0:02

Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah Rose.

0:18

Welcome, and thank you for joining. I’m belah rose. And if you’re anything like me, if you grew up in our day and age, I’m sure you have also struggled with your worth, as a person, as a woman, as a person who is beautiful. If you have struggled with believing that you are beautiful, today’s episode is for you. I think that God cares about the way we view ourselves. Because truly, if you believed that God designed every part of you, he also designed your body. He did not just give you your personality, your soul, your interests, your passions, he also gave you the body that you live in, he designed it, he made it his masterpiece. So I say that sometimes that, you know, if you’re nitpicking apart yourself, you’re criticizing the masterpiece of God. So yeah, the value that God placed on us to knit us together in our mother’s womb, to design every inch of our body to determine that we would be beautiful before we were even born. I just, I just think God grieves at the way that we see ourselves. Now today, I have a wonderful lady. Her name’s Ruth abuses, she has an online ministry and just she’s a powerhouse of insight and passion and conviction towards God and towards the things of marriage intimacy in marriage specifically. And she’s going to be talking about why our beauty and understanding and appreciating that value that God placed on us how that affects not only our sex life and the way we approach our husband intimately, but how it affects every other area of our life and why that matters. So let’s dive in. Let’s listen to her story. And I just encourage you to have an open heart and open mind to see what God might want to tell you through this message.

2:40

All right. Well, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me delight your marriage listener. I’m really excited to have Ruth abuses on today. Welcome, Ruth.

2:49

Thanks for having me.

2:51

Absolutely. Well, I’m excited, really looking forward to this conversation. I think I’ve been thinking about it since Melian. Melanie and I talked back in episode 84, and 85. So listener, if you haven’t gotten a chance to hear Melanie story, it’s really powerful and wonderful. But Melanie and Ruth are actually co laborers in the ministry and work of awaken love dotnet and that’s awaken hyphen love. dotnet. And I’ll have that linked up on the show notes. But Ruth, you know, I just mentioned a tiny bit, would you be willing to kind of introduce yourself a little bit about your family and what your day to day life looks like?

3:32

Sure. Um, I’ve been married for almost 29 years now. And we have four daughters and we are sort of empty nesters are kind of in and out, which happens when they’re still in college. And my day to day life, you know, I worked as an engineer for about four years. And then we had four daughters quickly, and I stopped working. And I’ve kept myself busy with all kinds of activities from everything from woodworking to gardening, to teaching snowboarding, to doing remodeling. And about five years ago, God kind of put all that on hold and told me to stop doing so much. And, and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But through that, my life, my marriage was transformed. And my relationship with God was transformed. And I started this teaching these classes on sex. Yeah. And that is actually all consuming. Now that is, that’s what I do all day long. That’s what’s on my mind. And yeah, so that’s kind of my job.

4:32

Huh? Okay. Very nice. Yeah, it sounds like you’re busy. Well, tell us a little bit. You mentioned you were an engineer and you keep busy and you like just to have a variety of wonderful interests, which snowboarding it’s

4:49

so cool. Awesome.

4:53

So tell us a little bit about your and your husband’s personalities if you would,

4:57

oh, well. We’re both engineers and So, I love to work on projects together side by side, my husband would say that is his favorite thing to do with me. And you know, we’re people that get things done. We’ve you know what kind of steady Eddie’s we’ve been in middle of the road, haven’t had a lot of huge ups and downs. We’ve been in the church since we were kids, and and both really involved in ministry throughout throughout our lives.

5:27

Mm hmm. Yep. So, you know, just getting this conversation started? Is there a scripture or quote, that has meant a lot to you over the years or even recently?

