That’s awesome! I hadn’t checked out her website, I’ll have to do that. Please let me know if you find the books helpful!
Will keep you posted 🙂 Much love!
Ps: If you check out her website, read the post where she shares the thought of “it’s time on our feet” – I love this thought she shared… it’s true and I find it to be helpful in countering imbalanced self-imposed pressure, helpful in supporting perseverance in the climb towards our personal growth goals.
Dear FindingLight, Thank you so much for blessing me with this love and encouragement of yours!! It means A LOT to me, thank you!! and God bless you!
Some of those who have been longer on MH may remember how I’ve shared about how I’ve embarked in July this year into stepping out in faith and trying to find a Christian love of my own through an online matchmaking site… I had shared quite some on here in the beginning stages and have stopped sharing publicly further about my experiences on there after a first disappointment happened… I am deeply grateful and want to publicly give special praise and thanks to Blondie, who has been so kind to walk with me through this whole matchmaking endeavor, as I reached out to MH in private seeking help and guidance about it… She has been such a great friend in Christ and has been a major joy and blessing to my heart through it all!
Each step I took on the matchmaking endeavor has been a major new step for me, so I needed to deal with the embarrassment and fear and insecurity and self-doubt I felt at times and I needed to cope with the hopes of my heart that just proved to be deferred or unfulfilled over and over so far… This is the basis for the statement I had made about men just wanting the sex appeal right up front in order to be attracted in any way for real to me… I do wanna share one great example of my online matchmaking experience, which will show you all how I can get to no other assessment about men (including Christian men) thus far…
At the end of September, a Christian guy, which I’ll just call N. here, has started a guided conversation over the matchmaking site with me. He was the 1st guy to contact me on his own (without me having sent him any sign of interest first). I was not sure about him in the beginning mainly because he had not written much in his profile (what he wrote sounded good from a faith point of view but there just wasn’t much written overall) and a pic he had up felt awkward in atmosphere to me (hard to explain… it was a pic with a family member of his and the family member had a really somber look on it… nothing major but I was missing some smiling on the pic and the atmosphere of the embrace and I don’t know… something about the atmosphere just felt a bit awkward to me). So, I didn’t expect too much in the beginning but I did go through the guided conversation process with him because I’m not the one to turn someone down when they reach out to me. His answers to my questions did fit what I would be looking out for in terms of verbal intimacy, physical intimacy and time together/personal space. In the dig deeper questions (where we can answer more elaborately to either questions that the person can make up themselves or prepared questions one can choose from that they would like to know about), he asked me 2 questions he made up himself and they surprised and intrigued me. I answered everything honestly and transparently, as is my habit and way. His answers to my Dig Deeper questions were short but sounded good. To my question what the one dream for his life would be that he most looked forward to having come true, he answered: “Meeting and loving the person that God made to be with me under him.”; and to my question of what he would be looking for in a relationship partner, he answered: “Somebody who loves God. Somebody who shares an undeniable and unavoidable deep connection with me.” I wasn’t sure about the latter answer because I just couldn’t know nor say whether I would fall into that category. A few days went by, I didn’t make any moves, as it is just necessary to me to know that the man would be interested enough to seek to keep in touch with me, and it was his turn to start the private mail process through the matchmaking site… in the beginning of October N. reached out to me in a private mail with the following words that caught me off guard and left me amazed when I read them and, so I must admit, they sparked my hopes ablaze that maybe this time I would have finally found someone who would be interested in me… This is what he wrote in his 1st private message to me: “The way you describe your faith is so attractive. I would really like to get to know you better.” He asked me to elaborate further about my connection to my church home town and my religious life ’cause he wanted to get a better picture, so I did and shared straight from the heart and asked him at the end to tell me about his faith journey. This is part of his reply message to me: “Okay! First of all thank you for the great message. I enjoy knowing that there is someone like you with so much insight and passion for God, Christ our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. I could only hope (and pray) that God has someone like you in his will for my life.” (You all can imagine how my hopes have skyrocketed within me while reading these words – I almost couldn’t believe it… there actually seemed to be really a guy who called something about me attractive to him (my faith) and then sends me such a lovely message…) He went on in his message saying: “Anyway – I’ve got to add a disclaimer to my message and ask for your leniency and understanding if my message isn’t equal to the quality of yours because I am at work – so I will hold to the excuse of being somewhat distracted 🙂 ” (That was cute to me – and I thought that he took time out of his work time to reply to me to be another sign of his interest… so far so good). He then went on to tell me about his faith journey, with a bit of family background, which I will not disclose publicly, but I wouldn’t have been against at least hearing more from him. He finished his message by saying this: “There is more that I would like to say – but I have to get back to work right now. If you would like to talk more I am not a paying member yet – so my email is….if you want. If not it is okay I understand.” And boom! There came my problem right back in my face – that he was not a paying member yet meant that he also had no idea what I looked like, for if you’re not a paying member on the site then you cannot see the pictures uploaded to one’s profile. As I could see his pictures, I thought the whole time that he could see mine and that he had taken my type of look and way-to-be into account before he reached out to me, and all of a sudden I found myself back again confronted with the problem that I just can’t get away from, namely that my looks will determine whether or not he will stay or not… All that he said thus far had my hopes so high and I was scared to tell him the major points of how I look because I knew by experience that this would be most probably be the end… but as I wanna know the truth rather than chase shadows of my imagination and get emotionally involved in something that may not be real… I wrote him a beautiful reply, telling him that I would love to here the more he’d like to tell me and I encouraged him about the grace of God concerning his past and finally in a PS. to my message I told him that I realize that him not being a paying member yet means that he doesn’t know what I look like yet and that hence he can’t know yet whether I would be someone he would feel attracted to… I told him that I know that attraction is important for a man and marriage, so I do wanna let him know right away a bit about my personal type… and so I told him about my looks because I wanted to be fair to him (all the big points that would be important to a man – I spoke them in humility and honesty and with hope for growth, as I know I am not a finished product but a work in progress at the hands of God)… I asked him to let me know if he still wanted to proceed with getting to know each other… I’ve seen that he read my message… and I never heard of him a word again.