5:43

Yeah, this is probably going to be one of the strangest ones you’ve heard. But it comes out of Psalm 9210. And God gave this to me in looking back through my journal, I was in 2013. And it’s, but you have made me as strong as a wild ox, you have anointed me with the finest oil. And he gave it to me when I was in the midst of of starting ministry, and still just filled with insecurities and wondering what the heck I was doing. And, you know, ministry isn’t just my class ministry is stepping out. And, and reaching towards people, they’re in hurting places in in places where maybe they’re emotional, and and there are tears, and maybe I’m feeling called to pray for them. And that is a not a natural place for me to be in, it never has been. I was the person that if I saw somebody that was in pain, I walked away, because I didn’t want to feel. And I avoided a motion. I think, you know, that kind of goes along with being an engineer. And so God has called me into just a really hard place that doesn’t come naturally, whether it’s talking with people and praying with people about their pain, or whether it’s speaking or whether it’s teaching even that it just has been just a real challenge. And, and I think it’s Christians so often. I don’t know we’re in this place of, of God help me and how do I survive? And all of this, and this is coming at it from this, this point of being on offense of, you know, what Christ is in me? And if Christ is in me, shouldn’t I be as strong as a wild ox willing to break down barriers and go places that I would never ever go on my own? And, and so this is, this is kind of, this is what I’ve lived the last three or four years asking God anoint fate anoint me anoint me, I can’t do this on my own, helped me to be bold helped me to be courageous helped me to not be afraid.

7:55

Yes, so good. So good. I kind of have a lot of questions already. But I think the, I guess, I guess I want to hear you know, how this came about? I mean, you mentioned that this was not something that was easy for you to even talk about. It sounds like or even engage in any kind of emotion, especially surrounding the most intimate part of ourselves, our sexual sex life. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, and you’re very, you know, confident in that God called you into this. And I guess that, I think probably for some of us, that seems hard to get our head around. Like, if that’s not what we are used to or comfortable with. Why would God call us into something like that? So I guess, yeah, just hearing about that. Well, and it probably came out of the difficulty, right, the struggle.

8:53

You know, when were the weakest Scott has a strong mist, right? I mean, and so he works through us most powerfully, I think when, when we aren’t naturally good at something maybe I don’t know, as far as how my story started. Five years ago, I took a study on Song of Songs at church, and we studied it as an allegory of God’s love for us. And every week, we had to read the entire book, and we would focus on a different area. And, and as I read it, you know, there are all these passages that talk about how beautiful you are, and this is God speaking to us, right? You’re so beautiful. And every time I read those passages, I would just cringe. Mm hmm. And I like I hated it. And I and so I began to think about that and and why did it make me so uncomfortable? Yeah, and you know, I grew up as a kid climbing in the trees up in the hills and playing ball and doing school. And actually, some of the most my paint most painful memories were I’ve been mistaken as a boy as a young kid. And, and so being beautiful was never something that I related to I did a lot of things, but eautiful was not one of them. Yeah. And I began to think, you know, this is a human man telling me that I’m beautiful, right? This is God, and why don’t have any issue with that. And I, what I finally came to was being beautiful, wasn’t something that I could do. And I was so used to doing right, I did school, well, I did, like I did my life. Well, everything was in order. And being beautiful, was just something that I was that God created me to be. And as I stepped into this new understanding of taking this head knowledge that God loved me to, you know, what, it’s nothing that I do, I am completely encased in capable of, of doing this. I had a new understanding of who God was. And I had a new understanding of who I was. And all of a sudden, I had this this new freedom, this new freedom with God in worship, and in, you know, I used to sit in the back of a room, or class, and I would literally say absolutely nothing, because I was afraid I would say the wrong thing. Hmm. Because because I was trying to be this perfect person, honestly. Yeah. And when I had a new understanding of who I was, and it didn’t, all of that didn’t matter, then then I was able to step out and freedom in, in actually living rather than staying in the back corner. As is happen, I began to crave more intimacy, both with God and with my husband. And wow, my husband and I, you know, we have been so blessed. We’ve had an easy marriage, we haven’t gone really hard things I had, like I said, Where would you kind of these just steady people. But I wanted a more intimacy, and in what was a good marriage was not necessarily the best marriage because we didn’t talk about hard things. Just didn’t talk about them. We didn’t pray together. We went to church together, we prayed separately. We didn’t read the Bible together. We didn’t talk about our baggage. And so, and we didn’t talk about sex. Hmm. You know, honestly, sex had become this thing that we had when my hormone surged. Yeah, you know, those twice a month spikes? Yeah. And yeah. And, you know, I think about the fact that we think, you know, what, sex is just physical for men. And I think back to that, and I think, man, sex was physical. For me, that’s when I allowed us to have sex. That’s the only time we had sex, basically. And last, I was feeling really guilty. And, and so as we began working on a sex life, and I began reading, and learning more and and, you know, what, I had such a new understanding for how powerful sex was and how much it clued me together with my husband. And some of that is working through the hard things, right. It’s not all easy. It was right. It was hard work. And, and I think that that year that we worked through all that stuff, I probably cried more in that year than I had in the last 25. I have to be honest, I remember one night waking up.

13:42

And, and I was, you know what, I was just feeling like, once again, my husband had not completely filled my needs. And going out and shoveling snow. We had about three feet of snow on the driveway that night. It’s about two o’clock in the morning. I’m out shoveling snow because I’m just steaming mad. Because, you know, your husbands can just fall asleep. Yeah. And we can’t we’re just sitting there stewing. Well, that was right nights. And can I’m out there shoveling and then I realized all of a sudden, I’m, I’m singing worship songs to God. And I thought to myself, My husband is never going to fill all of my needs. There’s no way. Like, he’s not even capable of that, no matter how hard he tried and, and, and only God can do that. And so, as I as I desired and went after more intimacy with my husband, it drove him towards more intimacy with God. So

14:45

it’s powerful. It’s so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just feel like, you know, kind of going to one of the first points you made was about this process, you know, doing this study about Sangha Solomon’s and really centering God’s love for you. And I kind of want to focus in on that part. You know, I love it. You know, I just did a quick look at some of the things I try. As I think I mentioned to you before I try not to learn too much about my guest beforehand, because I want to be genuinely surprised and kind of go with what I feel it would be most applicable to the audience and what God wants to kind of get out. But one thing I really loved that you had said is become fully known in, in your marriage. And and I believe that also goes along the lines of being known in your in your relationship with Jesus. And I guess, so I kind of am introducing what you’re saying about this beauty thing. So why do you think maybe just first of all, that beautiful, being beautiful, and receiving that matters in in relationship with God? Why? Why do you think he wants us to know that we’re beautiful?

16:04

You know, people talk about how how God thinks we’re beautiful, like, people take that. And they say, Well, that’s because God sees our inside. I don’t think God does see our inside. And he does think that we’re beautiful on the inside. But I actually think that God thinks we’re absolutely stunning, outside to like, even our physical being, and it’s so easy to be hard on ourselves and to critique ourselves. And, you know, we put up these walls of protection, because, because we don’t want to let somebody see what we think is not perfect. And yet, God made us perfect. He made us exactly like he wanted us and is absolutely unique. It is absolutely gorgeous to him inside and outside, we’re made in His image. And and it’s so easy to take the things that that are unique to us that maybe are are different than what the world would see as beauty or as you would typically think of as beauty and, and think that they’re bad things. But they’re not they make us ourselves and, and I think stepping into, into who we are, and in a sense loving ourselves. It gives us a freedom to live completely different. I think about you know, when this happened that year, I had multiple people that came up to me and said, You look different. Hmm. And, and I did. And I look different in everything that I like, there’s when you understand. And you love yourself because God created you this way. And and you embrace that. You carry yourself different, like you’re open. And you’re not my thing about like you can almost look at somebody and some people can be so closed off. Right. And so and I think God wants us to live. Yeah. Yeah. Like he doesn’t want us walking around afraid or, and that means you know what, sometimes? Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we say something stupid. Some I don’t know. But, but that’s okay. We’re living.

18:28

Mm hmm. Yeah, I really like that. Um, so you said that, you know, love when you love yourself because of your understanding of who God made you to be? You carry yourself differently. And I think that kind of tying back to something you also said before is this discomfort of

18:53

feeling like not even being at ease that God would think I was

18:59

beautiful? I mean, I hear that in my own heart. I mean, why do you think we as women have this like dis ease about being fully who we are?