I believe that you all are able to understand how heartbroken that made me feel in the aftermath and that to me so far it just seems to prove to be the rule that if the looks don’t knock men off their feet, the beauty on the inside just doesn’t seem to be enough of a valuable worthwhile gem to be pursued in my case. Christian men appearing to be no different than other men… each one professing that what they most look for in a partner is a “woman who loves God” or a “woman who pursues Christ” or a woman of faith, and still when tested, it always ends with the looks as a make or break. And I’ll intervene here right away myself ’cause I am not holier than any of them and have had my own share of sometimes vain thoughts concerning the looks that I imagined a future husband of my own could maybe have.
It is hard to break out of own’s old convictions when every experience keeps confirming the reality of that old conviction… Still I’ll stay hopeful beyond ability of personal belief because greater is He that is in me – Christ in me, the HOPE of Glory! The Bible says that the inner beauty is the one to be sought after and the one of real precious value, so I know that I am everything I need to be in Christ at this time of my life, and I’m on my way to growing by His Grace more and more into even greater beauty in and for Him. Christ is my husband in the spirit and He already gave His life for me out of His great love, knowing everything about me, knowing me better than I can ever know myself, and loving every bit of me passionately. Even if no other man has chosen me thus far, Jesus Christ chose me and the Bible says that He rejoices over me, and so, in that Truth alone, I can be more than grateful and should continually find rest for my soul! God bless my beloved MH family, community and friends!! I love you deeply and am so grateful to be able to talk to you and share with you! Thank you for everything! <3
Hey Eva, soooo my book came today and I’ve just finished reading through the 1st Chapter and I wanna thank you once more because I believe this is one of those reads that I really need to work through. I love it! I really appreciate the way she tackles the field and I’m super excited to follow her lead through the pages… I love how she said that “we are ensouled bodies and embodied souls”. I love how she said that the book is “intended to help me develop a healthy, whole and uniquely female sexuality”. I love what she says we’re gonna explore together in the course of the book.
As I read her introductory paragraph where she shared all that she felt as she fell in love for the first time at 17 years old, I felt slightly sad because reading about how beautiful the falling in love with a boyfriend must feel always reminds me that I never have yet experienced these beautifully intoxicating feelings myself… It was funny… while I was in Houston, I met a few young ladies at my church home before service and we were chatting, standing around, while all of a sudden one of the girls kept peeking over to the stage in shy manner all the time and the other girl told the rest of us that the guy who was preparing the stage for worship was the one she “had the hots for”… and to me this was so… I don’t know how to describe it… I was checking my soul and all I could think of in that moment was “Wow! I wonder how that feels…”. I saw it in her eyes, the shy desire she had for the guy, the hope that maybe he would like her too, the love that sparked up in her when he was near… I saw it all happen in her in that brief moment. And in the same moment I’m reminded that no matter which guy I have had in front of my eyes thus far, I’ve never experienced myself such a falling for someone or a falling in love… and sometimes it leaves me wondering… Am I even able to feel such a falling in love? Will I ever see it happen in me or am I so broken that I just can’t? Which leads me way too close to asking “What is wrong with me?!”, and as I know better than to do that by now, I usually leave my mental rambling at that and move on… but the inner feeling of inadequacy and the feeling damaged about my basic ability to have a romantic relationship is something that I haven’t been able to shake yet altogether out of the shadows of my soul… Anyways, I am SO HAPPY about the book thus far, dear Eva! I can’t wait to pursue wholeness further with it! As I will work through it with God by my side, I am excited that it will make me so whole that I hopefully will not be the same in the end. 😀 THANK YOU for a great recommendation!! <3
Ps: I won't have a small group or a trusted friend at hand to work it through, so if something strikes me and/or I feel drawn to ask about something or share about something, I hope it will be ok with MH if I'll come here, onto MH, and do that here among my MH family and friends.
PFC-I was thinking about writing a book review on here for that book after I finish it. What if I do it now even though I haven’t finished it and we can finish reading it together and post our thoughts on that thread instead of here since this one is getting a bit long and off topic anyway….? And of course, if anyone else would want to jump in, that would be great too… It could be like our very own little MH book club…
Sure, Eva, you can write a post about it. Sorry about having hijacked the post here… I’m not thinking topical too often when I feel drawn to share, as I just share from whatever my heart is ready to share at a certain moment or time 🙂
You can take your time if you want, as you are ahead of me in chapters, so no pressure 🙂 Thank you for doing this for me – writing a post about it and giving me the possibility to have a place to share if I feel the need to share about something in the course of reading it! Thank you for being my MH book buddy! 😀 God Bless!
As a former porn addict saved by God, I'd never be comfortable with anybody third party seeing my sex life. In my honest opinion, the most intimate details of a marriage should remain between them, God, and a doctor if necessary.