19:12

Yeah. And you know that that’s that Song of Songs, right? Where, where she talks about she’s been working out in the fields don’t look at her because her skin is dark. Mm hmm. And we talk about this in class a lot, because I think I think that this is something that is inbred in us as women. I think it is something that we will always struggle with it to some extent. It is something that we’re going to battle it’s like the thorn and Paul side. And I think that I think it probably drives us towards the dependence on God. I think that it’s also if we are married to our if we’re married, I think it’s part of our husbands roles as godly men big truth into our life. And part of that truth is, man, God made men visual. Yeah, where they just want to feast on our bodies, right? And everything that they see they love everything that they see. And, and because he made God visual like that, you know, what if they just open up their mouth and speak what they’re thinking? And we can hear their thoughts of oh my gosh, you are gorgeous, right? That affirms us. And I think about how great that design is. Understand about sex and about marriage, Martha, man, this is not just happenstance. This is not just oh, men are just kind of like this. Women are like this, like there is a design to this. Yeah. And so I think husbands are supposed to form our beauty. We’re supposed to, you know what? We talk about submission, women are supposed to submit the hardest thing that we have to do. Right? Yep. Yeah. That is submitting to truth, believing truth. And that truth may be from God’s Word. And that truth may be from our husband, what our husband says, Man, you feel good tonight. Like, can we can we receive that? Can we believe that? Yes. Truth? Yeah, instead of saying, You know what, I’d rather believe what the world says. Yeah.

21:28

So my listeners know that, you know, I did an episode back on confidence a little while ago. And one thing that’s helped me is actually to remove mirrors from my house, and discipline myself to not look at my reflection, because I noticed in my heart, I judged myself negatively, as a result of that. And this is not a everyone needs to make this choice. But this is what’s working well, for me, my heart and my past and that kind of thing. The interesting thing now I do have a mirror in the bathroom, so I can put myself together in the morning and I you know, but that’s pretty much the last time I think about it, like once I put myself together. That’s it. And so my husband has really become a sounding board on how I look. And I just trust Him. Yeah. And it’s just become this. Okay, he likes the outfit I’m wearing. He thinks that I’m, you know, looking fine. He’s recently told me Well, he’s told me this for years, but he likes me without makeup better. So I’m wearing less makeup. I mean, just, it’s just become better.

22:28

Yeah. When when our husbands are peeking at us. Yeah, you know, we’re, that’s supposed to thrill us. And instead, we’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, you pervert. What? Why’d you stop looking at me? Don’t look at me like that. But but we’ve been so trained to think that, that that’s wrong, because men on the world are feasting on women, visually that they shouldn’t. Right. And so we put that onto our husbands. But in within marriage, it’s like, it’s a whole new ballgame. It’s a whole new set a rules. Yeah. And this is good. This is God’s design. This is how he created us. Our husbands are supposed to feast on us with their eyes, and and it’s supposed to affirm us.

23:12

Mm hmm. And you mentioned this freedom. Okay. Well, yeah, let’s talk about that. I just have so many directions on where to go. It’s so good. But there’s freedom, you know, when a wife that’s listening is thinking, you know, maybe what’s the point? Like, why does it matter that I really, truly believe that I’m beautiful?

23:36

I don’t know. I, I, you can even just think about your sex life if you want. That’s an easy place to go with it. Right? Yeah, to have the freedom to share your body fully. And stop thinking about what you look like, I think about the freedom to worship. You know, when I used to worship, I probably had an AI somewhere else and it yours somewhere else thinking, I wonder what everybody else is doing. And whatever everybody else is thinking. When I worship now, it is God, me and God face to face, and nobody else is there. And I do whatever God calls me to when I’m worshiping there, because because that’s all I can do. And, and there’s a freedom in that and not worrying. What do I look like? What I sound like? What are people thinking? And I think the same is true in our marriage bed. You know, we’re having sex. And I remember, you know, we’re studying Song of Songs, and it’s talking about this allegory of God’s love for us. Right, but, but we know from Ephesians 531 to 32 that this is really a picture of the intimacy that God is dead our husband wants with us, right? Yeah. Becoming one. And I think about you know, the point of orgasm, right? Hmm. When, when you’re at this place where you’ve completely let go of control and you’re thinking about Nothing else. You’re not thinking about how you sound how you feel, what you look like, right? It’s just the two of you in and communion together. And I and that’s what worship is supposed to be like with God, that place where you’re not thinking about anything else. And there’s no there’s a freedom there, right?

25:21

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it also I really love that you are comparing the two because like you said, scripture that’s a scripturally sound comparison is sex and our relationship with Jesus. That’s, that’s scripturally sound. But I It reminds me of how awful and how horrible your husband would feel if he knew some of the thoughts were going through your mind during sex. I mean, like that you’re

25:47

wondering about the laundry?

25:48

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you’re the dishes and your to do list and work and that conversation with your friend. And you know, the reason that we keep those things to ourselves, and we try to, you know, God willing, we try to become more present. And that’s a process and a discipline and that kind of thing. But I, it’s because we intuitively understand the depth of jealousy that goes into the marriage bed, and in the same spot, I love that you talk about worship, and that, you know, when you’re more free in recognizing your value and your worth in your relationship to God, and who you are and who he’s made you to be. That worship becomes much more focused, much more rich, much less distracted, because in that same way, we serve a jealous God, he doesn’t want to share us with anyone else, or any other thoughts. And yeah, I wonder your thoughts on this,

26:46

you know, we’re so good. We’re so into multitasking, and trying to control things we are, we’re like, so much better at it than our husbands. We are. And, and, and to be able to be present takes surrendering, it takes some submitting. Mm hmm. And, and that is being present with God, and is being present with our husbands. And I think, I think that we can, yeah, we can learn to do that. I mean, it takes practice, but ultimately takes letting go of control. It’s a faith issue. Do I trust God enough? That I don’t have to keep all this stuff, juggling in my mind on how to juggle all these balls right now? For this for the you know, what? I’m in bed with my husband, I’m not able to think about that stuff anymore. Right. And I think it’s, you know, it’s the same as worry, or something like that, you know? Mm hmm. Yeah,

27:55

that’s really good. That’s really good. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m reading a book by Corey, or listening to a book called hiding place with Corrie 10, boom, boom, and she talks. She’s got an amazing story. But there’s a good amount of the book that really has nothing to do with the most difficult part of her story at the concentration camp. So it’s, it’s interesting that she kind of outlined some of the stories that has really informed the way she looks at life. So one of the stories that really meant a lot to me listening to it yesterday, she said her she, uh, she was, she had seen a dead person, like, someone that had died, maybe in a, I can’t remember exactly the context. Anyway, she, she was torn up about it really sad and concerned. And she talked to her father and, you know, in tears saying that I just, I don’t know what to do with it. You know, what, if you die, when do I die? That kind of thing. And, and her father kind of took a pause and he said, you know, Cory, when we go to Amsterdam together, when do I give you your train ticket? And between sobs, she’s like, well, I guess it’s right before we get on the train. And he said, and exactly. And our heavenly Father knows exactly when we need what we need. And so right before those of us that need to endure death, or whatever the struggle, we can look into our heart and our heavenly Father will have given us the strength we need for that. And that meant so much to me. Thinking about, worry our lives, what is coming the, like you said the difficulty we have in surrendering and truly trusting. But if we truly trust that our heavenly Father knows what’s best, and he’s going to give us our train ticket right when we need it. Because he is looking out for us in that way. Anyway, a little bit of a tangent but that that mental is good. So um, so one part that I think a lot of us can really recognize Again, in ourselves is this. You know, you talk about this, this truth that your husband is speaking over you and he loves your body. And he thinks this way about you and that kind of thing. What would you give? I can I can kind of almost hear the responses in people’s hearts thinking, Well, my husband doesn’t do that. He doesn’t say those things. Why would you say to her,

30:27

you don’t want my husband didn’t say it either. I have to be honest, when I started this journey, five years ago, and and hit struggling with was a beautiful. I, I finally got to this place where I believed it. I kind of displays, right, I actually had a conversation with my husband. And I said, You know what? I need to hear from you. If you think I’m beautiful, I need to hear it from you. And he said, he said, don’t I say it all the time. And I think you know, and he’s probably literally thinking in his head, but he wasn’t speaking. And a couple times a year, I teach a men’s class, and I’m always telling the guys, you know what, this is not about speaking what you think you’re supposed to speak to your wife, you know, oh, you need to tell her you. She’s beautiful. So tell her that, right. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about what taking what you are thinking in your head. And speaking it out loud. Because they’re thinking it, but they need to speak it out loud. I think that there are probably some marriages out there, where maybe a husband was vocal. And, and from the start, he was telling her how beautiful and every time he told her, she’s saying No, but look at my hair or look at, you know, this part of me or this part of me. And, and she didn’t receive it. And he may he may have gotten to the point where he just just just decided, you know, what if she wants to believe what the world says, go ahead. And there may need to be some repentance there, of going back to her husband and saying, You know what, I do need to hear this from you. And I’m sorry, I want to choose to believe you and not believe what the world says.

32:12

Yeah. Yeah. And and I think, you know, if I could make this as practical as possible to the wife that struggling in this way, I think the thing that you kind of just outlined is number one, you got to a place of believing it for yourself. You believed what God said about you, you believed that your value was tied to the master creator that designed you informed you in your mother’s womb, not any other standard, not the standard the world whole.

32:41

And it’s not your husband’s job to convince you that you’re beautiful. He can’t convince you of anything. He cannot. It is his. For him to affirm that what you believe it because because we are going to have insecurities that creep in Yeah, absolutely. But but he can’t convince you. Nobody decides whether you’re beautiful except yourself,

33:04

huh? Yep. Yep. Amen. Amen. That is so good. So that was the first step was to get to a spot where you could convince yourself, truly speak the word over yourself to get to a spot where you believed it. And then number I, you know, as something else, I think I want to sneak in here something you said earlier, was even you came to a spot where you recognize that your husband would never be able to fulfill all your needs, he would not be able to be everything that you’ve just desire and crave. And I think you really underline that that meant it drove you to the Lord, you have to get that fulfilled from God, you can’t need that from your husband. You can’t demand that from him. You can’t require that up him. That’s that’s a that’s a relationship with Jesus that needs to be done. Is that the way you would say it? Yeah,

34:01

yeah, that’s like, that’s a huge, that’s a huge deal for us to expect our husbands to fulfill all our needs, man, they don’t have a chance. Ran and it’s multiple times, right? That was not just that was just not one evening of realization. That was that was multiple times over and over that. And because because we’re slow learners.

34:25

Yeah, yes. And not only that, we need to be reminded, you know, I think about the Israelites so often. God said when he did something miraculous, he said, Now make a makeup and an altar and tell your children and your children’s children what I have done for you because we forget Yeah, we just forget.

34:45

Yeah, and I you know, I have a journal and it’s one of my treasured possessions is just from the last four or five years but, but I read through that and just reminded me of, of the journey that I’ve been on. And that’s something so important for me. You said something else too. And I just think about, you know, we can become so reactionary and so sensitive to what our husbands say. And I think we kind of test them a lot, actually, we test them to see if they if they really love us if they’re really going to give up on us. And I think I kind of had my husband in this place where I know I had my husband in this place where he actually was afraid to talk, because he was afraid he would say the wrong thing. Right. And, and, man, he was totally right on, like, I was testing one little word, and I would take it the wrong way. And, and I’d be all upset. And that wasn’t what he meant at all. You know, he’s just sitting there trying to say the right thing. Under all this stress and pressure, we’re trying to figure out the right button to push. Yeah. And some of that is going back to baggage in our own lives. And why does it caught? Why do things make us prickle? And I have one piece of baggage, I only really only recognized recently, when my husband and I were dating, I knew that he had been with a couple of other women before me and and I was a virgin. And and I had it in my head that if I didn’t sleep with him, he wouldn’t fall in love with me, because I fell head over heels in love with him from from date number one. And so and so I was the one that initiated sex. And, and that’s the place that it left me was wondering, okay, he had had sex before. So did he not initiate with me because he didn’t think I was attractive. Or because he actually had learned from his past and decided he wanted to do it right this time. Now you can guess which one I chose to believe deep in my core was that I was the consolation prize. I was the practical choice for a wife. But he was not head over kills crazy, in love with me. Didn’t think I was gorgeous, beautiful, wasn’t sexually attracted me. He just married me because we get along great. And, and so that was part of my bag. It’s right. And that’s how that that was the lens that I viewed everything that he said to me. Right. And so going back and sorting through baggage has been a huge part of my process. To learn, you know, what, what am I filtering things through? And is that the right filter? And having conversations and, and so my husband and I have part of our process was was me working through baggage.

37:49

Yeah, that’s huge. And thank you for being so kind of just so honest and open about your story with that. Because I think I mean, that definitely is part of my baggage as well having that same insecurity about my own husband. And yeah, having sex outside of marriage before it what my principles, right would have would have given me and the confidence that that could have given me had it been in the right context in the right spot and the right timing.

38:18

Yeah. And I think I blame my husband for years that we had sex outside of marriage, that he didn’t hold the line. And I think back then, like, I’m the one that did that. I made that choice I initiated.

38:27

That’s right. Yeah, I hear that. So I hear that for me, too. Yeah, I hear that for me, too. And I guess that almost, you know, we talked just last month with the one of my actually my best friend and she mentioned that she went ahead and Keller, if any listener wants to go back and listen to that, but she did it the correct way in in that she had had sex before marriage out. And then she spent some time really clearing out the garbage she spent a year celibate not dating nothing. And then her next relationship she got on the right track. And now it’s resulted in a wonderful marriage and and they waited, though they had both been active before their their marriage and before their dating relationship. Anyway, I love that, you know, the underlying here is getting that understanding of what baggage has done to your filter in how you filter through the world. How you I love what you said lens, you know what glasses you’re wearing to look out at your husband.

39:33

Yeah, and, you know, I don’t think there’s any baggage that God cannot heal. Hmm. There is nothing that he cannot take away. But it takes hard work it takes first recognizing it. It takes bringing it out into the open. I think we don’t when we you know, when we pray just with God, I think it’s different than we would pray with somebody else. And so my My husband and I went through this together and we don’t like you don’t have to talk details with your husband, but in general ways how you’ve let things affect who you perceive him to be or, or how you can perceive sex or how you let it affect your marriage. And we prayed over these things. And for some of them, there was instantaneous change. And some of them it was a process. It took a while.

40:27

That’s wonderful. Yeah, yeah. And I love the hope there that ultimately, you know, God is our hope. He’s the God of hope he can turn these things around, regardless of the background, he changes back and changes

40:41

us. I’m not sure I really believe that until like, he’s completely changed me. I’m not sure I really believed it before five years ago. And so he can completely change you, he can completely change your marriage, he can change your husband. You can’t, but God can change your husband. Yeah, that’s awesome.

41:10

So take that with you listener, that God can change you. He absolutely can transform you into a woman who believes in her value, who believes in her worth, who feels free, in intimacy, to share herself and be fully known as the woman as the beautiful woman that you are. To trust that, to believe that, to walk in that. I think so many of us will live this life without recognizing the value that God has placed in us and it’s needs to stop it needs to end right now. Today. It takes work. But get yourself in a discipline to honor the value that God placed on this earth when he put you in it. God bless you, I love you. I hope that you’ll come back next Tuesday for the second half of this awesome interview. And praying for you and your marriage your walk with God. Love you. Bye.

42:17

Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion